podcast
All There Is with Anderson Cooper
Grief can feel so lonely but talking about it and listening to others share their experiences helps. In all new episodes of this award-winning podcast, Anderson Cooper continues his deeply personal exploration of grief in all its complexities. In moving and honest discussions, he learns from others who have faced life-altering losses. Join the community to share your story and watch Anderson's weekly streaming show All There Is Live at cnn.com/allthereis
Tig Notaro: Finding What Matters
All There Is with Anderson Cooper
Nov 19, 2025
Comedian Tig Notaro recently witnessed the death of her friend, poet Andrea Gibson, after a years-long battle with cancer. Being by Andrea's bedside was a profound experience for Tig and she talks about its impact on her in this moving and at times funny conversation. Join the community to share your story and watch Anderson's weekly streaming show All There Is Live at cnn.com/allthereis.
Host: Anderson Cooper
Showrunner: Haley Thomas
Producers: Chuck Hadad, Grace Walker, Emily Williams
Associate Producer: Kyra Dahring
Video Editor: Eric Zembrzuski
Technical Director: Dan Dzula
Bookers: Kerry Rubin and Kari Pricher
Episode Transcript
Anderson Cooper
00:00:01
Why did no one tell us that to die is to be reincarnated in those we love while they're still alive? Poet Andrea Gibson, who died this summer, wrote those words. Tig Notaro was there when Andrea Gibson died and we'll talk to her about what she witnessed and how it's made Tig rethink her own life. That's coming up on this episode of All There Is. This past week, I interviewed two people who also witnessed the deaths of their loved ones. Susan Heim's son, Charlie, died at 17. He died in her arms this summer, around the same time Andrea Gibson died. Susan had cared for Charlie his whole life. He had down syndrome and cerebral palsy. Joe Simms cared for his son, Jacob, for 33 years. He also had special needs. Jacob died six years ago. And I want to play you some of what Joe said on All There Is Live, the companion show to this podcast.
Joe Simms
00:00:59
One of the things that Jacob loved to do was go on road trips. He loved nature. He loved being outside. He loved, I like, I love putting his feet in a creek and let him feel the cool water. And I even took him near by one of the waterfalls and he felt the mist of the Water. I think that was his best time when he was doing that. Even though he lived to only 33, he had a full life, and then it ends. You don't know what you're supposed to do. You lose yourself because your whole identity is wrapped around his every moment. And you hit the wall. And then he passed away on a Tuesday and my wife and I were lost on Wednesday. We wandered around for months, trying to figure out our life without him. There's some days that I still feel the fog. And then there's other days I can see out of the fog, and I think that's what my son would want. I don't want to stop grieving though, honestly, Anderson. I don't want to start grieving. I think the grieving is healthy. It keeps me in touch with them. I've talked to him every day still.
Anderson Cooper
00:02:14
You feel him in your grief.
Joe Simms
00:02:16
Oh, big time, sure. Yeah, just like you do with your grief. And it's weird to say this, but I'm happy that I'm sad at times. I'm happy I still have that. It's not supposed to go away. It just isn't. You're supposed to be able to live with it and still have a good life and a happy life and still grieve. You can live with both.
Anderson Cooper
00:02:38
Can you say Jacob's full name so that everybody listening hears it?
Joe Simms
00:02:43
It's Jacob David Simms, born in Phoenix, Arizona, in 1986, January 17th. His birthday's coming up.
Anderson Cooper
00:02:53
Maybe everybody at home who's watching could repeat the name, just so that everybody tonight is speaking his name out there into the universe. Jacob David Simms.
Joe Simms
00:03:07
I appreciate that. Thank you.
Anderson Cooper
00:03:09
In a moment, my conversation with Tig Notaro. My guest today is comedian, cancer survivor Tig Notaro. I spoke to Tig just days after she'd attended a memorial in celebration of life for her longtime friend, the spoken word poet Andrea Gibson. Andrea died July 14th. They were 49 years old. Andrea, who used the pronouns they and them, was diagnosed four years ago with stage four ovarian cancer. When Andrea died, Tig was there, in the home that Andrea shared with their wife, Megan Fowley. Tig is also a producer on an incredibly moving documentary that follows Andrea and Megan through Andrea's illness. The film is called Come See Me in the Good Light, and you can watch it streaming on Apple TV right now. I played part of the film with Tig when she sat down, and I want you to hear Andrea's words. I want to you to meet Andrea Gibson.
Andrea Gibson
00:04:08
I feel like I lived so much longer in these last years than I did all the years before. Wow! Wow, I got this life, and I know I'm not gonna die today, like I feel pretty certain. So wow, like wow, I get tomorrow too. So, what happens next? I don't know. I want to live in the mystery, you know? I want my very last second to be like... damn, I wish I had a million more of these.
Anderson Cooper
00:05:07
Do you feel like that is what Andrea's seconds were like?
Tig Notaro
00:05:12
No doubt. And man, hearing Andrea's voice, it's tough... um, I think...
Anderson Cooper
00:05:27
It's still so recent too.
Tig Notaro
00:05:28
It's very recent, but hearing Andrea just now was... I just can't stand that Andrea is gone.
Anderson Cooper
00:05:45
Today is actually Andrea's birthday.
Tig Notaro
00:05:49
Andrea Gibson turned 50 years old today. Yeah, almost made it.
Anderson Cooper
00:05:55
How did you meet Andrea?
Tig Notaro
00:05:57
When I left Texas as a teenager, I dropped out of high school and moved to Colorado and I met Andrea backstage at this theater called Old Main.
Anderson Cooper
00:06:07
Andrew was already doing spoken word.
Tig Notaro
00:06:10
Andrea looked like a rock star, tattoos, just, to find out Andrea was a poet, it was not my world and I was in comedy at the time, but a poet. I was like, okay, I'm listening. And then Andrea went on stage and leveled the place. I was stunned. I didn't know that was poetry. I didn't know poetry could look like that. But that's how Andrea's shows were. It was just like so intense, so you could be crying. And then, Andrea was one of the funniest, most ridiculous people. And that's where I fully connected.
Anderson Cooper
00:06:55
Meg said at one point that she didn't want to grieve while Andrea was alive. She was intentionally not going down that road. Do you feel like you have already been grieving Andrea before Andrea died?
Tig Notaro
00:07:14
'Yes, yes, for sure. It was also very confusing. I feel like I'm very grounded, and then I find myself in these moments of life where I'm like, maybe Andrea is lying about having cancer. You know, like a, you know, you hear-
Anderson Cooper
00:07:35
Like in some weird Netflix documentary.
Tig Notaro
00:07:36
Well, yeah, you hear stories about people lying. And I was like, man, that would be the greatest ending to the story is just to find out my friend has deep trauma and lied about this. And let's dig in and figure that out. It didn't feel possible for Andrea to not be alive in this physical world.
Anderson Cooper
00:08:06
Does it feel different than you expected it to be?
Tig Notaro
00:08:08
I think it's definitely different. I didn't expect to feel Andrea so much.
Anderson Cooper
00:08:14
Andrea's presence, still.
Tig Notaro
00:08:17
'Yeah. I mean, I've lost my mother, my father, my stepfather, my cousin. I've lost many friends and colleagues. I have to say, it's really the first time I've experienced a death in the way that I have, where I really feel Andrea, and I don't know what that... is. But the grief I feel, you know how tricky it is. You go about your day and you're doing all right, and then all of a sudden a truck parks itself on your chest and you can't do anything. It's so confusing that Andrea is gone. Like, I was just at their memorial in Denver a couple of nights ago, and it really just felt like we were at a party for Andrea. I mean, it was devastating and poets from every corner of the globe came in to read Andrea's poetry and it was a - this is gonna sound crazy a greatest hits night. I mean god - they're hits. It's hit poetry. I don't what am I saying? But it's true. It was just so beautiful
Anderson Cooper
00:09:25
As you said, you've experienced grief before your mom died and then very shortly after that, you got cancer.
Tig Notaro
00:09:32
'Yes. Yes. It was a four-month, I think, period of time that I had pneumonia. Then I contracted this intestinal disease called c. diff. And I had invasive cancer. My mother tripped, hit her head and died, and my girlfriend and I split up. So, that was an overload of grief, grief about my body after surgeries and...
Anderson Cooper
00:10:03
Did I read correctly that you had to make the decision of removing life support?
Tig Notaro
00:10:08
From my mother?
Anderson Cooper
00:10:10
Yeah.
Tig Notaro
00:10:11
Yeah, yeah, and with my stepfather. I describe it to people like, you're watching your loved one drown and you can't throw him any sort of safety net. You just have to let him drown as you hold their hand. And same with Andrea, being dehydrated and they desperately want any sort hydration. And then after a certain point, you just have to let go. And it's every deathbed that I've been or end of life, it's so different. It's so difference. And Andrea's was at home and really one of the most beautiful experiences of my life.
Anderson Cooper
00:11:04
Beautiful, in what way?
Tig Notaro
00:11:05
That's not to say it wasn't utterly devastating and that feeling of unfairness, but there were just a lot of different people from different times in Andrea's life that traveled actual long distances, planes, trains, automobiles, and emotional journeys that people were on. And I remember after my diagnosis, that feeling when you know how precious something is. It's that sweet spot, but it oftentimes and sadly comes in the very last moment. A breakup or somebody's dying, you can see everything so clearly. Every grudge goes completely away. And everybody really holding each other through it for days, literally holding each other no matter how well you did or didn't know the person next to you. One of the things was, Andrea was highly medicated because when people are in that in the final moments, there's discomfort and pain and...
Anderson Cooper
00:12:20
Andrea said something.
Tig Notaro
00:12:21
One of the things was 'I fucking loved my life.' Yeah, 'I fucking loved my life.' And we all just looked at each other. It was a gift, it was such a gift to be able to hear Andrea say that and to be in the room when that happened was extraordinary.
Anderson Cooper
00:12:42
You called it a transformative experience being there.
Tig Notaro
00:12:47
I don't even know how to explain what I was just a part of and what I just witnessed. It really, really resonated on a very deep level of, I don't want to get caught up in anything that's not real. And that was real. That was really real, what I witnessed. The love, the humanity was on overdrive. It was really beautiful, really beautiful.
Anderson Cooper
00:13:19
I mean, one can't ask for any other way to die, really.
Tig Notaro
00:13:23
That's what I want.
Anderson Cooper
00:13:26
More of my conversation with Tig Notaro in just a moment. If you want to listen or watch past episodes of this podcast, you can do that at our community page, cnn.com/allthereis. That's where you can also watch our new weekly companion show called All There Is Live. It's Thursday nights at 9.15 PM Eastern. We'll be right back with more from Tig.
Anderson Cooper
00:13:49
We're back with Tig Notaro.
Anderson Cooper
00:13:51
Do you feel like you have gone back to your regular life? Or do you still feel that transformative?
Tig Notaro
00:14:00
It's rippling on a very deep level that's making me feel tethered to really what matters. And I don't know how long that, you know, I'm human and you go in and out of that, or I do. But I feel very tether to what matters and who matters. And it's really making me rethink a lot of things in my life.
Anderson Cooper
00:14:29
You don't want to go back to just normal life.
Tig Notaro
00:14:32
I think I want a new normal, not holding on to anything that's not real. I was lucky enough to be in Colorado for the couple of weeks after Andrea passed, and I couldn't sleep well, and I was getting up at four in the morning, and I didn't know what to do with myself or what. To do with this energy. And I was taking 6 a.m. walks and watching the sun come up and told my wife Stephanie, I was like, "I have so much energy that I don't know where to put it. That I feel like I just want to walk back to Andrea's house." And she was like, "what are you talking about? You can't, well, it's a four hour drive." And I'm like, "I'm up for it." She was like, "okay, where are you going to sleep?" I was like, "I don't care. I'll sleep on the side of the road." I felt like I don't need any food or any water. I just have this crazy energy in me where I just, I felt so connected to that room where Andrea was and where Andrea's loved ones and closest people and exes and family. Like it was this other worldly experience and it's a sweet spot that would be incredible to be able to live in, but sadly not realistic. And I turned to Stephanie at one point and said, "and can you believe at some point I'm gonna have to exit the 101 onto Melrose and just head back into Hollywood?" Like, I could not comprehend such a thing.
Anderson Cooper
00:16:09
That juxtaposition is so, it's interesting. I lived briefly in Los Angeles in my early 20s when I was first starting out as a reporter and I was just going to war zones and conflict zones. And I would be in these incredible, extraordinary places where horrific things were happening and it was life and death and the molecules of the air were charged with human emotion. And I mean, it was just impossible to describe. And then to return to Los Angeles and be in a supermarket and there's like cool mist on the vegetables and.
Tig Notaro
00:16:42
Go work out at Crunch.
Anderson Cooper
00:16:43
Yeah, I mean, all I wanted to do was leave and go back.
Tig Notaro
00:16:47
Yeah.
Anderson Cooper
00:16:47
Even though when I was there, I was depressed and horrified by what I was seeing.
Tig Notaro
00:16:52
Very similar. I was devastated. Devastated. But I was also very aware that this was the greatest in humanity, what was going on...
Anderson Cooper
00:17:08
In that room.
Tig Notaro
00:17:09
Yeah. Yeah, it was.
Anderson Cooper
00:17:11
I think it's one of the reasons I started this podcast is because just the weirdness that this is stuff people don't talk about and yet it is something that everybody may experience at some point in their life if they're lucky to be there when their loved one is leaving.
Tig Notaro
00:17:27
'Well, what I think I really realized through this experience is that death really is coming for us all. I don't know if it's right to say make friends with that idea of dying, but it really should be more in conversation. I don't want my death to sneak up on my kids, although I've had a lot of health issues, so I don't know if its going to sneak-up on anyone. But I really have such a new, not that I'm going to abandon comedy and become death doula.
Anderson Cooper
00:17:57
Oh my god, don't get me started on death doulas. I hear from so many of them. It's an extraordinary thing.
Tig Notaro
00:18:02
It is extraordinary and I get it.
Anderson Cooper
00:18:05
I seriously considered giving up my job.
Tig Notaro
00:18:08
Anderson and Tig's death doula.
Anderson Cooper
00:18:11
I would do it. I'll do it if you do it.
Tig Notaro
00:18:13
Sir, let's do it! It is so, I mean, hospice nurses, death doulas.
Anderson Cooper
00:18:21
Well, I'm so pale and white, people would think they're already in the afterlife when I walk in. You'd get them laughing and then I would walk in and freak everybody out.
Tig Notaro
00:18:29
Yes.
Anderson Cooper
00:18:30
Oh my god.
Tig Notaro
00:18:30
I think people would freak out if we were who showed up in their final moments of life.
Anderson Cooper
00:18:38
T.N.A. Are here.
Tig Notaro
00:18:42
TNA?
Anderson Cooper
00:18:44
Tig and Anderson. I mean, it was a, I was making a reference to it, but I was not.
Tig Notaro
00:18:50
We'll cut that out, right?
Anderson Cooper
00:18:50
No, no, I think that'll stay in.
Tig Notaro
00:18:53
We need to get business cards to make, but no, this experience with Andrea really made me understand the importance of really talking about death rather than live my life fearing death and trying to kick it away at every possible move I'm making to just really incorporate it into my thoughts and the way I go about things because it's coming.
Anderson Cooper
00:19:21
Andrea wrote a poem, A Letter from the Afterlife. I just wanna play part of it.
Andrea Gibson
00:19:28
My love i was so wrong. Dying is the opposite of leaving. When I left my body I did not go away. That portal of light was not a portal to elsewhere but a portal to here. I am more here than I ever was before. I Am more with you than I ever could have imagined. So close you look past me when wondering where I am. It's okay I know that to be human is to be farsighted, but feel me now, walking the chambers of your heart, pressing my palms to the soft walls of your living. Why did no one tell us that to die is to reincarnated in those we love while they are still alive? Ask me the altitude of heaven and I will answer, how tall are you?
Anderson Cooper
00:20:22
It's pretty incredible. Andrea's saying, why did no one tell us that to die is to be reincarnated in those we love while they are still alive? Ask me at the altitude of heaven, I'll answer, how tall are you? I love that.
Tig Notaro
00:20:45
One of my favorite things Andrea ever said was, what kind of poet would I be if I could only make things beautiful on the page? And yeah, Andrea wrote that and Andrea spoke those words to Meg's face. I also love the line of like, I'm so close that you look past me, you don't even know that I'm there. I feel that.
Anderson Cooper
00:21:13
And the dying is the opposite of leaving. When I left my body, I did not go away. That portal of light was not a portal to elsewhere, but a portal here. That idea to me is so moving. I had never really grieved until a couple of years ago. I never really allowed myself to. And I do think if you allow yourself to feel grief, you can feel the person alive inside you.
Tig Notaro
00:21:34
Maybe it's like I'm experiencing what you experienced two years ago of opening yourself up to something like that, grief on whatever level.
Anderson Cooper
00:21:44
By the way, I don't know why I'm the one who's always crying on this friggin' podcast of mine. I don't know why it's supposed to be the guests who are crying. It's not supposed to be like, the host is very pathetic. Jesus, pull yourself together, Anderson. I was imagining, are you thinking like, God, this guy's a wreck?
Tig Notaro
00:22:02
'No, I was thinking-.
Anderson Cooper
00:22:04
Like, this is disconcerting. Nobody told me this guy was such an emotional basket guest.
Tig Notaro
00:22:08
Why didn't anyone mention what a loose cannon this man is?
Tig Notaro
00:22:13
No, I think it's incredible and I think that space that I'm truly sitting here and I've already said to you, I adore you and I love your work and I felt like I knew you and I don't. But I am sitting here going, God, I would love to talk more with you. I would love to know more. I feel very much in this space.
Anderson Cooper
00:22:37
It's okay if you want to ask me questions. Don't worry, I'm egotistical enough that I will answer. I do want to play something else that Andrea wrote and spoke in a Letter from the Afterlife.
Andrea Gibson
00:22:50
'My love, I want to sing it through the rafters of your bones dying as the opposite of leaving. I want it to echo through the corridor of your temples. I am more with you than I ever was before. Do you understand? It was me who beckoned the stranger who caught you in her arms when you forgot not to order for two at the coffee shop. It was I who was up all night. Gathering sunflowers into your chest the last day you feared you would never again wake up feeling light-hearted I know it's hard to believe, but I promise it's the truth. I promise one day you will say it, too. I can't believe I ever thought I could lose you.
Anderson Cooper
00:23:42
I really hope that's true.
Tig Notaro
00:23:44
Yeah.
Anderson Cooper
00:23:45
That dying is the opposite of leaving. Do you believe that?
Tig Notaro
00:23:49
I think I, I'm like really trying to understand and make sense of my feelings because I haven't been somebody that has felt that.
Anderson Cooper
00:24:03
Really? You don't strike me as the kind of person to push down your feelings. I'm saying that sarcastically, because I see myself in you and so I know it when I see it.
Tig Notaro
00:24:12
Okay, yeah. My wife is very into...
Anderson Cooper
00:24:19
Feeling?
Tig Notaro
00:24:21
Well, no, I'm very... I'm actually very sensitive, but as far as my belief in what's going on after this life, I haven't really bought into. I'm kind of buying in with Andrea. Death inevitably brings up coulda, shoulda, woulda's. And... And with Andrea, I had this dream for years that I would go on tour with Andrea. And for years I'd be like, ah, I'll do it later. I don't know if you experienced that.
Anderson Cooper
00:25:00
Yeah, I mean, of course.
Tig Notaro
00:25:03
Shoulda, coulda, woulda's. It's they're the toughest after a death.
Anderson Cooper
00:25:06
I mean, I wish I'd... Interviewed Andrea two years ago about what they were going through.
Tig Notaro
00:25:16
Well, and that's what's so incredible to see, like, how exciting that the world is finding out about Andrea Gibson. There's no world that I thought when I met that scrappy little rock star poet backstage at Old Main in Boulder. They would become who they became. Stephanie was saying, Andrea Gibson is now gonna be one of very few poets people know by name. That is, that is wild. What poet becomes famous, you know? Then publishes eight books and Anderson Cooper is sitting here saying, I wish I had interviewed Andrea Gibson. It's really remarkable.
Anderson Cooper
00:26:03
I asked a question to everybody in the podcast. Is there something you've learned in your grief that would help others?
Tig Notaro
00:26:07
I think about those kind of hard moments that you don't want to face that seem impossible at the time. I have fear initially in a lot of those hard moments, like how am I going to do this? When I was a kid in junior high school, I hung out with this guy, John. He was a rocker. And had the most incredible vinyl collection. And we'd hang out in his bedroom and listen to records. And one day he was like, oh, dude, my mom just got home. I'm not supposed to have anyone over. Can you jump out of my window? And I was like what? And I like on the ledge of his second floor window. And I'm like, I can't let John get in trouble. So I just jumped. And that moment. That I just had to force myself to jump and just do it, I've taken with me my whole life because even though, and look, I don't recommend jumping, especially when you're like a knobby need seventh grader onto cement, but that moment that I had to mind over matter, just go, just jump. And when I have to do something hard, I just go off. And I do it and I think that the lesson goes back to your question of what have I learned from my grief and it is to not avoid it and for a long time I've avoided grief and wasn't quite ready for it and it has opened me as a person tremendously to explore it and also available to others in their grief.
Anderson Cooper
00:28:04
Wait a minute, are you gonna start a grief podcast? Cause I'm the only one who has repressed my grief my entire life, who gets to have a podcast about it.
Tig Notaro
00:28:13
'Well, if you're looking for a co-host.
Anderson Cooper
00:28:14
You're just gonna be funny and everything. Damn it. God, that's the only thing I had going.
Tig Notaro
00:28:20
And I'm taking this from you too.
Anderson Cooper
00:28:26
There can only be one person who's repressed their grief.
Tig Notaro
00:28:28
Only one gay grief repressed.
Anderson Cooper
00:28:33
With unprocessed or whatever you want to call it.
Tig Notaro
00:28:37
With connections to Mississippi. With two...sons?
Anderson Cooper
00:28:41
Yeah, two sons, yeah.
Tig Notaro
00:28:42
Um, and, uh...
Anderson Cooper
00:28:45
Is there anything else you want to say?
Tig Notaro
00:28:48
Um, no, I just, uh.
Anderson Cooper
00:28:50
Do you regret walking into this?
Tig Notaro
00:28:52
What?
Anderson Cooper
00:28:53
Did your bookers tell you what this was? Thank you so much.
Tig Notaro
00:28:58
Thank you so much. I really appreciate you having me.
Anderson Cooper
00:29:03
'I know the holidays can be tough, and I hope you know that you're not alone. If you have something that helps you get through these holidays, leave us a video message on our Instagram at allthereis or at our voicemail box, 404-827-1805. All There Is is going to be back with a new episode on December 2nd with musician Nick Cave, who's experienced the death of two sons, Arthur and Jethro.
Nick Cave
00:29:27
What I came to understand is that that we are all sort of creatures of loss, that we are all part of the world and that we we are we are suffering in our own ways. The world is suffering from loss, it is the thing that holds us together.
Anderson Cooper
00:29:45
There's an ocean of grief out there
Nick Cave
00:29:47
Yeah, and I think that that's the sort of connective tissue that holds us all together. It's the thing that we can look, I can look at you, you can look at me and we understand that within our lives, whatever they may be, there is this sort of thread of loss that runs through.
Anderson Cooper
00:30:07
Wherever you are in your grief, I'm glad you're here. I'm happy we're together. You're not alone.