Just Show Up: Guys and Grief with Andy Cohen

Hey, I’m Andy Cohen. You might know me from Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen or my radio channel, Radio Andy. Even if you don’t recognize me, you probably know at least one of the Real Housewives. Hopefully.

Speaking of reality, there seems to be a lot of it going around right now.

I got a dose of it when I became sick with COVID-19. I survived, and the experience left me with a keen sense of my own mortality and a deep appreciation for life.

But what if I hadn’t made it?

My friend Anderson Cooper has said that when there is a sudden death, people sometimes end up focusing on the way someone died instead of the way they lived.

I think about that and wonder: If I had died from COVID, is that what people would have focused on? Is that how I would have been remembered?

I sure hope not.

For the many people who have died during this pandemic, it is important that their ending does not become their whole story. Their story is who they were, who loved them, what they were passionate about, and the joke they could never tell correctly.

I, for instance, would still have been the same flawed but semi-endearing guy I always was.

Frankly, that is how I want to be remembered. I don’t want to be remembered as a perfect person, a victim, or a role model. I want to be remembered as someone who figured out that my flaws were a big part of what made me who I am.

A huge part of what I love about creating reality television is that I get to help other people feel good about being themselves, warts and all. Or should I say beauty marks?

From my experience working with so many women in reality television, I have found that women tend to be more open to being themselves. Granted, they do it with a lot more hair and makeup, but they are emotionally true to who they are.

That can be harder for men. We are raised to feel uncomfortable with vulnerability. We don’t tend to spend much time reflecting on or processing painful experiences.

By the way, this applies to most guys: gay, straight, red state, blue state.

Wow, that sounded a little like Dr. Seuss. I read a lot of children’s books to my son.

Every once in a while, though, guys open up. Do you know what happens when they do?

Other guys breathe a sigh of relief. They are given permission to feel for a moment.

That happened during a conversation between Anderson Cooper and Stephen Colbert that went viral. I love this conversation. It was about love, grief, and a letter Stephen wrote to Anderson after Anderson’s mother died.

I won’t say more because I won’t do it justice. You should search for it and watch it. It is incredibly impactful.

I have two takeaways from the reaction to that conversation.

First, guys need to talk to one another about death, grief, and loss.

Second, maybe we should show more of those conversations on television.

Perhaps the images and stories we create about men, and for men, in popular culture are not giving us the language we need or showing us how to be there for people experiencing difficult things.

Of course, this isn’t only about men.

In America, we often don’t know what to say or do when we, or someone we care about, experience death and grief. We don’t yet have what Anderson calls “the language of loss.”

That is beginning to change.

The way we treat ourselves and one another as we integrate this pandemic into our lives is literally shaping the culture around us.

Are we kind to ourselves as we deal with the sometimes unbearable stress of it all?

Are we kind to others?

Do we remember that the jerk who just cut us off might be dealing with fear, pain, or loss of their own?

Do we call the people we love? Are we kind to the people we don’t know?

Do we allow our 3:00 a.m. fears to infect our days, our interactions, our politics, and our communities?

Or do we wake up openhearted and approach each day, and each person, as a possibility for love and connection?

This is bigger than our personal legacies.

When people in the future look back on this time, what will they say about us?

I hope they will say that these people met a series of incredibly difficult challenges with grace, love, and humor.

And in doing so, they created a better culture than the one that came before.