GriefStrike! (Terrible Reading Club)
Grieving is a lonely experience. Many of us who have been through it wish there was a handbook to lead us through the experience. When comedy writer Jason Roeder lost his mom, he decided to write the guidebook that he wanted to read.
This episode of Terrible Reading Club is a chat with Jason about his book Griefstrike!, a humorous guide to grief.
Jason Roeder is comedy writer, and is the former senior writer and editor of The Onion.
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Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.
I’m Nora McInerny. Welcome back to the Terrible Reading Club…a very loosely organized/disorganized group of people who like to listen to people talk about reading. I describe these books as great books for terrible times, and today’s author wrote a book of…jokes and funny stories about the grief he felt after his mom died.
Jason: That's kind of how I see it- written by someone who's been there, but does not have the qualifications, does not have the credentials to really address grief in a therapeutic way, although if it is of use to you and some people have said that, that is fantastic, that is an amazing side effect of the book.
That’s Jason Roeder, a writer for places like McSweeney’s and the Onion. He’s actually the writer behind many of what I think are the Onion’s best and funniest headlines, including the iconic Onion headline “No Way To Prevent This,' Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens.” He was writing, of course, about mass shootings.
So you can tell today’s episode is going to be a laugh a minute! But actually, it might be. Because Jason’s book is called GriefStrike! The Ultimate Guide to Mourning. And it is…the funniest book about grief that has ever, and will ever, exist.
I get sent a lot of grief books. Like, lots of them. Maybe because of the name of this podcast, maybe because I wrote one grief book, maybe because I’ve experienced grief. And I…don’t always want to read them, honestly. I wasn’t in the space to read ANY of the grief books I was given when I was in the throes of it. I wasn’t. And I’m not really in a space to read a lot of them now, and so I respectfully and kindly pass on getting an advanced copy. But this book? I have never asked for a copy of a grief book faster than I asked for this one. I read it on an airplane and I was CERTAIN that I was going to be escorted off the flight by an air marshal because I was laughing so hard. It felt like getting the giggles in church and the harder I tried not to laugh, the harder I laughed.
In other words, this book is great, and if you have lived through losing a person you love…I have a feeling it will make you laugh, too. More importantly, it promises huge results, including:
Jason: 38% more confidence of somehow making it out of this. 48% less mind body dilapidation, 63% better gravesite posture, sobbing, 18% less convulsive. 49% more success keeping it together till you get to the parking lot. 21% less wishing it were you. 94% more wishing you were some stranger, 50% less wondering what they're doing now, if anything, 88% less likelihood of channeling anguish into artistic project for which you are not at all suited and 52% less regret over a eulogy that lacked certain pizzazz.
Jason: I mean, these are just facts. That's a thing. This isn't hype. This is just truth that people can benefit from.
Nora: Yeah, and I mean, if you can get to 18% less convulsive sobbing. That's something.
Jason: No one's done that. No one's done that.
Nora: I would love for you to tell our listeners what makes your grief book superior to all others.
Jason: That's a good question. Well, I think a lot of other grief books are sort of, sort of laden with sincerity and expertise. And I think, you know, a lot of people who are going through grief, they don't really need those things or want those things. And so I thought, well, let's write a book that's mostly jokes. Um, I think a book like that caters to that very specific audience. And so that's what I did. So it's, it's a resource of, of a sort, but it's really more of sort of an insane companion.
Nora: Before you became a leader in the grief space, which I think it's safe to say you are at this point, what was your experience with grief and grief books?
Jason: I didn't have a lot. I mean, my grandmothers had passed away, and I attended their funerals and of course, those were sad. But it's different when you're a teenager and your grandmother dies. A friend of mine died in high school. That was a bit more traumatic because he died suddenly, obviously. He was hit by a car, actually. And it was my first and only experience with an open casket funeral. Did not see that coming because Jewish funerals are pretty much all closed casket. And so just strolling in there and ‘Oh, there he is’ was was pretty heavy. Beyond that, not really. And then when my mother died, I didn't really buy books. I just kind of it's kind of toward the Internet to find resources that seemed like a capable person was behind them. Although who even knows? Who even knows what kind of psychopath is telling you how to sort of manage your emotions. But there is good advice out there, although I just grabbed it like I'm just foraging. I'm just like grabbing at the way like an animal might grab berries in the forest, you know, that kind of thing.
Nora: One part of your book that I love, I do love the little sincerity corners. I loved knowing these little insights about who your mother was specifically, that she would badmouth any writer or any late night host who didn't hire you. I fully agree. That's the kind of mother that I aspire to be. That's the kind of mother in law that I have. By the way, I have two mothers in law where anyone who doesn't like me has bad taste. And I love that!
Jason: Oh, yeah, they're fatally flawed. My mother was a, she loved Jay Leno. And I applied to the applied to every show at a certain moment. But I, I didn't get the job. And she had this deep sense of betrayal. How can someone she admired not recognize what was within her son? So it was a real moment for her.
And Jasons’ mom was more than just a Jay Leno hater. When we come back, he’s going to tell us more about her.
[Break]
Any grieving person can tell you that what they don’t want you to ask is “how did he die? Tell me everything and spare no details.” What we want you to ask is something more like this…
Nora: I want to hear more about your mom. Tell me about your mom.
Jason: Well, she was a nurse, which I think I mentioned in the book. She was a sort of roving geriatric nurse. So this was in South Florida. So there's no shortage of the elderly, no shortage of people who need their dressings changed or their catheters reinserted. And she did it all like she got down and dirty. You know, her trunk was filled with catheters and gauze and disinfectant. And she would drive. Everywhere, every neighborhood from the condos to trailer parks. And she worked really long hours. She would leave the house. She'd wake me up at 5:30 to tell me she was leaving and what chores had to be done.
Jason: You know, she she really cared about these people who sometimes were not the nicest to her. So, I mean, you know, I guess this is kind of a saintly portrayal, but it's accurate?
Jason: And even when she started getting sick, she kept working. She kept, like, ministering to people. I think to the extent I'm kind to anybody, that's where it comes from. My dad is very nice, too, which is not to say my dad is an ogre. He is not at all. He's a nice man. But I like to think that rubbed off on me. And I learned something about how to be with people from her.
Nora: Yeah, I think it's easy to sort of sanctify the dead. But sometimes people who died just were good too. Good people die, unfortunately. Right. Bad people do live forever. I will, I'll say that.
Nora: That's an irritating thing. That's irritating thing about having someone that you love who was lovely, die. My dad's dead and, you know, and he was complicated. So, you know, people had mixed feelings for my dad. But I thought he was. I liked him a lot. And he also had some flaws. But my husband was just, like, truly across the board Great. Like, funny, kind, made everyone feel, like, good about wherever they were. Made people feel like, you know, the party could not have possibly started until they arrived. Even if the party was like, you know, the line for the impound lot to get your car back. Like, he was just that kind of person. And I could not stop looking around at all the bastards I knew and being like. You're still here.
Jason: Right. You're just going to keep persisting, aren't you? Okay. Okay. [Nora: Okay.] Yeah. So you're going to make it to 97. Clearly. And, you know, and. And all these other people aren't.
Nora: Yeah, I think also, you mentioned your mom was just, she was in a caring profession and she was also a caring person. Those things don't necessarily always go together.
Jason: No, not at all.
Nora: I wonder how that work, working with the elderly, working with people who are at the end of their lives affected her… sense of her own mortality or informed, you know, the decisions around her end of life care or the way she wanted to be remembered or memorialized.
Jason: I think the work that she did gave her insights that probably made her feel more comfortable in certain settings. But after a while, she just wants to go home, you know, like she knew hospitals well enough to know she did not want to be there. And, you know, maybe maybe having inside knowledge, maybe it's more of a hindrance than a help. Maybe it exacerbates your fear because you sort of understand things. People can't slip things by you. They can't like, you know, they can't evade the way they might be able to deal with someone like me.
Nora: I at one point in time, I don't even think anyone said this, but I told my husband that he was getting like a vitamin IV. He was getting chemo. I had no idea.
Jason: Oh, really?
Nora: I mentioned it to his- every week! And I mentioned it to his doctor, and he was like. What do you think? Well, whatever. He believed it, and so did I. And he leaves feeling great. So maybe just let us believe.
Jason: Right.
Nora: He’s like, you think he comes here for vitamins? I was like, I don't know. I didn't write anything down. How would I, how would I know?
Jason: It looks like vitamins! It's, you know, it's happy serum. I mean, there you go.
Nora: And, and I told him that and I'm not walking it back. So you can, you can fact check. [Jason: right] You can do that if you feel it's necessary. But I do think that there is a benefit to being dumb. There's a benefit to being dumb. Especially in the face of, of our own mortality and just the end of our lives. Like, I would love to maintain my dummy-ness right up until the end. That's what I would like. That's my dream.
Jason: I think so, too. I mean, I think I would like to. I would have maybe like six months of runway, just sort of get my affairs in order and to maybe do you know one or two of the things on my list that I would like to do of the hundreds I will never get to. But I would love to just kind of, given that window just kind of drift away? [Nora: Yeah]. Watching. Watching TV, you know. Or something.
Nora: Yes! I want to watch Real Housewives. Only old seasons where I know what's going to happen. [Jason: Right]. Revisit a simpler time. Revisit 2008. Revisit 2009. Revisit those, those glory days. That's what I would like to do. It would not take me six months to get my affairs in order. And that's not a brag. I simply do not have that many affairs. It would just be. Everyone knows my passwords. It's always the same one. I’m easily robbable.
Jason: Well, I, I could be a flattering myself. It's possible I could wrap it up in a day. It's possible I could wake up early. I can wake up at seven and it's all sorted by seven the same day. It could be, the more I think about it, the more, the more that window starts to narrow, actually.
Nora: I was like, six, six months?
Jason: Yeah, six months. What am I doing?
Nora: What do you have? A complicated estate. Okay! How many properties are involved? How many heirs?
Jason: I have, I have a one bedroom apartment and a cat and a girlfriend and I think the inventory's just about done. Yeah.
We’ll be right back
break
So I’ve said this a million times this episode, but Jason’s book, Griefstrike is so funny. But he does let us in a little into the struggles he had while grieving- and that’s something I wanted to talk about with him in person.
Jason: I think there were moments when I wondered if I was doing it right. Feeling it deeply enough, which I know is is not uncommon. Right. At my mother's funeral, I was. I was pretty much dissociating. You know, that was my experience of it. I was there, but I was also self being there. Which is my lifelong coping mechanism. And so it's familiar to me. But, you know, there were people who were, of course, sobbing and I thought, wow, it. Why isn't that me? Isn't that supposed to be me? I feel like it should be me. I feel like that person. But I'm not. I'm probably doing a bad thing. I'm probably being a bad son, a dishonorable son. And I understood it even then that people are different and they will process what is going on in their own way. And…you know like in the year since like, certain things will really devastate me that are unexpected, like. You know, I have her voicemails saved. And it's like she's calling because she's on her way to the mall to get a new cell phone because she can't get it to work. And, you know, that just destroys me. But, there was a period when I thought I was a bad griever and a disrespectful one. Even when I was writing the book, I'm like, Well, why is it that I have the capacity to do this? Shouldn't I not be able to do this? Maybe I'm bad for being able to and I get it. I get it now and I get it. I got it then too. But there were still that emotional. You know, sense of, I guess, guilt that like how, how can I do this? Well, you can do it because you're just who you are. And that's, you know, the only explanation required.
Nora: One of my favorite parts of the book was about shopping for caskets.
Jason: Oh, yeah. Guess this is standard, but I did not know this was the situation. I mean, most of what I knew about funerals, like most people's, from movies. And so someone dies, and then there's a cut, and then everyone's in a chapel. And then it's like, well, someone has to buy that thing. And that was my father and I. And there's an actual PowerPoint. They actually boot up PowerPoint. And you can, there are all kinds of very delightful caskets you can choose from. And even then, it's like, well, you could buy anything from a, a wooden box.
Nora: A coffin. We learned…because my brother kept going like this and going, He wants a Dracula box. Right, it’s like this. The woman was like, That's a coffin. She did not love me and my brothers at all.
Jason: It's like you're just shopping, you know, you're shopping on Amazon, you're picking out features, you're picking out frills.
Nora: The features, the features! Because you're like, I don't know. Like and the silk on the inside, you're like, that would be nice. I feel like, doesn't my mom deserve silk? We haven't buried my mom yet. My mom would not want silk. She would want a coffin like my dad made by Trappist monks in Iowa. No frills. My grandpa was buried in a literal pine box.
Jason: That was the first option. And like, No, Mom is not pine box material. She's mahogany at least, you know. And, because once you upgrade from that, then it's like, well the woman in question would frown on this. She doesn't want like 30 oak trees to have been felled, you know, for her casket. And then with like, gold handles and scroll work done by like artisans in rustic Italy. You know, she doesn't want that.
Nora: She wants something nice but tasteful. I don't know, I don't want to project like, did your mom drive like a, like a Camry, by any chance?
Jason: Yes, she did. What did I mention that…?. I didn't mention that in the book. I don't think so.
Nora: I just. She sounds like a Camry kind of. gal
Jason: Yeah, that was, that's what I associate her with most.
Nora: It's a great car! It’s a nice car!
Jason: It's a nice car.
Nora: It's not flashy, okay.
Jason: No, it's a great car for spending all day in. Which is what she did.
Nora: So you got your mom a Camry?
Jason: We buried her in a Camry, actually. Yeah, it was. It was unorthodox, but they can do anything, you know? And Toyota paid for part of it. It was nice.
Nora: They get they get first placement on the headstone.
Jason: They do that. They do. You do have. She does have the Toyota logo on the headstone. which is unusual, but.
Nora: You know, gathered here today in honor of Toyotathon. And Jason's Mom.
Jason: These savings won't last. Just as life itself will not last. Yeah, getting the rabbi to say that, it was difficult.
And even if you CAN get a sponsor for the funeral, you still have to find a place to, you know, put your loved one.
Nora: You have to pick a place. And my husband did not want to be buried because he thought it was weird. And also he was like, Oh, man, what are you going to do, like bring our kid and be like, huh.
Jason: There he is, pointing at the ground. Yeah.
Nora: Yeah. There he is. So I dumped him in. I mean, he was cremated, so I didn't know what was left. The little bone rocks, the little bone dust. I just put it in a river. I just put it in a river. And so he's sort of everywhere. Nowhere.
Jason’s mom was buried, so after picking out the Mahogany casket, they had to pick out a plot in a cemetery. Which, if picking out caskets felt like shopping on Amazon to Jason, picking out a plot felt like buying real estate.
Jason: The lagoon view was like, oh, $20,000. And that's like you're just you're just on the shores of this lagoon and. She would not have liked that. But we did find a spot that was… you could see the lagoon. I mean, it's near it, but it's not right there. And it costs a lot less. And there's a bench nearby and there is a shady tree. So it's a nice spot. There are lots of opportunities to be upsold. And that was one of them. Like, do you want them with a view of this body of water. And it's like, well, they don't really have a view of anything. I mean, they all have the same view in a sense. But where we were, though, like when people come to visit her, this is Florida. So she's in the shade, which is important. There's a bench so people can, can sit. And so it's actually a good spot for, for people who come to see her.
Nora: I want to talk a little bit about grief etiquette. Because they're kind of like is none, right.
Nora: So I don't know if you saw an excerpt of this on, on the Internet and it's varied iterations, but New York magazine coastal elites came out with a bunch of rules about etiquette. And number 14 was do not send an edible arrangement.
Jason: You mean in this circumstance?
Nora: In any circumstance. It basically was like it was like nothing. And nobody wants it. They suggested sending a griever a roast turkey.
Jason: Interesting.
Nora: Over fruit. On skewers displayed in a pleasing way and often dipped in chocolate. I had a strong reaction to that. I loved my edible arrangement and I guess I just am putting you on the spot to see where you would land on this kind of hot button issue.
Jason: Well, first of all, most gestures are appreciated because the gesture was made. But, you know, I remember when I came back from Florida after I was there for like two months and I had no food in the house and I was ravenous. And, you know, someone had sent me cookies and I just, like, ate them all immediately. So anything edible sent my way was appreciated. A turkey would be fine. An edible arrangement, sure. I will take some melons shaped into tulips. Why not? Like I'm not going to object. [Nora: Why not?] It's not some breach in etiquette. It's not problematic at all. It's like, great. It's nourishment. They seem to foresee that I would be short of food and maybe not in the, in the frame of mind to cook. But no, I would not have to add that to some taboo list of things not to receive.
Nora: Yeah, I was really upset by it. And if anything, I was upset that I did not receive enough edible arrangements. Like, I'm not cooking for myself. It was like, the only thing because it was right there, you know?
Jason: The real danger is just expecting them all the time. You know, you serve, wake up and like, where's my strawberry rose? And then you start to resent the fact you don't have it. And, um, yeah, it's just a slippery slope that. That's the only danger that. That I can perceive. Yeah.
Nora: This book, even though it's so, so funny There is also so much sincerity behind it. You can't write about, you know, picking out a casket for your mom without having first lived through it. Right. Or, you know, or trying to, you know, memorialize somebody or eulogize somebody without first attempting to do it. And I'm wondering what writing this book did to for your grief.
Jason: I wrote it during the pandemic. My mother died at the end of August in 2019.
Jason: I was wondering, what am I going to do with myself? I wasn't working. I wasn't seeing people except my girlfriend. So it it allowed me to, I think, regulate my grief, my emotions in general. I could write jokes, which was a source of pleasure. It's also a problem to solve, which is something I like about it. And so I could sort of enjoy those aspects of it. Doing that allowed me to sort of, not keep my feelings at bay. That's kind of impossible. But just to kind of you know, keep them at arm's length for a time. I could push them aside when I just didn't want to spend all day with them. So that's, I think, what it did for me. I would like to say that I have a really deep, deep understanding of it having written the book, but I'm not sure. I think that's just a longer process, I think the book's function primarily was just to protect me, I think, in a way. The deeper insights are sort of coming or hopefully will come…now, right now. Or you know, into the future.
Nora: I think this book, whether or not you intended it to be, is a kind of memorial to your mother and to the kind of love she gave you and the kind of person that she raised. She's so proud of how funny you are and this book is so, so funny. But there are so many moments of sincerity, and I would love to get your thoughts on memorials.
Jason: This is just a little section called You Are The Memorial.
Jason: So just so you know, I yeah, I'm not a great performer slash reader. So if you want to dub in a British audiobook reader from Audible, I would not object at all.
MUSIC
Jason: In the end, your memorial may be as simple as allowing your loved one's example to guide you to gently take control of higher functioning in your brain like an alien parasite that literally nourishes itself on thought. Think of the qualities that a major loved one, a person worth grieving for in the first place, and not some rando who kind of has your nose, but who could burst into flame in front of you and not alter your plans for cosmic bowling. We're not necessarily talking big ticket triumphs either. It's not about climbing a mountain they climbed or evading an international manhunt. They evaded, but maybe just their kindness or their generosity. Asking yourself what your loved one would do is a way to keep them alive. Time and time again, when you check on the elderly neighbor you ordinarily would have left alone until you heard horrible groans through the walls or build a wheelchair for an injured mouse that has no idea what the fuck to do with it. You'll know you're not doing it alone. What could be a better tribute than that?