And

I just, I would find myself writhing on the floor.

I'd be howling like an animal.

There's actually, I found out a word for it, it's called keening.

These deep, deep, deep, deep cries and howls that go right into your chest and then taper off, but you're still like almost like in seizures of pain.

And then after I'd sort of composed myself, I would go to my office and say, wow, that was crazy.

And I would write down exactly what it felt like.

I don't know what.

Is there a point at which a mother says, "But my goodness, she packed as much into those 32 years as many people do in 80 or 90"?

Yeah.

[laughs] Yeah, that's, that, that's, that's true.

It, it just is the wrong order.

It's the universe is turned upside down because you are always expecting to die before your children, and I think this is why parental grief is one of the hardest, maybe the hardest, is because everything is wrong about it, and, and, uh, you would so much have rather you had died than your child.

And it's, it's just a very hard thing to, to accept, and one of the things, uh, and o- the reasons I wrote about it was how really devastating this type of grief is.

It's, it's easy to say that.

Are you there yet?

Do you believe in signs?

I...

Before this, I might have said, "Yeah, sure." I now really believe in signs because there are things that happen that are so connected to them and yet completely inexplicable.

I often talk to her and I imagine what she would say, but there have been times at critical moments, it's like her voice has landed in my head and said something that I wouldn't have expected her to say.

And actually, one of them relates to this book.

I've been very torn about, you know, promoting it.

It's a weird thing to have to keep going out and talking about again and again and repeating the fact that she's dead again and again.

Does that feel a lo- like a long time? Does that feel like a short time?

Tell us about that.

Well, one of the things, I mean, there are so many aspects of grief that you don't expect.

And when you lose a child, it's probably the worst kind of grief you can experience.

But, you know, when people used to die, their possessions were fairly physical.

You know, they had left files of notes and letters.

You had their clothes to deal with, their furniture, whatever, their possessions.

But what we found with our daughter, and I'm sure many other, in fact, I know many other people have been in this situation because I get emails from them, that your digital life extends beyond your actual life.

Were you looking for something in particular, Danielle?

It is.

Um, and it's really because he was, of course, a very religious man.

He's trying to work himself back to God.

But in the process, um, he describes very vividly what-- I think he said at one point that grief is, is like now the sky.

I mean, it's just-

Mm-hmm.

And we had those people for us.

You- they're the people you wanna talk to and say, "Okay, what's, what's ahead?" Um, but so when I was connected with her, this mother, and she was telling me about her s- son, and she goes, "I know people say I have to remember that my son Sean's life was a gift, but I also have to..." And she's saying this through tears because it's very fresh.

And it really began immediately as you identified heard word of your daughter's death, which is so devastating, and you needed to find your way to New York City, how is it possible that you have to fight to go into your own daughter's apartment to access her computer, to be able to access her phone, How do we explain that? Well, first

of all, just so people here know, Miranda had had a brain tumor removed five years previous.

It was non-malignant, but it was very rare.

As I said to her, it takes you to have an original tumor.

And it was removed successfully, but in the process it had eaten her pituitary gland, which you can medicate for.

You can apparently live a perfectly normal life.

But you have to live on a cocktail of hormones and medications.

The artistry, your literary artistry, your artistic talents, what was that to have to go back to literally put this on the page the way you knew you needed to? How did you do that?

Ringo.

And, and it was just a beautiful, beautiful piece, and that kind of opened him up, and then he was able to kind of reabsorb himself into the writing, and I found his grief would attack him in the middle of the night.

Like suddenly I'd be aware that he was awake at three or four in the morning, and he was, you know, very upset.

I wasn't able to do that.

I was just...

Actually, when I slept, I felt better.

I could actually sleep, I guess, 'cause I was so exhausted.

Okay, so talk to me about that.

Mm

... and its own trauma.

Um, I, I, you know, people say, "Well, all of us grieve differently," and that's true.

But I think there are real, um, commonalities among certain types of grief.

And our family was very tight.

Her b- uh, she has a younger brother who is, is now 32, which was her age when she died, so he was 30, and our youngest was 22.

And she was, you know, the first.

Mm-hmm.

Tell us about that

Well, one of the things, I mean, there are so many aspects of grief that you don't expect.

Uh, and when you lose a child, it's probably the worst kind of grief you can experience.

But, you know, when people used to die, their possessions [laughs] were fairly physical.

You know? They had left files of notes and letters.

They, you had their clothes to deal with, their furniture, whatever, their possessions.

But what we found with our daughter, and I'm sure many other, in fact I know many other people have been in this situation 'cause I get, uh, emails from them, that your digital life extends beyond your actual life.

Yes

This was roughly, as the coroner later estimated, uh, Miranda's time of death.

Yeah.

Well, I think everybody who loses someone, anyone, uh, that, who you're close to, you, you...

First of all, you're always looking for signs.

But pretty much everyone I have spoken to has some story that is inexplicable and, and can't be just sort of written off.

So, um, so as you say, when Miranda died at 3:00 AM Eastern Time, her brother sat up bolt upright at midnight in LA time, West Coast time, with the most horrible sense of dread.

And, um, and that I've at subsequently found that's quite common with siblings and others.

Her protest

... and perhaps fathers who have lost children with whom you've spoken.

Yeah, it re- it, it really actually, it really does help to, to...

Because I think, um, when I, when I was writing this, trying to describe what it was like, I sent an early draft to one of the mothers I had met.

Uh, and she said, she said, "Thank you.

Now I have something to show people." Because I think nobody, if you haven't lost a child or this level of catastrophe, y- you don't know what it's like.

You, you, you, you're not of...

You know, you can offer a certain amount of compassion to a friend.

Um, and, and how are they doing? How are you all moving together as a family minus one?