Brené Brown: Hi, everyone. I’m Brené Brown, and this is Unlocking Us.

[music]

BB: Welcome back to our eight-part series that I’m calling On My Heart and Mind. We started this series with my conversation with Valerie Kaur on the power of revolutionary love and being a sage warrior. I’ve talked to Dr. Sarah Lewis on her stunning new book, The Unseen Truth, Roxanne Gay on her amazing essay on Black gun ownership, to my friend, Dr. Mary Claire Haver on menopause. And I just did a two-part special with one of, I’ve talked to a lot of historians in this series, but I love history, so probably always on my heart and mind. My last two-parter, I guess, was Dr. Heather Cox Richardson on American democracy. And today, my sisters.

Barrett Guillen: Hi.

Ashley Brown Ruiz: Hello.

Barrett: We’re back.

[music]

BB: Ashley and Barrett and I are going to talk about, it’s funny because we teed this up, we’re like, we should do a podcast on like Mom and grief and love and joy. And then today we were like, shit, I don’t want to talk about that, do y’all?

[laughter]

BB: We were like, oh. So I think it’s going to be about grief and joy and love, but we’ll see where it goes. Welcome to Unlocking Us.

Barrett: Thanks for having us.

Ashley: We’re excited.

[laughter]

BB: Liars.

[music]

BB: Where should we jump in? So for those of you who don’t know, my mom died on Christmas morning this past year, 2023 Christmas morning, and hard dementia journey. Ashley and Barrett and I were her primary caregivers, along with Steve. I would give a shout out to my husband, Steve, who was really, when we all had to be like, “I can’t do it, I can’t do it this week. I can’t do it this week.” And you’re like, “I can’t do it this week either.” Barrett’s like, ‘Screw you all, not it.” Then Steve would be like, “I’m in.” And a lot of other times too. So I think we were going to talk about what our experience has been. So it’s been 10 months? Yeah.

Barrett: It’s crazy.

Ashley: Almost to the day.

BB: Oh yeah. Yeah. Where do we, I mean, we’re all looking at each other like, don’t go there.

Ashley: Well, I think a good place…

BB: Oh God, the therapist is going first.

[laughter]

Ashley: Let’s just… all take a deep breath.

BB: Okay.

[laughter]

BB: I’m already, I’m on my first… How many…

Ashley: And Brené, why don’t you tell the Red Bird story? Because that’s a good place to start.

BB: So there’s a TikTok or an Instagram reel that we love with these two sisters who are talking about when their mom died. And they just start laughing so hard. And they’re like, “We didn’t cancel your insurance. We didn’t pay for this. We didn’t know how it worked.” And so I think we would send that to each other all the time. I guess is it fair to say… We’ll get to the Red Bird Story, but let’s back up. Is it fair to say… Well, I’ll talk about me first. You know, I’m the number one on the Enneagram.

Ashley: I thought you were just going to say I’m number one.

[laughter]

BB: Well, that too.

Ashley: I’m number three. Birth order.

BB: We have a brother between us. But, I think for me, there was grief and relief when she died.

Barrett: Yeah.

Ashley: Same.

BB: Yeah. I think that like really ragged, jagged edge grief of losing your mom, like a memory at a time, and then watching her body fall apart, that was, that was worse, I think, for me.

Ashley: Yeah.

Barrett: Me too.

BB: What do y’all think?

Ashley: I think it was really, really tough. I feel like I lost her like four times. The grieving process was just like, okay, she’s sick. Okay, she has to leave her house. Okay, we have to pack up her house. We have to get her house ready. Okay, this, okay that. It just felt like a lot of different steps and a lot of different processes through it. So, and towards the end, it was just kind of hard to watch.

BB: Awful.

Ashley: Yeah, and then she got COVID.

BB: Yeah, then she got COVID.

Ashley: And had to go to the hospital by herself.

BB: No, I was with her, remember? I took her to the hospital.

Ashley: No, we were together and Barrett was there. We were all there, but we had to, like, take turns because of COVID.

BB: Oh, yeah. No, I was thinking about when she got COVID most recently, and I was there, like, blowing her nose and helping her shower and stuff.

Ashley: Oh, then you got COVID.

BB: And then I got COVID.

Ashley: Yes. Oh yeah, that was when she got home from the hospital?

BB: Right.

Ashley: Yeah.

Barrett: I also think, though, too, it was like… It was so hard because even just like going to visit, there would be like moments that felt so normal. Like just for like a minute. Like I would tell her something and her immediate reaction would be the same reaction she had five years before she had to go into memory care. And so it was like, maybe it didn’t feel the same, but those little beautiful nuggets that just kind of help you move through the journey. Or like, I did really love it. And I think you started this with her, Brené, like playing all the music from the 50s to the 60s and she would just sing and sing. It was really hard. And I think those little nuggets of beauty or, I don’t know what it was, but most of it was hard.

Ashley: There were a lot of those little small moments though. I remember when we were there one time, I was there with my daughter and we texted you, Brené, and we were like, “Tell us some songs to play. She wants to listen to music.” And so you had sent over like six or seven songs to play from when you were young and what her and her mom listened to. And so I would play them and she would just light up and she’d be like, “I just want to cry right now. This makes me think of Me-Ma,” which was her mom. And, yeah, that music thing was amazing how she would just go right back. And it wasn’t all music. Like if you went to like more recent music, she didn’t have the same reaction as that old school, old country. Like what were some of the songs that you sent?

BB: Well, this whole thing reminds me of Oliver Sacks, the neurologist who said music needs no mediation. It pierces the heart directly. I think that, you know, it was songs like, it was everything from, you know, “Que Sera, Sera,” lots of 50s, the Big Bopper, “Chantilly Lace,” but also even going back further to songs that, like she and Me-Ma would listen to, songs that were from like the late 40s and early, early 50s, even before that. So I think it was so weird, as many of you who have experienced dementia in people you love, it’s like she couldn’t, she may not even remember my name, but she could tell you what happened in 1975 in our neighborhood, you know?

[chuckle]

Barrett: Yeah.

Ashley: She told a lot of stories about her grandpa’s bike shop.

BB: Yeah.

Ashley: We had so many, like her entire apartment was just covered with pictures from her growing up. And so she would focus in on one and tell a story about it over and over.

BB: I am not to the place where I have any good memories of that period of time. Like, I even drive down that street…

Ashley: Her apartment?

BB: Yeah.

Ashley: That’s what we like to call it?

BB: We like to call it her apartment, but it’s the independent through assisted through memory care place. I don’t have… Like that. I don’t know. Like this is how we’re very different.

Barrett: Oh yeah. We’ve all done it very differently.

Ashley: You’ll be able to tell when we get to the Red Bird story.

[laughter]

BB: Yeah. No, I don’t, know why. I think, I mean, I have great, I have obviously good memories of Mom, but I just, for me that was just a hateful, terrible experience.

Barrett: It totally was. But I think for me, I spent some time avoiding that place and like, just avoiding, wanting to go, and some of my own work when I did start to go back to see her, I could find like the little magic in in each visit.

BB: Yeah.

Barrett: And it’s like, I think we talked about this, like, we’d call and we’d be like, “We’re going to be there in two hours.” You know, “Get up and get dressed” or whatever. And then we’d get there and she’d be like, “Oh my gosh, what are you doing here?”

Ashley: Surprise.

Barrett: I don’t know. I mean, there was just still, she was still in there sometimes, and I think that’s what made it worth it for me.

BB: Yeah. I mean, I think it’s interesting because I think it’s like we’re, thinking about how who we are, birth order and how all of that intersects with that, right?

Barrett: Yeah.

BB: Yeah, because I think for me, I felt like, I always felt like not there enough.

Barrett: Oh yeah.

BB: Not doing enough. Why can’t I fix this? What specialist can I find? Like, you know, like I felt immense responsibility every day and probably while I was sleeping, I just felt like this is my job to make this better and I cannot make this better. And so that was like, it’s just, it pushes up against my overactive sense of agency. But it’s also hard because I’m also in charge of a lot of shit. So it’s like, it’s the serenity prayer. Help me accept the things I can’t change, the courage to change the things I can, then I’ve ad-libbed the last line to say, give the space, grace, and wisdom of discernment in choosing because that’s my problem. I can’t figure out what I can change and what I can’t.

BB: So I think for me especially, and it was just the reality of it, we can decide whether we’re going to leave this in or not, but the reality that no one talks about, like when I had Ellen, like no one… People would tell some horror stories about birth, which are not helpful. And they would romanticize, but they would never tell me like, “It’s messy. That shit’s messy. It’s like physically messy.” Like people are going to have on galoshes who deliver this baby. Like, it’s, it’s like serious. No one talks about, you know, where mom’s stuck in the bathroom and you’ve literally got shit all over you and you’re trying to get her up and she’s humiliated because she knows enough to be humiliated and you’re crying and she’s crying and no one talks about that. And we can’t be the only people it happens with.

Barrett: No.

Ashley: No way.

BB: No. And so I think that part was just… and the end was hard.

Barrett: It was hard.

BB: And the middle was hard and the beginning was hard.

[laughter]

BB: Like, I remember getting ready to do a podcast and I remember, I think I just deleted that screenshot where she called 14 times in, you know, nine minutes, you know, asking “Can you do this? Can you bring me this? I think I’m going to go on a road trip,” or like the police calling because her husband had, you know, left and was lost and on foot. And then doing that while I’ve got kids at home.

Ashley: Yeah.

Barrett: Oh my gosh. No one prepares you for that. No one prepares you for that.

Ashley: No. How do you do both? And like how lucky are we? There’s three of us plus Steve, that’s four. And we still have…

BB: Ample resources. Yeah.

Ashley: Yeah. And we have resources and we were still really hard on ourselves for not being there and not doing more and not doing like, being there all the time. And then the struggle of like taking your kids or not taking your kids or missing a game to go see Mom. Or not going to see Mom because you had a game or, you know, what I mean? Like just…

BB: To sandwich stuff.

Ashley: Yeah.

BB: It’s a shit sandwich is what kind of sandwich it is.

[laughter]

Ashley: 100% shit sandwich. Yeah. And that’s when my daughter was like packing up and heading to college and I was like, “No. It’s too much. I’m just going to go ahead and take a break.”

BB: No, I think it was hard and I think, I don’t know, you just do the best you can. Right? I never forced my kids to go.

Ashley: Yeah.

BB: Because I, I remember with Me-Ma, especially at the very end, the last couple of days, I remember that it took me five years and I, you know, Me-Ma was my person, you know, her name was Ellen. I named my daughter Ellen. Like she was my person. Like I loved her so much. It took me five years to get that image of her out of my head of that glassy-eyed looking through you, like kind of how Mom was when she died, and when the kids were like, “Should we go?” I was like, “You don’t have to.”

Barrett: Yeah.

BB: I think y’all told your kids the same thing, right?

Barrett: Mm-hmm.

BB: My kids didn’t go the last day.

Ashley: I don’t think mine did either.

Barrett: Mine did.

Ashley: Yeah.

Barrett: Yeah.

BB: And I said, you know, “Oma loved you like crazy and you loved her and however you can remember it.”

Barrett: Totally.

Ashley: Yeah,.

BB: We just saw Barrett grab a tissue, and we’re like, “Oh shit.”

Ashley: Oh no.

BB: Here we go.

Ashley: She’s got a runny nose though.

[laughter]

Barrett: It’s just because it’s like 67 in here. That’s all.

[laughter]

BB: That’s because on top of raising our kids, taking care of our mother, and working 60 hours a week, we’re all in fucking menopause.

Barrett: What!

[laughter]

Ashley: Because welcome to midlife.

Barrett: It’s a joke.

Barrett: It’s a cruel joke.

BB: Yeah. No, it was. It’s… Yeah. I saw you grab that. I was like, cut, exit…

Barrett: I know. This all got so quiet. I was like, “My nose is runny.”

[laughter]

BB: Okay. If you’re going to start crying… Yeah. And I think we’re all very different, right? Would you say?

Ashley: Yes.

Barrett: Yeah, totally.

BB: Yeah.

Barrett: We handled it from the first day very different, all of us.

BB: Yeah. And I mean, I forgot about the house and all that stuff. And so my mom went into the hospital in November of 2019 with a blocked intestine that was not supposed to be a big deal to fix. And then it was like a 12-hour surgery. They brought in trauma surgeons. She was really never the same after that. And I think she had been hiding some of her dementia up until that point. And so she never went home again after that.

Ashley: No, she didn’t.

BB: Yeah. She stayed in the hospital for like nine weeks.

Ashley: Really long time.

Barrett: Yeah.

BB: Yeah. And she had to go to TIRR for rehab to learn how like to walk again and stuff. And I remember someone there saying something like, it’s for every week you’re in the hospital when you’re over 70, it’s a month of recovery or something. But she never recovered. And she went from there to assisted living. And she was married. We’ll leave it there. Yeah, she was married and that was hard. And do you remember the, like the first, like, we moved her into that apartment. We pull all of our pictures up and then we… Remember that giant post-it note that we had?

Barrett: Oh, yes.

BB: Like, it was like a big poster size that said, number one, this is where you live. Number two, you don’t owe anyone any money. Number three, all of your money is safe, because number four, you don’t have any.

[laughter]

BB: But those were the questions she’d ask every day. “Where’s my checkbook? Who’s got my checkbook? Who’s got my credit card? How am I going to pay for this? I don’t have any money to pay for this. Why am I living in this apartment?” And we just tried to do that big poster and then we’d add things to it. Number five, to her husband, you cannot leave on foot and take her with you. She can’t do that. And she’s going to get scared and fall. And then we had to sell the house. And I was like, “We’re selling the house. We’ll have it cleaned out in a week.” And y’all were like, “I need more time with it.” I was like, “Oh, Jesus.” That was hard.

Ashley: That was really hard.

BB: I think you needed more time with it, right?

Ashley: I mean, I didn’t know what I needed.

BB: Yeah.

Ashley: But I know I needed you to stop telling me what to do.

[laughter]

Ashley: No space. No space or grace.

BB: No. We got shit to do.

Ashley: Yeah. Well, you’ve got shit to do.

BB: No, we… No, because like I’m thinking to myself the liability of having that empty house there, you know? And then…

Barrett: I’m still laughing at y’all.

[laughter]

BB: Yeah, what were you doing?

BB: You were somewhere in the middle I think.

Barrett: Yeah. I was like, “Take it… We could take more time. We could do it now. Just let me know. What are we going to do? What are we going to do?” [chuckle]

Ashley: I don’t know if I needed more time or what I needed, but I think every layer that was happening was just very hard. So it was like, we think we’re going to walk in and clean out this house and it’s going to be hard. And I think we were ready for it to be hard. But then I think you forget about all of the different pieces of who Mom is. And in each room I was finding those different pieces and I was just like, overcome sometimes with, it was a lot.

BB: Yeah.

Barrett: I think we all had our own moment in that house at some point during those few weeks.

Ashley: Yeah.

BB: Oh yeah, I had a total breakdown. Like, I was just laying on the middle of the floor screaming, crying. Like, I didn’t even pack a thing. Steve just put me back in the car and drove me home.

Ashley: I was probably throwing shit at you.

[laughter]

BB: I think it’s different. I think, yeah. I just think we are just different personalities. And also I think, yeah. I mean, I think you did a better job than I did feeling your way through it, probably Ashley. I think, you know…

Ashley: I’m still feeling it.

BB: Yeah. And I think in all fairness to me, I’m responsible for a lot more.

Ashley: I totally agree. And I am grateful that you, you know, put some timelines in place and thought about those things, which gave me the freedom to probably feel more so.

BB: Yeah. And I think being in charge of the timelines and those things let me feel less.

[laughter]

BB: That’s good. And it’s not that I don’t feel, it’s just that I… It was a very hard time. Because if you put this whole thing into perspective, if you step back, she gets sick in November of 2019. She was an amazing mom, right?

Ashley: Yeah.

Barrett: Yep.

BB: Like terrible in the beginning. And then did her own work and turned the whole tanker that is our family. And introduced her whole family to the concepts of addiction and recovery.

Ashley: Harriet Lerner.

BB: Harriet Lerner, Dance of Anger, therapy. She was the first person to go to therapy. So she did all that work and she did not take care of her money. So, there was a lot of financial hard stuff going on. And it was 2019. We put her in assisted living. And many of y’all know this, like you’re going to be writing that check every month. There’s not an insurance answer there. And then she doesn’t have that kind of money. And then two months later we do an event at NASA.

Barrett: Oh yeah.

BB: Two of our employees get deathly sick, it turns out they have COVID. And then three weeks later, we lose 75% of the revenue for our organization projected for 12 months, because every event canceled. And it was kind of not a book year, it was an event year.

Barrett: Yeah.

BB: And so it was, there was a lot going on. Oh, then, then COVID happened and they were worried about everybody.

[laughter]

BB: They were worried about everybody in the assisted living thing. And we snuck her out like AMA of the assisted living. And then she goes to Austin and lives in the house with all of y’all and Steve and all the kids are homeschooling from…

[laughter]

Ashley: We’re like fighting for internet. Yeah.

BB: And then I’m here doing a podcast out of Charlie’s closet on top of dirty Under Armour. It was hard.

Ashley: It was hard.

Barrett: Yeah.

BB: Yeah. What was your take on everything, Barrett?

Barrett: No, I think it was really hard. I think looking back, I’m so grateful for the time that we were quarantining together. Also, there was like a big freeze in Houston and we had to go get her from her apartment. And she came and stayed at my house and my daughter and my dog were like in her lap for two days straight. And I had a big note next to the beds. Like, you’re at Barrett’s house, you’re safe. Just ring the bell and I’ll come. So I’m able to find some moments, but I think when we look back at it, like retrospectively, it’s like, “Shit, that was a lot. That was a lot.”

BB: Yeah.

Barrett: And like, I think when you say like, Me-Ma was your person, I would say like that, Mom, I think for Ashley and I, like, I would talk to Mom every day on my drive in and out of work. And so it was kind of like also just losing that person, you know? Because when you work with your sisters, you need someone outside of your sisters to complain about your sisters to.

[laughter]

Barrett: And she was like a judge-free zone.

Ashley: She was like, “I’ll take it to the grave.” [laughter]

Barrett: Yeah. And so…

BB: She’d call me and be like, “Hey, you need to back off.”

[laughter]

Ashley: She did.

Barrett: So, yeah. I mean, hard. It was really hard.

[music]

Ashley: There was a weekend, like we would take weekends, take turns going home and someone staying with mom at the lake. And so there was a weekend that it was just my daughter and me and Mom. And so Friday night we watched “Singin’ in the Rain,” and Mom just jumped right back into it. It was so cute. And then Saturday night we watched the “Blue October” documentary that had just come out, and she was crying because it’s about addiction and stuff. And when it was over, she’s like, “That is just the most amazing movie I’ve ever seen in my life.”

[laughter]

Ashley: And I was like, “Well, that was a documentary,” but like, it was just so, it was sweet. So, while it was really hard, I’m with Barrett, there were some really sweet moments too.

BB: Yeah. No, I got nothing on this. I mean, I think there were…

Ashley: You were like close to like renting a bus. Do you remember this?

[laughter]

Ashley: You were going to rent a bus or RV maybe.

Barrett: Yeah. An RV.

Ashley: And you were going to take her to San Antonio and drive her through all the old parts of San Antonio so she could see them. And you were getting an RV so that y’all wouldn’t have to stop for her to go to the bathroom, so she could go.

[laughter]

BB: Oh yeah. We actually rented the RV, but it just didn’t happen because I think something happened with her health. But… No, I think, I don’t know. I think, it’s weird for me to phrase. I think it’s, because you know, I’m eight years older than Ashley and Barrett for y’all, I think it was, I hold a history with Mom that y’all don’t hold. Right?

Barrett: That’s true.

BB: Yeah. So like, if y’all are like, “What songs did she listen to?” Like I know that. Or like… so I think for me, I was, I had, of course I had great moments with her, like laughter moments or I’d take her go eat somewhere. But I think for me, we’ve had this debate because this, here it comes.

Barrett: Okay.

BB: Do y’all know what I’m going to say?

Ashley: No.

Barrett: Oh yeah. I do.

BB: What do you think I’m going to say?

Barrett: If you’re… What’s the word?

BB: I’m not a sentimental person.

Barrett: Yeah. That’s the word.

Ashley: Yeah. Bullshit.

[laughter]

BB: Yeah. No, but I actually don’t think it’s bullshit. I think that, and that hurts my feelings a little bit.

Ashley: I’m sorry.

BB: Because…

[laughter]

BB: She doesn’t look sorry y’all. No, I’m just not a sentimental person. I’m a very thoughtful person. Right? But I’m not a sentimental person. And so for me I think, for me it was like a slow erasing of the only other person alive who held a set of memories and meaning-making about the world. Like that just was slowly, like that whole part of my life was being erased. Like y’all were too young to remember Joe and Larina and early Me-Ma and Curley and Sister and old neighbors and things like that. Because y’all were young. And so it was just this four-year slow erasing of many, many lines that tethered me to this world. And so I think I did a lot of the grieving during that process. I don’t think I ever left there. Like, oh my God, that was a joyful… I’m really grateful that felt joyful. I think I left there crying every time, thinking I’m watching someone erase my memory of how I make sense of the world, because she’s the only other person in the world that held those. Do you know what I mean?

Barrett: Yeah.

BB: Yeah. So I think it’s okay that I’m not a sentimental person. Like y’all have a hard time with it because I think y’all think of me as a thoughtful person.

Ashley: Well, I just want to like ask what… I would like to know what the difference is between sentimental and thoughtful.

BB: Okay. So example, like, so Mom died on Christmas day and then on January 6th was her birthday. And…

[laughter]

BB: Yeah. And then I think somewhere I got a text.

[laughter]

BB: It said… what did it say?

Barrett: We’re all going to put on Mom’s jewelry and go eat at Barnaby’s.

[laughter]

BB: And I was like, “That’ll fucking never happen.”

[laughter]

BB: Like, there is zero chance that I’m going to put on Mom’s jewelry and go eat at her favorite restaurant on her birthday.

[laughter]

BB: That’s something I wish I could erase from my memory.

Ashley: Yeah, fair enough.

BB: Yeah, that text.

Barrett: FYI, it didn’t happen.

[laughter]

BB: Okay. So, but just the thought of it was like, sometimes I really hate y’all.

[laughter]

Ashley: That’s so fair.

BB: Yeah. So, I think that’s sentimental. Like where…

Barrett: [laughter] Is it?

BB: What!

Barrett: Is it sentimental?

BB: Well, it’s stupid.

[laughter]

BB: Whatever y’all want to call it, but…

Ashley: I thought it was just really fun.

[laughter]

Ashley: Oh, Mom’s got some good jewelry.

BB: I know, but no, uh-uh, not going to do that. Yeah, I’m not sentimental like that. I just, I can’t imagine anything worse really.

Ashley: Okay, but there are so many moments that you do things that I’m just like, “Oh my God, that’s the most amazing thing that you just did ever.” And it’s so sentimental and meaningful.

BB: Don’t call it that.

[laughter]

Ashley: Well, that’s why I’m asking you to help me understand it.

BB: Give me an example of something that you think I did that was the S word.

[laughter]

Barrett: Just from my point of view, it’s like a tennis match. Back and forth. Back and forth.

BB: Yeah.

Ashley: So, when mom was going to the hospital and we didn’t know if she was going to make it, what did you do? You got some stuff to put in her hand.

BB: Oh yeah, from Me-Ma. Yeah.

Ashley: Would you consider that to be thoughtful?

BB: Yeah. It’s just not, I’m not mushy.

Ashley: Maybe I could see you’re not mushy.

BB: I think I’m a fairly serious person. Right. And so when she was dying, I needed to make sure she had direct connection with Me-Ma.

[laughter]

BB: Like, so she had some of Me-Ma’s stuff with her. I don’t want to be in any touchy feely group projects with anybody.

Barrett: Me neither.

Ashley: Me either. I’d like to lead them.

[laughter]

Ashley: I don’t want to be in it.

BB: Well, raise your hand if you think Ashley wants to be in a group sentimental, mushy project. So Barrett and I are raising our hands, so you are, you are that.

Ashley: Okay. I love it. That’s true. I actually would be.

BB: Yeah.

Ashley: I want to do that.

BB: Okay.

Ashley: Yeah.

BB: Good.

Ashley: I don’t want to do like naked yoga, but I do think it would be cool.

BB: Right. Like, [laughter] I’m not doing that. What about you Barrett?

Barrett: I like to think of mom’s memory, like my daughter had the best explanation. She came home from school one day and she was like, “Oma…” They called her Oma. “Oma was with me today.” And I was like, “Oh, why?” She’s like, “Because all the people I hated, they kept falling in front of me. And I know she was tripping on them.”

[laughter]

Ashley: And that’s so the relationship she had with your daughter.

BB: Yeah. No, and I think that’s, yeah, I think that’s good. I will tell you that I was so unprepared, Ellen and I did like a mother-daughter trip to San Miguel de Allende. Ooh. Like, you know, our mom had a Mexican import store, like in the ’80s.

Ashley: Station wagon.

BB: Yeah. Very, very early. So much so that everyone thought she was a devil worshiper because she had a lot of Day of the Dead, like Isabel Allende art and things like…

Barrett: The Catrina’s.

BB: Catrina’s everywhere. So, I was not prepared. And so I was on the street taking a picture and Ellen walked into the first store we went to after we left the hotel. And she came out and she was just white as a ghost. And she’s like, “I hope all the stores aren’t like this. This is like a Oma store. So, I just want you to be prepared when you walk in.” I mean, every store was wall-to-wall Catrina’s, wall-to-wall Day of the Dead. But I was just like, “Oh, okay. That’s cool.” And then I realized that she went there a lot, Dad told me some stories about they, we used to go there a lot all the time.

Barrett: I know.

Ashley: I mean, she used to make an altar every year for Me-Ma, which was so fun because it would have Burt Reynolds, Kentucky Fried Chicken gravy, [laughter], Benson and Hedges.

BB: Yeah. Yeah.

Barrett: Sweet’N Low.

Ashley: Sweet’N Low.

Barrett: Lipton Iced Tea.

BB: Yeah.

Barrett: Honey buns.

BB: Glen Campbell.

[laughter]

Barrett: I did ask my daughter a couple weeks ago if she wanted to make an altar this year. She’s like “No, no, it’s okay.”

[laughter]

BB: Yeah. I think we just all handled it… Like, we just have different roles I think and different experiences.

[laughter]

Barrett: We do.

BB: Yeah.

Ashley: I totally agree.

BB: The Red Bird story was like, this was just so classic. So how did it even start?

Ashley: Okay, so our office is two stories. And so I walked in to the front door and Barrett happened to be walking across the balcony and she’s like, “Hey, what’s up? How are you?” I was like, “I’m having a really hard day. I miss Mom and…” blah, blah. And I just kept going on and she’s like, “Yeah, it’s been really hard, but there’s like this red bird that’s in my backyard, and it just makes me so happy because I get to see it every day,” and I’m like, “I just need the red bird to come visit me, and I need the red bird to come visit me today.”

[laughter]

BB: And then somehow…

BB: Did you tell me like Ashley…

Ashley: I told you.

BB: Oh.

Ashley: And you’re like, “Here’s the difference. I would’ve called Natural Wildlife and been like, ‘Okay, we got to get this bird captured and get it over to Ashley’s house for a few hours, so everybody’s okay.’ And then we’ll take the red bird back to Barrett’s.”

[laughter]

BB: Yeah. I was like, “Why are y’all telling me this? Like, I don’t know how I’m going to get the red bird over there.” And they’re like, “We’re not asking you to do anything. We’re just telling you the story.” And I’m like, “Why are you sharing it with me? Because I don’t know where to get a red bird. I can’t order a red bird. Can I get a fake red?” I mean, “I can order from Amazon.” I’m like, “I don’t… why do I need to know this?”

Barrett: I just try to go about my business walking from one office to the next.

BB: Ashley and I can’t continue the podcast because we’ve rolled our eyes so hard at Barrett now that they’re stuck in the back of our head.

Barrett: Wait, is that not true?

BB: No.

Ashley: No.

Barrett: That I was walking across and you were like, “I need the red bird…”

Ashley: That day you were walking across…

BB: Maybe that day, but…

Ashley: You were minding your business.

BB: Like, no, but you’re not like the, “Oh, I’m just watching the tennis match.” No, you’re in the match.

Barrett: No, I do.

BB: Yeah.

Barrett: That specific time I was watching, I do like to be in the match.

Ashley: What do you think your role in the match is?

BB: Yeah.

Barrett: Peacemaker.

BB: No.

BB: You think so?

BB: She has a middle child energy on us?

Barrett: Yeah. I think Ashley and I might have been switched.

BB: At birth?

Barrett: I’m pretty sure I’m middle child.

Ashley: I’ll totally be youngest.

Barrett: Yeah.

BB: Ashley was six minutes earlier than Barrett, theoretically.

Barrett: Yeah.

BB: I mean, that would fit.

Ashley: Barrett’s got a lot of Mom in her around peacemaker stuff.

BB: Yes.

Barrett: I’ve done a lot of work not to do that.

[laughter]

Barrett: A lot of my own work not to do that. I’m offended.

BB: She looks incensed. Yeah.

Ashley: That’s a good question. What do y’all think your best trait is that you got from Mom?

Barrett: Oh, that’s a good one. Okay. One thing that I think we all got from Mom that I love and I’m so proud of is like that we respect the people that come in and water the plants the same way we respect the CEOs that come in here to meet with Brené or whatever we’re doing. Like just respect for everyone all the time. I love that trait.

BB: Yeah. I think that’s true.

Ashley: It’s totally true.

BB: Hey, Mom came from really, really hard shit.

Ashley: She did.

BB: Poverty, addiction, abuse. Like hard, hard, hard, hard. She clawed her way out of it and got help and, yeah. I mean, I think that lesson of never look away from someone’s pain, that when people are in pain look them in the eye. Like, Jesus Christ, we were the first people at every funeral where someone died, four hours later, we’re there with casseroles. We’re like, “Oh my God, Mom, I’m not going to know what to say.” Even awful deaths, which there seems to be a propensity in our neighborhood growing up. But we were just always there. She’s like, “You just don’t look away. You don’t look away from people in pain. You look them directly in the eye. You share their pain and then when you’re in pain, you look for the brave people that can look at you in the eye.” So I think that’s probably the big lesson from Mom for me.

Barrett: Yeah.

Ashley: I mean, I feel like that lesson, like peel it back one at a time. Because I feel like one of the things that I love that I took from Mom was just like this really big heart in helping others who don’t have resources.

Ashley: Oh, I can remember her like watching the news and calling me and being like, what is this school district doing? What about all the people that are going to be impacted by this? So like this advocacy of people that that needed resources and that needed help and support. Like I do a lot of clinical work with a group of people that have experienced being unhoused and she loved that work so much. Every time I talked about it, she would just like light up because she was doing similar work to that. She wasn’t a therapist, but she was volunteering all over the place.

BB: Because she comes from that.

Ashley: Yeah.

BB: I mean, she just comes from hard. She comes from poverty. She comes from hard, you know, and so yeah, she was brave. She was way before her time.

Barrett: I do think she turned the tanker for us. I mean, 100%, you said it earlier, but I think about that a lot.

Ashley: I feel like she gave me a Harriet Lerner book when I was like 16 and said, “I think it’s time you go to therapy.”

BB: Yeah, same.

Ashley: And that’s when I started group therapy, and I’m pretty sure I was the co-facilitator.

[laughter]

BB: At 16? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Barrett: Oh my gosh.

Ashley: Yeah.

BB: She was maid of honor at my wedding.

Ashley: Oh, I love that so much.

Barrett: Yeah, it’s cool.

BB: Yeah. But we had a more serious relationship. I mean, we would die laughing sometimes, but I’m wondering if I’m a serious person. I always see myself as like Meg Ryan in “French Kiss,” but I’m not. I always see myself as like slapstick funny and, I think I’m funny, I have a good sense of humor, but I think I’m a serious person.

Barrett: You had a different relationship with Mom. I mean, I think it was just a different time. It was like, you know, I think we were 13 when our parents got divorced and you were already in college.

BB: Yeah.

Barrett: You had a very different upbringing than we did.

BB: Yeah.

Barrett: And different relationship with both parents.

BB: Yeah. I think that’s true. I mean, I was 21.

Barrett: Yeah.

Ashley: And you were the first one to like set boundaries and to circle back to shit growing up. Like we got to benefit, the work that you did.

Barrett: Thank you.

BB: You’re welcome.

Ashley: You’re welcome.

[laughter]

Ashley: Yeah, that’s true.

BB: Yeah.

[music]

Barrett: I will say though, before we leave, that one thing that I think it’d be so important just to talk about for a second, is how things changed so dramatically with Mom once we got her in hospice.

BB: Oh, we should talk about that. For any of you that are on this long ass walk with someone you love who has a dementia diagnosis, that it’s not just hospice, but it’s also palliative care. And there’s a difference about whether you qualify for palliative care or hospice. And I think it’s basically like how long you have to live. But during her last hospitalization with COVID, the palliative care team at Methodist here was amazing. And they came and said, “What is the palliative care plan here?” And then they sat down and they explained palliative care with dementia. And they said, so few people access the resources available through your mom’s Medicare and all of those things. So few people access palliative care with dementia patients, much less hospice. And it really changed everything for us.

Ashley: I mean, it was amazing. I mean, social worker every week or every other week, they’re allowed to supply oxygen, which her apartment wasn’t able to do at assisted living.

BB: Yeah. So like every time there was an oxygen issue, an ambulance would have to come get her. And any traumatic event like that for a dementia patient, no matter where you are in that journey of cognitive decline, every traumatic event is such a huge unrecoverable setback.

Ashley: Yeah.

Barrett: Yeah.

BB: And so the ability to have oxygen in the room because of hospice and palliative care, just, we didn’t know. We had no idea.

Barrett: Yeah.

Ashley: They brought a bed that sat up so she could eat.

BB: And bed sores, because she got to the point where she couldn’t get out of bed.

Ashley: I mean, you hear hospice and you just think, “Oh, death is around the corner.” But it could be around the corner or it could be months away. So just check in and see what resources are available and what you can get. Because it was a game changer.

BB: And God bless the people that work in palliative care and hospice.

Barrett: Oh my gosh, yeah.

BB: Those are our heroes for sure. And they were our heroes before our up close personal experience with Mom. And they just have all these trained people in dementia care.

Barrett: And a nurse that was there, what, twice a week? Or at least once a week a nurse would be by to check on her, which was really helpful. I think the continuity of care too that a hospice nurse can provide was helpful.

Ashley: Yeah. It was awesome.

BB: Yeah. So if you’re on that journey…

Barrett: Heart’s out.

BB: Yeah. It’s nothing but a collection of hard choices over and over and over again. And I think the one thing that we did is, and I think this is where our Venn diagram of likeness comes in. Like, I had a really hard confrontation with Mom that y’all were there for. And it was like she was super cruel and terrible. And it was shocking, I think, to y’all and shocking to me. And then I couldn’t see her for like a month. I mean, I came home screaming, crying on the phone with my therapist, like, “What is happening?” And I think it was, if I look back on it, it was, there’s a really terrible moment in the dementia journey where you’re losing control of your body. And I mean, you’re having accidents in your pants. Those things are happening, but you know enough to be humiliated and feel shame.

BB: And so I was an easy target, you know? Which is kind of part of the family story a little bit.

Ashley: Yeah. Totally.

BB: Because I’m the oldest and so I remember telling my therapist, like, “I just don’t think I can go back.” And she’s like, “You don’t need to go back.” And I said, I mean, “I may never be able to go back.” And she’s like, “You don’t ever have to go back.” And I remember calling y’all on a three-way call, which we did a lot then, and said, “I can’t go back right now.” And they’re like, “Don’t go back. We’ll go back.” Or, you know, like we tapped, I think every one of us tapped out.

Barrett: Oh yeah. Yep.

Ashley: Yes, for sure.

BB: Like month long tap outs during this thing where I just can’t do it right now. And so, again, we’re so lucky because we have each other.

Ashley: Yes, we do.

BB: And we also, I think because we all study shame and we work in that area and we know that like shame around caregiving, people really struggle with the idea that one day they’re like, “It’s a privilege to take care of you. It’s a privilege to get you undressed and put you in the shower and shower you and do this thing.” And then the next day you’re like, “I hate your guts, and I wish you would die tomorrow. Because I can’t keep doing this. I’m going to lose my job. My marriage is falling apart, my kids are sick.” And I think we were very shame resilient around that. We knew all that was normal.

Ashley: And we checked in with each other if we were making up that kind of a story.

BB: Yeah.

Barrett: Yeah.

BB: Yeah.

Ashley: The normalizing of it was so helpful.

BB: Yeah. Am I the asshole if…

Ashley: Yeah. For real.

Barrett: Yeah. Totally.

BB: Yeah. And we were like, no, dementia’s the asshole here.

Ashley: Yes.

Barrett: For sure.

BB: Yeah. And so I think that was really, and if you’re by yourself doing this, but just think of us maybe if it’s helpful, like… And I still, we still haven’t written thank you notes.

Ashley: There’s a lot we haven’t done with mom stuff that we…

BB: I haven’t been in, I haven’t been wanting, like I got all this stuff out and I put it on the ping pong table in our house and it has been there for like six months. If Steve leaves something on the kitchen counter for more than two hours, I’m like, “This does not live here.” And you know, and he just walks by. I mean, there’s boxes of shit everywhere. And he just walks by and smiles and, you know, pats me on the butt and…

[laughter]

BB: Yeah. One day it’s all going to be gone and it’s going to be better. But like, I think it’s hard.

Ashley: Yeah. And like I’ve been thinking about Christmas because she has so many Christmas ornaments that have a lot of memories wrapped around them.

BB: Where are those?

Ashley: At your house, storage, somewhere.

Barrett: I got the air quote storage. [chuckle] No, they are at your house.

BB: Yeah. I mean…

[laughter]

BB: This is the bad part of us that, when my mom would say, ‘Wait, where’s this?” We’d go “Storage.”

Barrett: Storage.

[laughter]

Ashley: Yeah.

BB: Air-controlled storage.

Ashley: She’d be like, “I had this ring that had like a pink something on it.” We’re like “Storage.” “My file…” “Storage.”

[laughter]

BB: Oh, we inherited her like pathological, obsessive compulsive collection of office supplies. Let me tell you, clean out her house, that’ll cure you of that shit in a heartbeat.

Barrett: Holy shit. Yep. Oh my gosh. I got one pack of pens at a time. That’s it.

BB: Yeah, that’s it. I got post-it notes in one color. Yeah. Yeah. That’s it. Like you saw that and you’re thinking, “Wow, not only did she collect a lot of stuff, she had a label maker and she named that stuff.”

[laughter]

Barrett: Oh my god. Container store, she probably could have opened up her own.

BB: Yeah. Yeah. That’s a good part of her though, I think.

Barrett: Yeah.

Ashley: I was looking on Anthropologie to get a new bedspread, comforter, whatever. And I was like, every one of them was like, “Oh, this looks just like Mom.” Like big, wild colors, and…

BB: When I was going through the box, her laminator was in there.

Barrett: Oh my gosh.

[laughter]

Ashley: I mean, I can’t tell you how many times I borrowed it. Like, yes.

[laughter]

BB: I’m sure as a school teacher. Yeah. But my worst laminator story with Mom was when I was in graduate school, she gave me a part-time job in drywall, because she was an, she was…

[laughter]

Barrett: We should just stop there.

BB: Yeah.

Ashley: We’ve all worked for the drywall companies.

BB: Yeah. She was the controller for a commercial drywall company. And so she would give me part-time work. Like I would do the progressive billing. And for those of you that know anything about construction billing before there was a computer program, it was so hairy and terrible. But I would do it. And that’s how I like paid for my MSW and part of my PhD. Like I would have this part-time job. And one day I was having to laminate a lot of shit for her. And I got really bored.

[laughter]

BB: And I was like, “Oh my god, oh my god.” And Mom came running in and she was… “Brené, what’s wrong?” And I was like, “Oh god, just leave.” And she goes, “What is wrong? Are you okay?” And I was like, “No, you’ve got to leave.” She said, “I’m not leaving. I’m not leaving.” And she said, “What did you do? What are you hiding?”

[laughter]

BB: And I said, “I wanted to see what would happen if I laminated my gum.”

[laughter]

BB: I took it out of my mouth, like a big ass piece of Hubba Bubba.

Barrett: Oh my god.

BB: It came out of the sides, and it just broke the whole laminator like, yeah.

Barrett: Oh my gosh.

[laughter]

BB: I was like 27.

Ashley: You were working in her closet, were you?

BB: Yeah, I was working in her closet in her office. And she was like, “We’re not going to tell anybody about this.”

Ashley: You’re like, you know who you are if you had to buy a new laminator. Right? Yeah.

BB: And then she ran out and said, “Brené laminator Hubba Bubba.” You know, it was like construction awful. Like “Why? What? Did it work? What happened?”

[laughter]

[music]

BB: All right y’all, this is Unlocking Us, where sophisticated conversations… You can learn more about this episode, like how to laminate your gum, on brenebrown.com.

[laughter]

Barrett: How to capture a red bird.

BB: Yeah. How to capture a wild red bird. Place it in a natural habitat.

[laughter]

Barrett: My God!

[laughter]

Ashley: Y’all can’t see me without flipping her off.

BB: She is giving me the double bird. Anyway, we’ll have transcripts…

Ashley: I’ll do like Mom style without any bird, without any wings.

BB: Mom’s flip off was the worst. There’s something vulgar about a bird without wings.

[laughter]

Ashley: Really is…

BB: It’s just so ugly. I think the wings soften it a little bit. Anyway, that’s us. Stay…

Ashley: Can’t wait for the next time.

BB: Yeah. Stay awkward, brave, and kind.

[music]

BB: Unlocking Us is produced by Brené Brown Education and Research Group. The music is by Carrie Rodriguez and Gina Chavez. Get new episodes as soon as they’re published by following Unlocking Us on your favorite podcast app. We are part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Discover more award-winning shows at podcasts.voxmedia.com.

© 2024Brené Brown Education and Research Group, LLC. All rights reserved.