MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
As the song from the musical "Rent" goes, there's 525,600 minutes in a year. Some years fly by. Others seem to last forever. A lot can happen in those minutes - wonderful things, awful things. We asked listeners to tell us about a bad year and how they got through it.
TAYLOR MCKENZIE: My name is Taylor McKenzie (ph). My most difficult year was between March of 2022 and February of 2023. During that time, I experienced kind of a medical mystery for 24/7. My right arm would jerk around consistently, and my head would bob up and down uncontrollably.
KELLY: McKenzie says she no longer has a motion disorder. But...
MCKENZIE: We are all just really just one weird twitch away from having our lives changed forever.
KELLY: In 2016, Bruce Cox took a serious fall while on vacation. He survived but suffered a number of injuries, including cracked vertebrae and a traumatic brain injury.
BRUCE COX: I fell off the edge of an infinity pool to a rocky beach and woke up approximately two months later and was in acute care for weeks and then transferred to an inpatient rehab locally and have no memory to this day of any of it.
KELLY: The TBI caused memory gaps and changes in his emotions. It was a long road to recovery, but Cox says he was determined to do whatever he could not to get stuck in woe-is-me mode.
COX: For me, to find joy in, hey, there's not much traffic going to work today - that's fantastic. I tend to try not to take for granted anything.
KELLY: This seems like a good place to bring in Kelly Corrigan. She is host of the podcast "Kelly Corrigan Wonders," also host of the PBS show "Tell me More" and the author of four memoirs. Kelly Corrigan, I'm so happy to speak to you again.
KELLY CORRIGAN: Always, Mary Louise. Always.
KELLY: So you just did a podcast on this very subject, two-part podcast. You looked back at 2024, and you called this undertaking happy crappy.
CORRIGAN: (Laughter).
KELLY: Start with the crappy. Would you give us just a little taste of what this year has brought you?
CORRIGAN: This year for me, on the crappy and then also weirdly happy side, my mom died on May 25.
KELLY: I'm sorry.
CORRIGAN: Thanks. You know, I had known that people die. I'd lived through it with my dad nine years before. And so I was aware that these things can go any number of ways, most of which are prolonged, painful, tragic. And then every now and then, there is such a thing as a good death, and my mother had a great death.
KELLY: You sound at peace with this, which is a huge thing to say about one of the biggest losses, well, as human beings, we're ever going to carry in our lives.
CORRIGAN: I was so impressed. I mean, I felt like I was watching a tiny hundred-pound general call the shots from this prone position. I mean, doctor after doctor after doctor came in and made her reconfirm her wishes, and they were all tall and male and authoritative. And she was a shadow of herself. She was skin and bones. And she was not afraid. And so I think I followed her lead. I think I was not afraid for her.
And in fact, she said, Kelly, I know what I want. I started crying, and she said, don't cry. I can't do this if you cry. And I said, well, I'm going to cry a little bit, but I'm not going to try to stop you. And so I'm going to help you get what you want, which is to just be left alone, to be detached from the equipment and the machinery.
KELLY: Would you just describe how the loss shows up in your daily life in little places where maybe you weren't expecting it?
CORRIGAN: Every sore throat - I think the only person on Earth that would care about this is my mother. If I was talking to my mother, and I said, oh, I think I have a little bit of a sore throat, she would call me the next day and say, how's your throat? And I'd think, God, you're the only one. That's amazing.
And then the other time that I miss her is when I feel this loss of self where - per the story I just described where I was like, I'm not going to obstruct your wishes - I attuned to her during those 10 days. And what makes me miss her, Mary Louise, is that I want to say, did I do a good job? Is that what you wanted?
KELLY: Yeah. Is there a grace note you'll take from this past year?
CORRIGAN: Maybe the grace note of 2024 is look harder. Like, there's something inside everything that might leave you weirdly better than it found you and in ways that you might fail to recognize at first glance, which is why maybe you'll be rewarded if you look harder.
KELLY: Are you thinking about your mom or something else?
CORRIGAN: I'm thinking about how weird it is to not have parents. My first reaction to not having parents was, like, a foot-stomping, I don't like this, kind of feeling, like a little fit that a 4-year-old would have.
KELLY: Make-it-go-away-type thing. Yeah.
CORRIGAN: Yeah, want to talk to them - like, bring them back. I did a good job. I was very grown-up, and we handled everything just right, and now I want them back. And then I don't think it's fair that I never, ever, ever get to talk to them. Like, what if I could just talk to them once a year, you know? Like, I'm sort of bargaining with who knows what to just get, like, an ounce. Like, there's just - the absoluteness of it is so hard to get your head around. But it cleared the way for me to be the parent. And of course, I've been a parent now for 23 years, but it clarified. This is what you're doing now. This is what your role is. You're the giver now, so give.
KELLY: Does there always have to be a grace node? I've been thinking on this one, whether it is okay for something just suck, to just richly, resoundingly suck and be unmitigated in its suckiness (ph).
CORRIGAN: I think it is essential.
KELLY: (Laughter).
CORRIGAN: I think it is absolutely essential that a thing is allowed to suck top to bottom, side to side, that it can be entirely and absolutely crappy. I think it is - would be so tedious if all of us went around saying, no, I know, but, like, isn't there some kind of silver lining in that? Like, that is just a horrific bar to try to clear time and time again. And it cheapens everything. Like, it's OK that this - of course, some things are - absolutely suck.
KELLY: Yeah.
CORRIGAN: And we should not force each other to, like, poke around until we find something good to say about it. There might be something that happens next. That's all.
KELLY: OK. That's a nice way of looking at it. You can wallow in the suckiness, in the crappiness (ph), but understand that it will end, and there may be something else on the other side.
CORRIGAN: Yes, and the something that comes next might be weirdly related to the crappiness. Zoom out. Just keep zooming out until you find it.
KELLY: That's a great way to end 2024 and look ahead to 2025. Kelly Corrigan, thank you.
CORRIGAN: Thanks for having me, Mary Louise. Always love talking to you.
KELLY: That's author and podcast host and PBS host Kelly Corrigan. Happy New Year.
CORRIGAN: Happy New Year.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
