How do you keep choosing life when the life you loved disappeared in a single instant?

In 2018, Colin Campbell and his wife Gail were driving home from a family trip to Joshua Tree when a drunk driver slammed into their car at 90 miles an hour. Colin and Gail were knocked unconscious. When Colin opened his eyes, their two teenage children, Ruby and Hart, were already gone in the back seat.

There was no time to prepare. No ambulance ride spent hoping. No chance to say one more thing.

In the years since, Colin has become one of the most powerful and refreshingly honest voices in grief. He is the author of Finding the Words: Working Through Profound Loss with Hope and Purpose and the writer and performer behind the acclaimed solo show Grief: A One Man ShitShow. What I love about Colin’s work is that he doesn’t stay in the abstract. He talks about what it actually means to live with grief.

And that is where our conversation goes.

We talk about what happens when you stop trying to protect yourself from the pain. What grief can do to your marriage, your friendships, your identity, and even your sex life. Why guilt can become so tangled up with love. And how you begin allowing yourself to experience joy again without feeling as though you’re betraying the people you lost.

This is a conversation about the parts of grief we don’t always know how to talk about, and what it really takes to build a life that can hold devastating loss alongside love, connection, purpose, pleasure, and even joy.

If you’ve ever wondered how you’re supposed to keep living when someone you love is no longer physically here, I think you’ll find something in Colin’s words that stays with you.

In this episode, we talk about:

• Why feeling your grief may be very different from being consumed by it

• Colin’s surprising “say yes” approach to life after loss

• The connection between our capacity for pain and our capacity for joy

• The “grief spiel” and the surprising way it can change your relationships

• Who you become when loss changes your sense of identity

• How a marriage survives when two people grieve the same loss differently

• Sex and intimacy after devastating loss, and why we need to talk about it

• The complicated relationship between guilt and love

• How rituals can help us carry what cannot be fixed

• The decision Ruby made before the crash that would take on extraordinary meaning years later

• What it means to become a parent again after losing your children

Don’t forget to follow Colin Campbell and check out his book, Finding the Words: Working Through Profound Loss with Hope and Purpose. You can find more of his work, including his acclaimed solo show Grief: A One Man ShitShow, on his website or by following him on Instagram.

And if you’re looking for support, connection, or a place to feel less alone, Laura’s book, Crying Out Loud: A Path Through Grief Into a Life Reimagined, and The Grief Healing Collective are here for you. If something in this episode spoke to your heart, share your story or send your questions to cryingoutloudpod@gmail.com.

None of us are meant to carry this alone.