Kathryn Schulz, LOST & FOUND: A Memoir
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[1:29]Catherine Schultz is the author of Lost and Found a memoir
[1:33]Catherine is a staff writer at the New Yorker and the author of Being Wrong
[1:37]She won a National Magazine Award and a Pulitzer Prize for a quote the really big one
[1:41]Her article about seismic risk in the Pacific Northwest
[1:44]Lost and found grew out of losing streak a New Yorker story that was anthologized in the best American essays
[1:51]Her work has also appeared in the best American science nature writing the best American travel writing and the best American food writing
[1:57]A native of Ohio. She lives with her family on the eastern shore of Maryland
[2:02]Welcome Catherine. Thank you so much for coming on mom's don't have time to read books to discuss lost and found a memoir
[2:08]Thank you so much for having me on the program FYI
[2:11]This was one of the titles that I was going to call my memoir book and so just coming out
[2:15]I was like I want to call it lost and found and
[2:18]Anyway, it was taken by you. So that is so funny. Well, I gather you can copy by the title
[2:23]So you know feel free to feel free to use it off
[2:27]Although your son's lovely. I wouldn't change it. No, no, no, it's great
[2:31]And it is a great title. There you go. And as is the cover and everything
[2:34]Okay, so your reflections on the concepts of loss and being found and your last section and we're very thought-provoking and interesting and you are
[2:45]Oh my gosh, just such an like introspective. I mean, it's almost like
[2:50]Like I feel like I learned so much you wrote you brought in so much knowledge in addition to your own personal experience
[2:55]So anyway, why don't you tell listeners? They don't already know what lost and found is about
[3:01]Sure, I would be happy to so truth in advertising
[3:04]We were discussing the title and the title actually tells you quite a lot about how the book works
[3:08]It's in three parts. The first part is lost. The second part is found and the third part
[3:14]Going to strange part at the end is and the lost part is
[3:18]anchored in the story of
[3:21]The death of my father and my grief afterward, but it's actually a much larger exploration of this
[3:27]Very strange category of loss. You know, I got interested in
[3:32]Why it is that we talk about losing our loved ones
[3:36]But also our car keys and our cell phones and our
[3:40]Elections and our faith and our minds. I mean, we just put an enormous number of things
[3:45]A very very different things into this same category
[3:48]And so I was interested in exploring that larger idea of loss again with the story of my grief over my dad at the at the heart of that
[3:56]And then the found section is kind of a perfect mirror image of that
[3:59]It's an exploration of the equally weird category of discovery that somehow contains, you know, like
[4:05]The missing sock that we find they find after seven wash cycles, but also, you know
[4:11]dinosaur fossils and vaccines for global pandemics and faith and the love of our lives
[4:17]And that's actually the book is in fact and anchored in a love story
[4:20]It's it's about meeting and falling in love with my partner
[4:23]And then the final section of the book that Anne section at the end
[4:27]Came about because I had the experience of finding my partner and losing my father in pretty quick succession
[4:34]So it's partly about that, you know about about the way that in growing up life
[4:38]You know, we would all love to just be falling in love or for that matter to just be
[4:43]Grieving someone we loved and not have to do anything else
[4:45]But inevitably we're doing many many things at once and feeling many things at once
[4:49]So it is about that kind of
[4:52]And quality of life and about connection and including not just the connections between
[4:58]You know love and grief and joy and sorrow, but but also the connections among all of us
[5:05]Huh, that was a beautiful description. It's true. I mean
[5:09]Lost it would be so convenient, right?
[5:12]If you could literally just do what they did in the olden days and sort of lock yourself away and deal with it
[5:17]But that is not the case at all. You don't have a second like emails continue to come in everything
[5:23]Keeps going at its warp speed. It's it's almost hard to process. Yeah, I think that's right, you know
[5:28]We it's a strange thing even even with a difficult emotion and in a way this makes a lot of sense
[5:34]We want to be left alone with it. We want to just be able to kind of sit there inside it and
[5:41]I think that impulse makes a lot of sense and it's you know deeply connected to just how very much
[5:47]We we loved the the person that we lost when we're grieving
[5:51]But I think on balance
[5:52]It's probably the thing that that life doesn't operate that way
[5:54]You know that something else is always happening and something else demands our attention and that's true
[6:00]You know, they're we yeah, we we don't get to just sit there in our room
[6:03]We have to write pay attention to our toddler or or you know our partner or our job or whatever it may be
[6:09]We have this whole thing called moms don't have time to grieve
[6:13]Yeah, you know that nothing stops right the tantrums don't stop nothing stops
[6:18]But you're right the distraction can be a blessing as well
[6:20]You made it a really
[6:22]Interesting point in the beginning in the last section when you and I'm so sorry for the loss of your father
[6:27]But you talked about how it doesn't matter how old they are right like that we're all just
[6:33]Assuming as long as they get to a certain age fine. We'll all be fine with it
[6:38]But of course that's not true when you lose someone you love at any age. It's always
[6:42]Just beyond sad. There's no excuse for it
[6:45]Right and then you have to think about if everybody's just walking around waiting to die
[6:48]How do you make sense of walking through life and having an ordinary day?
[6:52]Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean part of what was interesting to me about my dad
[6:57]That's in part of what I really wanted to fight about was that
[7:00]it was in no ways
[7:03]Extraordinary and in the sense that it just happened all of us and it happened to my father at a relatively normal stage of life
[7:09]He was 74 years old and and it was in no ways of tragedy
[7:13]You know, we're surrounded by tragic deaths
[7:15]You and I are speaking, you know after the truly tragic deaths that an elementary school in Texas, you know
[7:21]Children dying is a tragedy someone being cut down young of a of a disease or an accident is or an act of violence as a tragedy
[7:30]But but someone dying, you know in relative old age
[7:34]After an incredibly rich and interesting and good life
[7:37]Surrounded by their loved ones and and hopefully not in much pain and relatively a piece
[7:44]That was my father's death and and that is not a tragedy, you know
[7:47]that is almost as close as we can get to the idea of a good death and
[7:52]Part of what was interesting to me is it is still extremely not good
[7:57]You're right, there's there's no age. There's no circumstances under which
[8:02]It absolves you of grieving, you know, and that's not to say. I'm not grateful for my father living as long as he did
[8:10]It's not to say I'm not grateful for for the kinds of
[8:13]Peace that attended his death in various ways, but you know, do I wish my father had lived to be
[8:19]94 instead of 74 of course and and I think even people who lose their parents and their loved ones at 94
[8:26]Long for more, you know, we of course. That's the nature of love
[8:30]You wanted to go on and on and on and what other real challenges of life is you have to square that with the fact that
[8:35]Actually nothing and no one goes on and on and on forever
[8:39]Huh, let's just a little bit depressing, but it's true. I mean, I think about this stuff all the time
[8:43]I mean not depressing and I mean it is fact it is it is true my grandmother passed away at 97 and
[8:49]I still think about her. I mean I still miss her like it doesn't matter
[8:53]There's nothing that nothing can make it better when
[8:57]Somebody who should be on this earth is no longer on this earth
[8:59]It's it's hard to wrap your mind mind around it no matter what the age even though we're trained for so long to expect it later
[9:05]Truly, it's it's no more palatable than than any earlier
[9:09]I think that's right. I mean many many many many things can make a death worse and more difficult
[9:15]But very few things can make it all together that much better beyond a certain basic point of gratitude
[9:21]Yeah, I had this
[9:23]delusional moment a little while ago when I
[9:27]There was just so much grief and loss and everything and I was like I wonder
[9:31]I wonder if there's a way to like get rid of grief if you could just like let people know over and over again
[9:37]To expect it that maybe the grief is the shock and the the absence of someone like could you prepare a child say
[9:46]Enough that you could spare them the heartbreak of grief
[9:50]And then I realized well of course
[9:52]I mean of course I realized that that would be almost impossible
[9:54]But even if I tried my hardest you can't protect against all the many ways that the death is
[10:00]self is traumatic and terrible, which happens sometime. I mean, anyway, so I gave up.
[10:07]Well, I don't think it's foolish to ask that question. You know, I mean, a great many very serious religious
[10:12]traditions have tried to do exactly as you say to remind people, but there's just some philosophical
[10:18]traditions to to try to make the inevitability of death and loss. So I'm the present. And so
[10:30]considered. And so mundane that people will be able to live more peacefully and joyfully within
[10:37]the right. I mean, that's the kind of, you know, idea of non attachment, the notion that there is
[10:43]that we bring about a lot of our own pain by refusing to acknowledge the transients of all things.
[10:48]That these are very serious and very interesting ideas. And, you know, we can only be who we are.
[10:55]I'm not everyone who's ever lived. I'm not a Buddhist monk. I believe people who have achieved
[11:00]this kind of incredible peace and enlightenment around mortality. And I know people have people in my
[11:08]daily life who are far less troubled by the idea of death, especially of good death, as my
[11:13]father's was than I am. But I personally seem to not be wired for for the peaceful version.
[11:18]Yeah. It's hard to get rid of that sense of longing. Right. Yeah. Exactly.
[11:23]Really what it is. It's the longing and the missing. But I'm glad that my theory is now a
[11:29]philosophical tradition. I feel, you know, I feel very validated. But I thought it was a crazy,
[11:34]a crazy thought, which no, not at all. I mean, talk to the Stoics, talk to the Buddhists. They're
[11:39]in your camp. You know, believe it is possible to not make ourselves miserable over this kind of thing.
[11:45]I mean, it's really my kids. Like, I want to know my kids are okay and that they won't miss me.
[11:49]Right. I wish I could figure out a way that like, you'll be fine. Like, they'll be fine. Like,
[11:54]it's okay. I don't know. Anyway, but for just to if I could read just one really poignant scene
[11:59]in your book, you wrote, and this is about your father, you said, even so for a while longer,
[12:05]he endured. I mean, his himness, his eyes, that inexplicable assertive bit of self in each of us a
[12:11]week after he had ceased to speak, having ignored every request made of him by a constant stream
[12:16]of medical professionals. Mr. Schultz, can you wiggle your toes? Mr. Schultz, can you squeeze
[12:20]my hand? My father chose to respond to one final command. Mr. Schultz, we learned to our
[12:26]amusement, could still stick out his tongue. But his sweetest voluntary movement, which he retained
[12:32]almost to the end, was the ability to kiss my mother. Whenever she leaned in close to brush his lips,
[12:40]he puckered up and returned at the same brief adoring gesture. I had seen all my days.
[12:45]I'm like, I'm going to cry in front of my sister and me at least. It was my parents
[12:49]hello and goodbye. They're sweet dreams, and I'm only teasing. They're, I'm sorry, and you're
[12:53]beautiful. And I love you. The basic punctuation mark of their common language, the sign and seal
[12:59]of 50 years of happiness. Oh, oh my gosh. Just this image of him still kissing when he has lost all
[13:07]of his basic, you know, faculties. It's just, oh my gosh. Anyway, I mean, I'm emotional. It's not,
[13:13]tell me how you feel. Like even hearing it again. It's actually very moving to hear you be
[13:18]did. And I appreciate your kind of emotional openness in being moved yourself by reading it out loud.
[13:24]I am brought back to the incredibleness of that experience and the beauty of it. It is true by then
[13:33]my father had been in the hospital for a couple of weeks. He had not been able to speak for a week
[13:39]for no reason any of us understood. He was a little bit in kind of free fall in terms of all
[13:44]of his various organ systems starting to fail him. And yet, you know, my mother's presence
[13:54]just jolted alive in him some very deep and fundamental and longstanding impulse of love and
[14:03]tenderness and connection. And it's true what did I say. It was one of the last things he was able to
[14:08]do was return her kiss. And it was just so beautiful. You know, I mean, a lot about grief is not
[14:16]beautiful. A lot about dying is not beautiful. But a few things are. And the capacity of that
[14:23]love to endure that way and to make itself manifest all the way to the end was very, very beautiful
[14:29]to me. Well, I'm so, I'm so grateful that you wrote it in a way. It gives a lot of hope,
[14:36]right, that despite things that factually don't even make sense that that affection and love
[14:43]and feeling and all that can can sort of break through. So I'm glad you got to see that. And I'm
[14:48]I'm glad you had that as a model of relationship, especially as you then share with us about
[14:53]your own relationship starting and how that goes. I mean, I feel like there's two schools of thought.
[14:59]One is my parents were so happy I can never have something as great why try. And another is my
[15:05]parents were miserable. I'm determined to have a happy relationship. So how do you feel like the
[15:11]model of having very happy parents have as a has affected you? Oh, I just feel incredibly fortunate.
[15:18]You know, I think that the behavior we grew up around is incredibly influential. I'm obviously not
[15:25]the first, the only person to think this. But you know, I think that of all the kinds of privilege
[15:31]and good fortune that we talk about today. And I'm lucky and mindful. I'm the recipient of
[15:35]most of those. Frankly, I think one of the great privileges you can grow up with is the privilege to
[15:40]grow up in a happy family. And I saw my parents, you know, not of course, just saw my dad's dad,
[15:45]but all of my days, loving each other and being tender to each other and taking care of each other,
[15:51]which isn't to say they didn't fight or have difficult moments or have differences. They were
[15:54]very different people in some ways, but they adored each other and they did not hide that adoration.
[15:59]And to be honest, I think even the hard moments, you know, even watching them fight or disagree
[16:04]or navigate the ways that they were very, very different over years and decades. It taught me
[16:10]everything I could possibly need to know to build a happy relationship myself. And it gave me
[16:15]something to aspire to. But but beyond aspiration, I just think some of it is just, you know, it's
[16:21]it's given. It's wired into your sense, starting from your earliest days of what love looks like
[16:28]and what it feels like and what it is. And I think that's an incredible gift to give to children.
[16:33]And I am so grateful for that here, you know, in my own marriage. And it's interesting,
[16:39]you know, I mean, I hope that neither my partner nor I encounter a deathbed for, you know,
[16:44]preferably another, you know, eight or 900 years. But I it is so easy for me to believe that
[16:51]the last impulse in my body would be and my and my brain and my heart would be to return her kiss.
[16:58]I just feel like, you know, the kind of solace and comfort and connection and sharing
[17:05]that happens in a relationship. Like I just I know in my, you know, full, healthy current
[17:11]current capacity is that, you know, all I ever wanted to do is just go to bed,
[17:16]curl up against her at night and wake up and see her first thing in the morning. And somehow
[17:21]that feels like a mundane daily truth, but also like the deep existential one. Like, of course,
[17:26]she would be where I would turn, you know, at every beginning and ending, not just not just of the
[17:31]days. So I can understand my parents love and I'm grateful for it because in some very concrete ways
[17:39]I feel like it enabled mine. Oh, man, this is like a tissue fest for me here.
[17:46]Sorry about that. No, it's it's poignant and beautiful in such a nice way. It's it's it really
[17:52]is switching gears as they say for a moment. You are the winner of the Pulitzer Prize,
[17:58]a staff writer for the New Yorker. What was it like to win the Pulitzer Prize? I mean,
[18:05]that is such a big deal. You know, can you tell me about that experience a little bit?
[18:12]Yeah, I'd be happy to. I mean, you'll appreciate in the context of the conversation,
[18:16]one of my overarching and enduring feelings about it is I'm unbelievably glad it
[18:20]happened. Well, my dad was still alive. You know, my dad just adored and doted on his children.
[18:26]And in the most wonderful possible way, my dad would have adored and doted on us.
[18:31]My sister had me even if, you know, far from ever winning a prize. He had been, you know,
[18:36]bailing us out of jail once a month. He loved us and he loved us unconditionally and
[18:40]wanted nothing for us to nothing more than, you know, for us to be to be happy and to live meaningful
[18:46]lives. But but it was a great pleasure for me. I think I think I can't overstate the extent to which
[18:51]the pleasure of winning that was the pleasure of getting to call my parents and tell them. But
[18:56]it was really thrilling. I mean, I will not lie about that. I was, you know, at home and
[19:00]work on a piece on some random Sunday night and my cell phone rang and I picked it up and looked
[19:06]at it and it said David Remnick's cell phone. And, you know, when David Remnick is calling you
[19:11]on his cell phone, he was extremely behind on a piece, which is not uncommon for me or something
[19:17]interesting. It was, it was, it was really, really thrilling. And, you know, my partner and I
[19:23]lived down in Maryland. This is before baby was born. So we had the luxury of being able to just
[19:28]kind of get in the car right away and head up to New York. And she was thrilled and incredibly
[19:33]sweet about it and convened a bunch of friends up there. So yeah, it was, it was an absolute thrill,
[19:38]of course, an absolute honor. And I'm, I'm really mindful of the incredible work my colleagues
[19:45]and not, I don't just mean to the New York obviously my colleagues in the broader sense. My
[19:48]fellow journalist just produced so much amazing work every year. And it's quite hard to feel like
[19:54]something as capricious as a prize is ever like truly earned. But I'm, but I'm certainly very honored.
[20:00]It's so nice.
[20:01]I mean, there is something to that, right?
[20:03]If you won something so important,
[20:06]but couldn't share it with people close to in your life,
[20:09]like, would you still, like, wouldn't matter?
[20:12]Do you know, like, I mean, I guess it probably would.
[20:15]I mean, I guess I would take the Pulitzer Prize,
[20:17]but, you know, you know what I mean?
[20:18]Like, there's part of it is the sharing of success.
[20:22]Absolutely.
[20:23]I know I was talking to my husband about that.
[20:24]He, you know, he lost his mother to COVID
[20:27]and it's been almost two years.
[20:29]And, you know, my grandmother, who I mentioned,
[20:31]who I was extremely close to, who was 97,
[20:33]and she was, like, my biggest advocate for writing.
[20:36]Always asking me if I was writing
[20:38]and I've been trying to sell this book for so long,
[20:40]and I just got the final copy,
[20:42]and I was like, oh, I just, like, she was so close.
[20:45]She waited until she was 97.
[20:47]I still couldn't pull this thing off in time, you know?
[20:49]I was just like, I'm so sad that she just missed it.
[20:53]Like, cause she would have been more excited
[20:54]for me than anyone on the planet.
[20:55]And my husband was like,
[20:57]that's how I feel with my mom.
[20:58]And that's, he's a producer.
[20:59]And he just, like, has this movie.
[21:01]And he's like, that's how I feel with my mom.
[21:02]She just, how could she not be seeing it?
[21:04]So I don't know.
[21:05]Our only consolation to each other
[21:07]was sort of like, well, they still know.
[21:09]And, you know, on some level,
[21:11]we feel like they're with us
[21:13]and that they know and that they are happy.
[21:15]But I don't know.
[21:16]There is something to sharing in the sharing,
[21:19]the victory of those who came before us
[21:21]and who are our biggest fans.
[21:23]So, I'm so happy or dead, but there.
[21:27]Yeah.
[21:28]I mean, obviously for me,
[21:29]the most acute form of that has nothing to do
[21:31]with professional success of any kind.
[21:33]It's that, you know, my father did not get to be my daughter
[21:37]and she almost will never get to meet him.
[21:38]And that is, you know, there's nothing to be done about it.
[21:43]You know, it is what it is.
[21:44]But of course, I know that she would have brought him
[21:48]so much joy and he would have brought her so much joy.
[21:50]He loved babies and I know she would have just adored him.
[21:54]I often you're literally for even just, you know,
[21:57]one picture, like one moment together
[21:59]that I could point to her and say, you know,
[22:02]that's you with your grandpa.
[22:03]Oh, I'm so sorry.
[22:06]Oh, do you believe it's okay?
[22:10]I mean, we talk, we talk a lot about it, you know?
[22:12]I know, I know, but I'm still sorry.
[22:16]I'm still, I mean, I'm still sad for all of you
[22:20]that you don't get to have that.
[22:23]Do you feel on some level that like he's still here
[22:27]in some way, do you believe in that at all
[22:29]or that he's watching over that the people who have passed
[22:32]that there's something more than science can explain?
[22:37]Well, I certainly think there's something more
[22:38]than science can explain in a sense that, you know,
[22:40]I'm a huge believer in science and I admire scientists,
[22:44]but I also think we're at the beginning
[22:45]of a very long road of making sense of, you know,
[22:49]ourselves and the earth and the cosmos.
[22:51]So by no means do I think everything
[22:53]already has a clear explanation
[22:55]and one of the wonderful things to me about life
[22:57]is that it's full of mysteries.
[22:59]But I don't, I wish I could say that I believe
[23:02]that, you know, my father was in some sense enduring,
[23:06]you know, as who he was and watching over my life
[23:10]and watching over my daughter's life.
[23:12]And it's such a beautiful idea.
[23:13]And I do on some level envy people
[23:17]who truly feel that.
[23:19]And I think it's a gift, I think it's a way you feel
[23:21]or a way you don't feel and I don't feel that way.
[23:24]And I'm prepared all the time to be humbled
[23:30]by everything we don't know.
[23:31]And humbled as I said by the kind of grand mysteries
[23:34]of existence, but I can't say that I feel that I know
[23:38]that, you know, my dad in some form still exists
[23:41]and knows what's going on in my life.
[23:44]And I know your examination of all of this is in the book
[23:46]and you wrestle with some of these topics, but I don't know.
[23:51]What are you working on now?
[23:54]What could possibly come after?
[23:55]Well, you know, Momstone at a time
[24:00]they're like, fill in the blank, right?
[24:01]So what am I working on?
[24:03]And mostly I'm still just, you know,
[24:08]trying to be a part of the grand adventure of this book
[24:11]coming out into the world and talking to folks like you
[24:13]and your listeners and really enjoying hearing
[24:17]from readers of this book, which has been a real pleasure
[24:19]of publishing and I've heard a lot of other people's
[24:22]grief stories and a lot of other people's love stories
[24:24]and that's been really delightful.
[24:27]So most of my attention is still on that.
[24:28]I am, you know, back at the magazine trying to, you know,
[24:32]eke out some pieces when I can,
[24:35]but mostly I'm still focused on the book right now.
[24:38]Yeah, that is just fine.
[24:40]Do you have any advice for aspiring authors?
[24:42]Well, I suppose it's such a broad question.
[24:47]I know, sorry.
[24:48]Take it away.
[24:49]It's so hard.
[24:50]It's so hard.
[24:51]It's so hard.
[24:52]It's sort of every scale of the, of the, of the job
[24:55]and of the craft.
[24:56]You know, I guess I would say that I feel you have something
[25:00]you want to write and it feels urgent to you and interesting
[25:03]to you and like something that can hold your attention
[25:06]for long enough to actually get the job done, which
[25:08]can be a very, very long time.
[25:10]I have been, then you're probably right
[25:12]and you trust that feeling and beyond that, you know,
[25:16]there are so many things to be said about how to write well
[25:22]and how to build community providers and how to find editors
[25:25]and how to get your work done.
[25:26]And all of that is incredibly important,
[25:28]but none of it is important as important as simply sitting down
[25:33]in the chair and doing the writing.
[25:35]You know, that is nothing can happen
[25:37]and nothing matters in terms of a literary community
[25:41]or the publication process or refining something you have
[25:44]written.
[25:45]Nothing can happen until you sit down
[25:48]and to the best of your abilities,
[25:51]commit your thoughts to the page.
[25:53]So mostly my advice is just that old school advice
[25:55]of like, you know, sit down in the chair.
[26:00]Well, it's get advice for a reason.
[26:04]Catherine, thank you.
[26:05]Thank you for sharing your experience in the book
[26:08]and over this conversation.
[26:10]Thank you for writing with such beauty that even reading it
[26:14]for the second time brought to your somewhere as.
[26:16]And, you know, giving me hope, hope that love is, you know,
[26:20]our most fundamental human thing that we all share
[26:23]and that how important love is.
[26:25]And I know that sounds hokey, but I mean it.
[26:27]So thank you.
[26:28]Well, you don't have to, you know,
[26:29]apologize for its own and hokey to me.
[26:31]I very much believe in it
[26:32]and that that's the core of the book.
[26:34]So I'm glad you feel that way as well.
[26:36]All right. Well, thank you so much.
[26:38]Thanks for having me.
[26:38]Honestly, thank you.
[26:39]Okay, bye bye.
[26:40]Bye now.
[26:42]Thanks for listening to this episode
[26:44]of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[26:45]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zebiowinds
[26:49]and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[26:51]Also sign up for my newsletter at zebiowinds.com
[26:53]and sign up for my virtual book club
[26:55]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[26:57]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan,
[26:59]that texture sound for the sound editing.
[27:01]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[27:03]for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music.