Let's Talk About Grief

On September 9 I was in Boston for the first night of Sara Bareilles's Good Grief tour. She came out and told a full theater that this was the first show, that they were trying something, and that they didn't know if it would work. Then she played her new album. Every song, in order, with other songs mixed in where they fit.

I've been to hundreds of concerts. I've seen Pearl Jam around 15 times, including once in Poland. Walking into to see Sara I was just as giddy as seeing PJ in Poland.

On the surface those two have nothing in common. A rock band from Seattle playing stadiums. A woman at a piano playing in theaters. What I didn't expect was that the experience would be the same.

Here's what I think is going on. At almost every Pearl Jam show, Eddie Vedder reads a letter somebody sent him, and it's almost always about grief. Partway through the Boston show, Sara started playing voicemails from strangers. Same act. A person hands their grief to an artist, the artist holds it up in front of thousands of people, and the room goes quiet.

Stephen Colbert talks about this on Anderson Cooper's podcast. We used to have rituals for mourning. Black armbands. A year where everyone could see something had happened to you. We got rid of all that and didn't replace it.

Most of us only use the word grief when somebody has died. But grief is a response to losing something that mattered. We also grieve the person we thought we'd become. The body that used to do the thing we love. The parts of ourselves we put away so early we don't remember how it happened.

None of that comes with a casserole or a card.

Read the full piece on Substack.

Learn more about the adventure at www.heart-strong.org