WEBVTT

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And I'll read a
poem, now, that has

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to do with the death
of my stepmother, which

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the second section of
this book deals with.

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And I'm not going to spend too
much time in the second section

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because it's a little hard
for me to spend time there.

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But because I think poetry is
the natural language for grief,

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I also feel like it's
something we need to sing out.

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I should say that she
died of a home death.

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I was the primary caregiver,
along with my father,

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and that when I was
worried about it

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I actually held a meeting in
my office in New York City,

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and had all the
women that I knew

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who had gone through a home
death come to my office.

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And we actually asked, I
asked advice, and they did it,

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and they were amazing.

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The Riveter

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"What I didn't
say when she asked

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why I knew so much about dying
was that for me, it was work.

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When dad called to say we
had a month I made a list.

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I called in my team to my office
in the high rise, those Rosies

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of know-how, those that had
lost someone loved, those that

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had done the assembly
line of home death,

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and said, what's this about
not keeping her on TPN?

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One woman who was
still soft with sadness

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said it depends on whether she
wants to die of heart failure

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or to drown in her own fluids.

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I nodded and wrote
that down, like this

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was a meeting about a
client who wasn't happy.

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'What about hospice,' I asked.

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They said they'll help,
but your dad and you guys

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will do most of it.

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I put a star by that.

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We had a plan of action.

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When this happens, we do this.

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When that happens, we do that.

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But what I forgot was that
it was our plan, not hers.

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Not the one doing the dying.

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This was a plan for those
who still had a next.

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See, our job was simple.

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Keep on living.

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Her job was harder, the hardest.

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Her job, her work, was to
let the machine of survival

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break down, make
the factory fail.

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To know that this
war was winless,

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to know that she
would single-handedly

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destroy us all."

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I read that poem for
my little brother.

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My little brother was
her biological son,

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and I had seen him about
a month after her death

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and said, "God, can you believe
we went through all that,

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and how hard that was,
and what a hard time?"

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And he just looked at me, and
he said, "Well, what about her?"

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And I thought, of
course, of course.

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Yeah, she had the hardest job.

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Leave it to the son,
right, to remind me.