During a recent appearance on Anderson Cooper’s podcast All There Is, Late Night host Stephen Colbert opened up about how he’s learned to embrace and even come to love his grief.
Colbert has had more than his fair share of grief. When he was 10 years old, he lost his father and two of his older brothers in a plane crash.
“That is such a cliff that I fell off emotionally and psychically and spiritually at that age,” Colbert said.
Colbert shared that while the loss shattered his family’s lives, it didn’t destroy them.
“It’s a gift to exist, and with existence comes suffering,” he said. “There’s no escaping that, but if you are grateful for your life, then you have to be grateful for all of it. You can’t win against grief because you’re the one doing it to you. Grief itself is a natural process that has to be experienced.”
This isn’t the first time Colbert and Cooper have sat down to talk about grief. Back in 2019, the pair discussed at length “what punishments of God are not gifts?” Now, a few years later, he seems to have an even deeper appreciation for the trials of his life.
Colbert shared with Cooper that he has learned to “love the thing you most wish had never happened” by reframing his grief.
“It’s like living with a beloved tiger,” Colbert said. “It can surprise you, it can pounce on you. And it can really hurt you, but it’s my tiger, and it’s going to live as long as I do.”
The whole conversation is worth a listen.
