Melissa Gould, WIDOWISH
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[0:53]Hi, I don't know if you guys know this or not, but I have an anthology coming out called Moms Don't Have Time to A Quarantine Anthology.
[1:01]And it comes out on February 16th and has essays by 60 plus of the authors who have been on this podcast.
[1:09]So first of all, please pre-order this book. I think you will love it. I'm so excited about all the authors who are represented.
[1:16]Just to give you a few, Chris Bajillion, Jewel Parker Rhodes, Ashley Prentice Norton, Gretchen Rubin, Rima Zaman, Eileen Zimmerman, and that is just from the first page of the multi-page table of contents.
[1:30]So please pick up this book, Moms Don't Have Time to A Quarantine Anthology.
[1:34]It's available anywhere you buy books, Amazon, bookshop.org, and your local independent bookstore.
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[2:02]as well as many of the amazing authors who blurbed this book, who wrote little praise worthy quotes
[2:08]at the front, will be there. And you can be there too. So if you go to my website zibbyowens.com
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[2:30]with all of these amazing authors. This is like going to be the literary happening of February.
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[2:47]All proceeds of the book and the fundraiser are going to the Susan Felice Owens program for COVID-19
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[3:18]you there. Today's episode has been sponsored by this is everything with Ali Levine, a podcast
[3:24]hosted by Hollywood mom, celebrity stylist, influencer, and Bravo reality star, Ali Levine.
[3:30]On her podcast, you'll get a mix of, well, everything from motherhood, to fashion, lifestyle,
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[3:47]and truly entertained. Hi everybody. Every so often, I end up with so many amazing episodes. I just
[3:52]have to release them all at once. So this week is going to be a book blast week. And it starts off
[3:59]with today memoir Monday and then goes to nonfiction Tuesday, literary fiction Wednesday,
[4:05]new novels Thursday, and family themed memoirs for Friday. So I hope you all enjoy and welcome to
[4:12]day one of the February book blast, February 1st, memoir Monday. Melissa Gould is the author of
[4:19]Widowish, a memoir. When her beloved husband died unexpectedly of multiple sclerosis and West Nile
[4:25]virus, writer Melissa Gould started chronicling her grief journey through her personal essays and
[4:30]speaking engagements. Telling her story has been a crucial part of her healing, and she has found
[4:34]meaningful connection and sharing. Her essays on love, grief, and healing can be found
[4:38]in the New York Times, the less angelist times, the Washington Post, AARP, BuzzFeed,
[4:43]Coler, the Huffington Post, and more. Melissa has shared her widow experience at various workshops
[4:48]and seminars, including soaring spirits international, the Edazner Family Center, and more.
[4:52]She is an award-writing screenwriter who wrote on such a claim TV series as Bill Nye,
[4:57]the Science Guy, Party of Five, Beverly Hills 90210, and Lizzie McGuire. She has also written
[5:02]several TV movies for networks such as NBC and the Disney Child. She currently lives in Los Angeles.
[5:07]Welcome, Melissa. Thank you so much for coming on momstone. I have time to read books. I am so
[5:12]excited to be talking to you. I am so excited to be talking to you. So as I think you know,
[5:19]because I kept posting about it on social media and we were emailing and all the rest,
[5:23]I read your book at like the most emotional moment probably in my adult life when I was literally
[5:30]flying down to say goodbye to my mother-in-law. And I read it that whole like two days down there,
[5:37]which will be forever etched in my mind as just like traumatic and awful, except I got to escape
[5:42]into your book. And so I feel like a special bond with you, which like you're not even a part of,
[5:47]it's like me and your book, you know, or my book and your book and me I should say. So thank you
[5:52]for providing me the solace that I needed during that time. I'm really grateful. I'm so flattered that
[6:00]my story resonated for you or that it helped you at all just means so much to me. And I am so sorry
[6:07]for your loss, losses. I'm so sorry for your loss. I mean, and thank you for writing so beautifully
[6:14]about all of it. So why don't you tell listeners what your memoir is about. It's called widow-ish.
[6:21]Give us more context and tell us how this became a book. Okay, well, I'll tell you. I really
[6:25]believe that widow-ish is a love story. It's a modern love story that sort of wrapped up in a grief
[6:33]story and a little bit more of a love story. And it's also about expectations, I think. Well,
[6:40]let me just start by saying my husband Joel died unexpectedly and suddenly a West Nile virus.
[6:46]And it was something none of us aren't coming. And Joel was my person. He was my everything.
[6:53]We had been together married for 16 years, probably together for 20. We had a 13-year-old daughter.
[6:59]She was 13 at the time, Sophie. And when he died, obviously my world was completely upended.
[7:06]And I feel like, you know, widow-ish is really in some ways it's about the title because
[7:12]I was young. I was in my 40s. I didn't look like a widow. I didn't act like a widow.
[7:17]You know, plot twist. I found love again, also completely unexpected and suddenly. But I felt
[7:23]like a widow. And I still feel like a widow and it's been several years now. And I think so much of
[7:30]my story is about how all of these feelings of feeling so bereft and so grief-stricken and so sad.
[7:38]And so in love with my husband and yet the tingling sensations of a new love and the excitement that
[7:46]that brought into my life, all of these feelings were coexisting. And, you know, people didn't know
[7:53]that about me. I became the town widow. I mean, you know, I live in Los Angeles. And, you know, in our
[7:58]community, everybody kind of knows each other. Our kids all go to the same school. They all go to
[8:03]the same doctors. They all have the same, you know, guitar teacher. Or, you know, we all kind of
[8:09]each other. And I felt very self-conscious. People would see me picking up so from school or going
[8:17]to yoga or going to Trader Joe's. And because life moved forward, whether I wanted it to or not,
[8:26]and having a young daughter, you know, she became my focus. And so widow wish is really about
[8:33]all of these things, these coexisting feelings, the sudden loss, only parenting. You know, our
[8:40]small little family trio became this dynamic duo of Sophie and I. And I think widow wish really
[8:47]just explores all of those things. Can you share the story of how Joel got West Nile? And like,
[8:55]or how you believe he got it? And then just like in a bridge version, if it's not too painful to
[9:00]to sort of summarize like that period of time. What exactly happened? It was so crazy. You know,
[9:06]so Joel had multiple sclerosis. He had MS. He was diagnosed when Sophie was around eight years old.
[9:14]And prior to that, Joel really was a mix of athleticism and music. He worked in the music business
[9:22]and music was so important to us as a family. We went to concerts all the time. He would go out
[9:28]several nights a week to see fans and live music. And he also was on a softball team. He was on a
[9:35]basketball team. He would go to the gym every day. He was an extremely athletic person. Love the
[9:40]Dodgers have to say. And he came home from a basketball game one night, like 10 minutes after he had
[9:45]left. And he just said something is really wrong. I see the ball going down the court. And I tell
[9:53]my body go, but I can't. And it was devastating. And after a series of tests,
[10:00]he got the MS diagnosis.
[10:02]And we thought, okay, we're gonna manage this.
[10:06]We knew about MS, some family members,
[10:08]ironically had it, it was something we knew about.
[10:11]And Joel got on the right medication
[10:14]and it really worked for a number of years.
[10:17]He was living his life with MS.
[10:20]Certain things started to affect him,
[10:23]years into the diagnosis
[10:25]because what we realized was a lot of these medications
[10:28]have a lifespan and they stopped working.
[10:30]And it was around the time of Sophie's bot mitzvah.
[10:36]And 2013 was really a seminal year for us and our family.
[10:40]It was Sophie was turning 13 and having her bot mitzvah.
[10:45]Joel was turning 50 and later that year he died unexpectedly.
[10:50]So we had these milestones and because it's so funny
[10:54]like how life works because of the bot mitzvah
[10:57]because of his 50th birthday,
[10:59]we saw everybody in our lives who was important to us
[11:02]and who mattered that year.
[11:05]I don't know if that makes sense,
[11:06]but it was like, there were people who were coming
[11:09]in and out of our lives throughout the year
[11:10]that wouldn't necessarily have been there
[11:12]if not for the bot mitzvah, not for his 50th birthday.
[11:15]But anyway, that year of all of these things,
[11:18]Joel really was suffering with the MS.
[11:21]We went from living with it and having a full life
[11:24]with a few modifications he eventually had
[11:27]to stop playing basketball, but then he found yoga
[11:30]and yoga was everything.
[11:32]And he started riding his bike more.
[11:35]And again, he was a very athletic guy who liked to move.
[11:38]But the new meds that he had started were just not kicking in.
[11:43]And he really was starting to suffer.
[11:45]And protocol with MS is you would take steroids
[11:50]or the doctoral prescribed steroids
[11:52]that would sort of bridge the gap
[11:53]between the old medication and the new medication
[11:56]just to keep Joel moving forward every day.
[11:59]But the steroids, which he was getting,
[12:01]my nurse was coming to our house every day for a week,
[12:04]administering these steroids through an IV.
[12:07]And we were told similar to in a way
[12:10]what we're dealing with now with COVID
[12:12]is that because of his suppressed immune system
[12:16]that the steroids might make him susceptible
[12:19]to a cold or something that he wouldn't be able
[12:23]to fight off so easily.
[12:24]So he we were on lockdown for a week.
[12:26]So if he was still going to school,
[12:28]we weren't having friends over.
[12:29]We weren't going out to dinner.
[12:32]Joel was taking these steroids.
[12:33]And he would hang out in our backyard,
[12:35]which was his happy place.
[12:36]He loved to garden.
[12:37]He loved to kind of just cut some flowers,
[12:40]pick up from the lemons from our lemon tree.
[12:42]He was like an outdoor guy.
[12:44]We never thought that that would be dangerous.
[12:48]And what I mean by that is three weeks,
[12:51]but I'm sorry, about two months after the steroid treatment,
[12:55]the MS was not getting any better.
[12:57]Actually, I'm going to go off on the timelines to be
[12:59]but you got the idea,
[13:00]but he was having these steroids treatments.
[13:02]And then at some point, he got very sick
[13:06]with symptoms that did not seem like MS.
[13:09]He had an extremely high fever,
[13:11]but he would take Tylenol and the fever would go down.
[13:13]He became very fatigued.
[13:16]And we thought he had the flu.
[13:19]And we were sort of on high alert with his MS doctors
[13:23]because new medication can go either way.
[13:27]And so we weren't sure as a reaction to the new meds.
[13:30]Is this the flu?
[13:31]And after a few days, we were like, this is crazy.
[13:34]Joel and I made the decision together
[13:36]to take him to the hospital, to go to the hospital.
[13:39]He walked himself in.
[13:41]This wasn't, and we, yes, we were dealing with MS,
[13:44]but we were not hospital people.
[13:45]I didn't know protocol.
[13:47]He eventually, and we went to the emergency room.
[13:49]They eventually moved him into a room.
[13:52]And me thinking he had the flu.
[13:54]Couldn't like to get home and wash everything.
[13:56]And disinfect everything.
[13:57]I didn't wanna catch it.
[13:58]I don't want Sophie to catch.
[13:59]I mean, I never thought that this was dire.
[14:02]And he very quickly in the hospital fell into a coma.
[14:07]I had to move him from one hospital,
[14:09]which to me was like the go-to hospital.
[14:11]I mean, people go there for cancer treatments
[14:13]and to have their babies on over,
[14:15]but we moved him from that hospital to the hospital
[14:17]where his MS doctors were.
[14:19]Another fantastic facility.
[14:21]Because at that point, we were like,
[14:22]this could be a deathly reaction to the MS meds.
[14:27]But it never really presented like a reaction to the meds.
[14:31]And there was medical confusion for two and a half,
[14:35]three weeks, Joel was in a coma this whole time.
[14:39]The doctors were telling me your husband is critically ill.
[14:43]And in my mind, I kept thinking,
[14:45]we'll just make him better.
[14:46]That's what you do.
[14:47]I could never, none of this occurred to me
[14:50]that he would die.
[14:51]And that's when I really learned about viruses.
[14:54]And a series of tests were done
[14:56]from the very first hospital to the second hospital.
[14:59]Results kept coming back negative,
[15:01]but they kept circling the idea that this was a virus.
[15:04]And one of the very first infectious disease doctors
[15:07]was examining Joel from head to toe
[15:09]when we first admitted him and kept asking me,
[15:12]are you sure he wasn't bit by something?
[15:13]Was he bit by a mosquito, he had a mosquito?
[15:15]And I was like, I have no idea.
[15:17]Turns out he was bitten by a mosquito.
[15:20]And that's how he contracted West Nile virus.
[15:24]And really that is the cause of his death.
[15:26]There are a few things listed on his death certificate,
[15:30]but West Nile virus is number one.
[15:32]Complications from MS is another one.
[15:35]You know, it was horrifying and completely unexpected.
[15:39]And you know, again, the doctors every day
[15:42]were coming to me with something new.
[15:44]You know, we think he has brain damage.
[15:46]He seems to be paralyzed from the waist down.
[15:49]And even though they were telling me these things,
[15:52]again, I kept thinking, okay,
[15:54]well, once we know what it is,
[15:55]you'll give them the meds and it'll be better.
[15:58]But viruses don't work that way.
[16:00]And West Nile virus did its job,
[16:03]meaning all of the things that a virus can do
[16:06]to a person, cause brain damage, cause paralysis.
[16:10]That's what happened to Joel,
[16:12]because these viruses just have to run their course.
[16:15]And because of the MS, he was susceptible
[16:20]to a lethal mosquito bite.
[16:22]I am so sorry.
[16:24]I can't believe that happened.
[16:25]I can't believe that a mosquito in today's day and age,
[16:28]like I know the cause of this.
[16:31]And I am just so sorry.
[16:33]It's awful.
[16:35]Thank you.
[16:35]I mean, it's shocking.
[16:36]Even when I tell the stories, it'd be, it's still,
[16:39]and that's what I mean.
[16:40]And I'm really like, a lot of that is in the book.
[16:42]Like, my life became so surreal and continues to be
[16:47]in so many ways.
[16:48]Well, it's like the shock of it.
[16:50]You know, when you kept saying, like,
[16:52]I just kept thinking, okay, fine.
[16:53]Yeah, he's critically, oh, like, make it better.
[16:54]That's good.
[16:55]On to the next, let's keep going.
[16:57]It's a shock.
[16:58]It's the shock.
[17:00]Like, that doctors don't have the answers to all these things.
[17:04]You can be in the best hospital.
[17:05]And it shouldn't be this way, but it is.
[17:08]And then you can't go back.
[17:10]You can't be like, oh, we should have done this.
[17:12]Let's do this next time.
[17:13]You can't.
[17:13]Like, that's it.
[17:14]It's the last straw.
[17:16]Yeah, and I know you, I'm sure this is similar
[17:19]to what you guys were going through also.
[17:21]And it is shocking because of what you just said also.
[17:25]It's like, you think these doctors,
[17:27]you know, they're miracle workers.
[17:29]Like, okay, do something.
[17:31]That's what you're here for.
[17:32]Like, you know, this is your language, not mine.
[17:34]Like, you must know what's going on.
[17:36]But yeah, so first of all, when did you decide
[17:39]to make your experience into a book?
[17:41]How did that end up at night?
[17:42]Well, that's kind of crazy also
[17:44]because, you know, I've been a writer my whole life.
[17:47]I was a screenwriter and made my living, you know,
[17:50]as a TV writer.
[17:51]And I was very content working in television.
[17:56]And when Joel died, you know, of course,
[17:59]as I've said, me and my life has turned upside down.
[18:01]And I really was living a life of grief,
[18:04]but acting as if everything was okay
[18:05]because I wanted to keep Sophie on track.
[18:08]But I was really suffering in my grief.
[18:10]And a very close friend of mine invited me
[18:12]to join her writing group.
[18:15]And I thought, you know, it was really just a baby step
[18:19]of me getting back to a part of myself
[18:22]that I had sort of let go, which was writing.
[18:25]And I joined this group.
[18:26]And, you know, I was only professional writer in there.
[18:30]And all my worst qualities came out.
[18:33]And I just thought, I just was, I just was going with it.
[18:38]It's almost like somebody pointed me in the directions I go
[18:40]and I went and I, the direction this time was
[18:42]joining a writing group.
[18:43]So I joined this writing group.
[18:44]And I, you know, after five minutes, I loved it.
[18:47]I just thought, oh my God, this is, this is it.
[18:50]This is gonna save me.
[18:51]And I started writing a novel.
[18:53]And I loved it.
[18:54]And I loved the characters and the world I was creating.
[18:57]And it was such an escape for me.
[18:59]Like, you know, for those few hours once a week,
[19:01]I'd go to my writing group.
[19:03]I was so happy.
[19:04]And my friend who had invited me into the group
[19:08]at one point, we were leaving one night.
[19:10]And I had just, I think I said I'd just signed up
[19:12]for the next like six week session.
[19:15]And I had started seeing this guy who became my boyfriend.
[19:21]And I was telling her about him.
[19:24]And she looked at me.
[19:25]She was like, you know, I love the novel.
[19:28]I love it.
[19:29]I love what you're writing.
[19:30]But Joel just died.
[19:32]You're raising Sophie on your own.
[19:34]You're now seeing Marcos.
[19:36]And you're not writing about any of it.
[19:39]She's like, I really think you should.
[19:41]And I was stunned.
[19:43]I was actually very angry.
[19:46]Like, how dare she?
[19:47]How dare anybody tell me what to write?
[19:50]It felt so personal.
[19:53]And because I was a screenwriter,
[19:55]and I had done that my whole life,
[19:58]the thought of writing about myself.
[20:00]or writing anything that personal,
[20:03]I could not wrap my head around.
[20:04]I was like, why in the world
[20:07]would I write something so personal?
[20:09]Like, I was so angry at my friend.
[20:11]I was so incensed, but I couldn't stop thinking about it.
[20:16]I kept thinking, what would I write about?
[20:19]What would I say?
[20:20]But I had so much to say.
[20:21]I had so much to say about being widowed
[20:24]in my 40s, about becoming an only parent,
[20:28]about falling in love again,
[20:30]while I was deeply grieving my husband.
[20:33]And so the whole week leading up to the next class,
[20:37]I just kept having these thoughts.
[20:39]And so when I got to class that the following week,
[20:42]I decided like, I'm just going to do it.
[20:44]I'm just going to, and I wrote, and I wrote,
[20:47]and I wrote, and I have not stopped writing about myself since.
[20:53]And I guess how widowish came about was first.
[20:56]So that was the most healing thing I could have done for myself.
[20:59]I mean, but I don't know that I would have come to that.
[21:01]I mean, maybe eventually I would have realized
[21:03]that maybe I should write about this,
[21:04]but it was like a close friend who knew me so well,
[21:07]putting that suggestion in my mind changed my life really
[21:12]because I started writing these essays.
[21:16]And then I started publishing the essays.
[21:18]And I couldn't believe that people were interested in my story,
[21:23]but I kept hearing from people
[21:26]and a lot of them were widows and a lot of them weren't.
[21:29]They just, what I was writing really resonated for them.
[21:32]And then I got my essays in the, you know,
[21:34]I got one in the LA Times and the Washington Post
[21:37]and then the New York Times and I had a column
[21:39]on the Huffington Post and I just kind of kept going.
[21:43]I didn't know from books.
[21:45]I mean, it's funny because when I got my first TV writing job,
[21:50]I was so thrilled to be at the table.
[21:52]I was so excited.
[21:54]I couldn't believe it.
[21:55]And I really felt the same and I feel the same right now
[21:58]because I know as a young kid,
[21:59]I always want to be an author,
[22:01]but I ended up being a screenwriter.
[22:03]But to have a book,
[22:04]I mean, that's what's also so surreal
[22:06]is that I now have this book out.
[22:09]I am now a bona fide author,
[22:12]but it's because my husband died.
[22:13]I mean, it's, but you know,
[22:15]that's the other thing to be like,
[22:16]that is the greatest gift in all of this
[22:18]that you and I are sitting here now
[22:20]or having a conversation about Joel.
[22:23]And that keeps him alive.
[22:25]And that is everything.
[22:27]Like that's, I didn't see that coming.
[22:30]And I think that's the point about with my essays
[22:32]and then just to keep going and writing with OSH.
[22:36]And you know, I'm finding an agent
[22:38]and then having a publisher and it all seemed,
[22:40]you know, a friend and I, another writer,
[22:42]we call it like the divine download
[22:44]because writing this book, yes, it was difficult, of course.
[22:48]I'm writing about some difficult things
[22:50]but the process was very easy for me
[22:53]because it was right there.
[22:54]It was just under the surface.
[22:56]And I feel like it all just needed to come out.
[22:58]And it did.
[22:59]And that's with OSH.
[23:01]Oh, that's such an amazing story.
[23:04]It's amazing also just the power of connection
[23:07]and how, you know, I was thinking
[23:09]as you were talking earlier and you were like,
[23:11]oh, I'm in this neighborhood in LA
[23:12]and I was thinking to myself,
[23:13]I wonder where she is.
[23:14]Maybe we can like meet up some time in LA.
[23:15]But yeah, and then I was just thinking like,
[23:19]this is so crazy.
[23:20]If I met you on the street,
[23:21]like we wouldn't be able to have
[23:22]this like in-depth conversation immediately.
[23:25]I mean, I know this is a podcast about your book
[23:27]and everything, but just you put yourself out there so much.
[23:30]So then, you know, you open yourself up to other people
[23:33]being like, well, let's continue this conversation
[23:35]because like, you know, like I want to hear more
[23:37]and it's just amazing.
[23:38]And it's just so nice that you do so much in the live that way.
[23:42]I think, you know, one of the big misconceptions
[23:44]and a loss is that people, you know, will be sad
[23:48]if you bring up the person who has died, right?
[23:51]Like, oh, I shouldn't bring up the fact
[23:53]that her dad died.
[23:54]So I'm not gonna say how are you?
[23:56]Or I wouldn't want that to, you know, set her off
[23:59]as if like the person is not always thinking
[24:01]about that person who has lost, right?
[24:04]Yeah, I mean, I have to say, I feel like
[24:06]there is a healthy amount of self-consciousness
[24:09]about being like, I said the town widow,
[24:11]like even now and it's been, you know,
[24:13]several years since Joel died.
[24:15]I know that is the first thing people think of when they see me.
[24:18]and I could be out with my boyfriend.
[24:20]If I'm out with Sophie, I feel an even more.
[24:22]I feel nothing at all, or I'm a list of more Sophie.
[24:25]I can't stand it.
[24:26]I wish I could tell you, like, here's what you say
[24:28]to somebody who just lost it.
[24:30]Yeah, I don't know.
[24:31]I think grief is so personal
[24:33]and it's, there's no right or wrong way to do it.
[24:36]And I know so many people talk about
[24:38]and the things you should say, things you shouldn't say,
[24:40]I feel like I should know what you shouldn't say
[24:43]and I really don't.
[24:44]Like, yeah, that's okay.
[24:46]Making money is typically for me that's enough
[24:49]to just have something I'm thinking of you.
[24:50]I'm so sorry.
[24:51]That's not, I don't need to get into the hole.
[24:54]How are you?
[24:55]Mm-hmm, yep, I get it.
[24:57]Wait, can we go to the falling in love
[24:59]with the guitar teacher part of the story?
[25:03]What do you want to know?
[25:04]I know, I know you wrote about it and everything,
[25:07]but like, so is that ongoing?
[25:08]Are you guys still together?
[25:09]Yes, we're still together.
[25:11]Amazing.
[25:12]And that's also about when I talk
[25:15]like these expectations of, you know,
[25:17]there was an expectation people had of me as a young widow.
[25:22]I had my own expectations about what grief should look like.
[25:25]You know, my daughter has all of her grandparents
[25:29]who are still alive, which is such a gift,
[25:31]but her dad isn't here.
[25:33]It's crazy.
[25:35]And this is like a roundabout way of saying,
[25:36]so when what happened with Marcos,
[25:39]who was Sophie's guitar teacher,
[25:41]is that he really was one of the very few people
[25:47]who did not make me feel self-conscious
[25:48]about having lost my husband.
[25:50]And if I just back up from that,
[25:52]I always thought he was attractive.
[25:54]I mean, the first time I met him,
[25:55]Joel, guitar lessons fell under Joel's jurisdiction
[25:59]because he was the musician and the music guy.
[26:01]So he would take Sophie to her guitar lessons.
[26:04]And I would hear about Marcos
[26:05]and everybody in the neighborhood knew him
[26:06]and everybody whose kids took guitar, took it from.
[26:09]So I knew who he was, but I had never met him.
[26:12]And there was a time when Joel couldn't take Sophie
[26:15]to guitar, so I ended up taking her.
[26:17]And I remember the first time I saw him,
[26:19]I was like, oh my God,
[26:20]nobody told me the guitar teacher was so hot.
[26:22]And I even said, I said it to Joel.
[26:26]You know, I was like, honey, come on.
[26:29]And I even called the friends who recommended him to us.
[26:32]And she was like, oh, get in line.
[26:34]We all have a crush on Marcos.
[26:36]And I was like, what just a matter of fact,
[26:38]it was nothing.
[26:40]But then I ran into him shortly after Joel died.
[26:46]And like everybody at the time,
[26:48]he offered to help in any way he could.
[26:52]And again, like so many people,
[26:53]could I bring you some food?
[26:55]Do you need me to pick Sophie or whatever?
[26:57]And I always appreciated it.
[26:59]But with Marcos, I did, Joel had a ton of music equipment.
[27:03]He had guitars and amplifiers and all this stuff.
[27:06]And this happened, Joel had been gone maybe six months.
[27:09]And I started cleaning out the garage.
[27:12]And I was kind of tiptoeing around the idea
[27:14]of getting rid of some things.
[27:17]And the stuff that was in the garage,
[27:18]I was like, how important could it be?
[27:19]I forgot we even had it.
[27:21]And so when I ran into Marcos and he said to me,
[27:24]if you need help with anything, I was like,
[27:25]oh my God, the stuff in the, he can help me.
[27:28]And so slowly, but surely he came over.
[27:32]He helped me one day.
[27:33]He was very matter of fact.
[27:35]He didn't.
[27:36]He talked about Joel very easily.
[27:38]I just, I felt very much myself when I was with him.
[27:41]Even though our interactions were very brief,
[27:44]he would come and would look through the stuff.
[27:45]He would call me and say, oh, I gave someone so this guitar.
[27:48]I'm going to use this for my lessons.
[27:51]And then one day I had to go with him.
[27:53]There was one guitar that was actually worth something.
[27:56]And I had to go with him to consignment shop.
[27:59]And I made really question.
[28:00]I was so deep in my grief that I just, again,
[28:03]pointed me in the direction
[28:04]I would go, he was like,
[28:06]you need to go with me to the guitar thing.
[28:07]And I was like, okay.
[28:08]And I just was very confident.
[28:10]It was so different than how I felt in my real life.
[28:13]I felt like I was like on vacation when I was with him.
[28:16]Like I just wasn't thinking.
[28:18]I just was with him.
[28:21]And again, he talked easily about Joel.
[28:23]He didn't make me feel like he didn't look at me
[28:26]the way I felt everybody else was looking at me.
[28:28]I knew he wasn't pinning me, form a list of, you know.
[28:32]And then just one thing kind of led to another
[28:34]and I thought, I'm gonna continue to not think about this.
[28:38]I'm just gonna go with it.
[28:39]I'm feeling attracted to him, which was also shocking.
[28:43]And I also wanted to tell Joel.
[28:45]I mean, it's such a bizarre.
[28:47]It's like, I told Joel everything, you know?
[28:50]And I'm like, why wouldn't I tell him?
[28:53]Oh my God, honey, I'm hooking up with the guitar teacher.
[28:55]Like, it was, again, it was like this,
[28:59]all of these feelings coexisting at the same time.
[29:02]And I was trying to manage it.
[29:03]And then when it came to Marcos,
[29:05]I just thought it'll be a fling.
[29:07]It'll be good for me.
[29:08]I'm just gonna go with it.
[29:09]And here we are, you know, so many years later,
[29:13]still very much together.
[29:15]I mean, we're an odd pairing.
[29:17]We're not.
[29:18]We don't make sense to everybody.
[29:19]I don't mind.
[29:21]Did I tell you in our emails that my husband now
[29:25]used to be my tennis teacher?
[29:27]Did I mention that?
[29:28]I did know that.
[29:29]Yeah.
[29:29]So I'm very familiar with how like,
[29:32]I had moms coming up to me and being like, oh, Zippy,
[29:34]I get it.
[29:35]It's so cute and so funny.
[29:37]Anyway, we're super happy.
[29:39]It's been, you know, what?
[29:40]Five years or something crazy though.
[29:42]It can happen, you know?
[29:43]It's the people who are just funny though.
[29:46]It's the people who cut through all the stuff, right?
[29:50]It's like they don't need the pretense.
[29:52]I don't know to generalize.
[29:54]I mean, I don't know if these guys
[29:55]are even remotely similar, but I don't know.
[29:57]I felt, I found myself relating when you said,
[30:00]how he just saw you and you could just be you.
[30:02]And, you know, that's the greatest thing
[30:04]in any relationship is like taking all the stuff down, right?
[30:07]Taking down all the scaffolding
[30:09]and just getting underneath and seeing what's under there.
[30:11]So yeah, and I have to tell you,
[30:13]I feel like, you know, a few things is I feel so lucky
[30:18]in love that I, you know,
[30:21]I had Joel who completely got me, you know,
[30:24]we met when I was a teenager, I think.
[30:27]And we didn't get together until years after that.
[30:30]But, you know, I knew Joel like my whole adult life
[30:33]and I felt so loved and adored.
[30:35]And I have to say, I feel the same,
[30:37]the same but different with Marcos.
[30:39]He totally gets me.
[30:42]I'm 100% myself.
[30:43]I mean, I feel those are gifts of love.
[30:46]And I'm so happy to be the recipient
[30:48]of that sounds a little obnoxious,
[30:49]but it is meaningful to me.
[30:51]And I also feel like, you know,
[30:53]Marcos continues to accept that Joel is my husband.
[30:58]I'm still married to, like, that's how I feel.
[31:01]I am still married to Joel.
[31:03]He's still my person.
[31:04]And now there's Marcos as well.
[31:06]So it's, it is weird.
[31:08]I mean, no one said that grief makes sense.
[31:12]No one says, no one said that life makes any sense.
[31:15]So, you know, I think your attitude though is, you know,
[31:19]not that I'm in any position to judge or no one should judge,
[31:21]but it seems very empowering and inspiring
[31:25]because you're just like, you know what, whatever.
[31:27]If it doesn't make sense, this is what I'm doing.
[31:29]And this makes me happy.
[31:30]And like, if there's anything that you are owed,
[31:33]it's some happiness after having your husband
[31:35]just like, cruelly snatched away from you.
[31:37]So I mean, anyone who begrudges you happiness
[31:40]in any way, shape, or form, just forget it, right?
[31:43]I mean, I agree.
[31:44]And I'll tell you something else that really helped me.
[31:46]And this is in the book.
[31:47]Oh, this is in the book, but a friend of mine said
[31:50]to me early on, everything you do should be easy.
[31:54]And it's such simple advice.
[31:56]I don't even think she realized she was giving me advice.
[31:58]But when she said that, it really was transformative
[32:01]because I thought everything is so hard.
[32:04]And she said something like,
[32:05]she's like, your husband just died and you're surviving.
[32:07]There's nothing harder than that.
[32:09]So everything you do choose easy.
[32:11]And I kind of did that with Marcos.
[32:13]I wasn't in this head space of like, oh my God,
[32:16]we live on different sides of the boulevard.
[32:18]He's the guitar teacher.
[32:19]I know all of those things, I just,
[32:22]I did not have the capacity to analyze it
[32:26]the way I would have if things were not so surreal.
[32:30]And so that advice of like, just make things easy.
[32:33]I decided with him, I'm gonna just,
[32:35]whatever happens happens.
[32:36]I wasn't putting all of my,
[32:39]like I wasn't like, he was not saving me from my grief.
[32:42]He co-existed with my grief.
[32:44]That's the, oh, that's the point I wanted to make too.
[32:45]It's like, and I think I,
[32:48]I think I spelled this out pretty clearly in the book,
[32:51]but it's not like, because I have a boyfriend
[32:55]and a man in my life, like, I'm better.
[32:57]Like, oh, she's Melissa's fine.
[32:59]She's got a boyfriend.
[33:01]And no, it's what I just said a minute ago.
[33:04]It's like the grief co-exist with the love,
[33:06]which co-exist with this new life.
[33:08]And, you know, it's complicated.
[33:11]But yes, I think happy is my baseline
[33:14]and I'm happy to be back at happy, but still grieving.
[33:18]And that's why I say the book is really a love story
[33:21]because, again, it's not like Marcos came in
[33:24]and like saved me.
[33:26]I didn't need saving.
[33:27]I'm not better because I have love in my life again,
[33:30]but it is a nice, like, okay,
[33:32]life just moves forward,
[33:33]whether I wanted it to or not.
[33:35]And here we are.
[33:36]Amazing.
[33:37]I love that.
[33:38]So having written the book,
[33:40]do you have advice to aspiring authors?
[33:43]I think my advice is to keep writing.
[33:46]I mean, I really believe that everybody has a story to tell.
[33:50]I don't necessarily mean memoir,
[33:51]but I think we've all have life experiences.
[33:54]We've all had been witness to things
[33:56]and things have happened to us.
[33:57]And if somebody is inspired to write to just write
[34:01]and to really believe in yourself
[34:04]and believe in what you're saying,
[34:05]and there's so many, you know, voices that we'd be like,
[34:08]oh, that's terrible.
[34:09]That's such a bad idea or don't do that.
[34:10]There's a lot of no starting with ourselves.
[34:12]So I just be kind to yourself and to just keep writing.
[34:16]Whatever comes, you know, you could be writing a journal.
[34:19]It doesn't mean like, you know, that's plenty.
[34:22]I just encourage people to tell whatever story
[34:24]they feel compelled to tell.
[34:26]Well, Melissa, thank you.
[34:28]I hope we can continue offline in some form
[34:30]because I'd love to stay in touch.
[34:31]I feel like I'm like so rooting for you
[34:33]and like so invested in your story
[34:36]and all the rest of that sounds creepy.
[34:38]But thank you so much for coming on mom's time
[34:40]to read books and sharing your grief and your happiness
[34:44]and the tangled mess that it really all is all together.
[34:49]Thank you so much, Zippy.
[34:51]This was really fantastic to talk with you, too.
[34:54]Okay, I'll talk to you soon.
[34:55]Bye-bye.
[34:56]Bye-bye.
[34:58]Today's episode has been sponsored by This Is Everything,
[35:01]the podcast by Ali Levine.
[35:03]And just a reminder, again, please pre-order a copy
[35:06]of my book, Moms Don't Have Time To,
[35:08]A Quarantine Anthology, and go to my website
[35:12]under the anthology tab for the fundraiser.
[35:15]And I hope you'll buy a ticket and join me
[35:18]for and I should have mentioned
[35:20]all proceeds go to COVID-19 research.
[35:22]So please join me for the fundraiser.
[35:25]Thanks so much.
[35:26]Thanks for listening to this episode
[35:27]of Moms Don't Have Time To Read Books.
[35:29]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram, at Zippy Owens
[35:32]and at Moms Don't Have Time To Read Books.
[35:34]Also sign up for my newsletter at zippyowens.com
[35:37]and sign up for my virtual book club
[35:38]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[35:41]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound
[35:44]for the sound editing.
[35:45]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[35:47]for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music.