Natasha Wagner & grief expert, David Kessler discuss the death of her parent, actress Natalie Wood

Hi, everyone. David Kessler here. Welcome. Say hello when you find your way on. Hi, Natasha. Good to see you.

Hi, David. So happy to be here.

I'm glad you're here with us. So as folks, come on, I'll give you a couple of moments to find your way. Say hello when you come on. Let us know where you're from. All right, let's see here. I see us here. That's good. That's good. So I'm in Los Angeles. Where in the world are you?

I am in northern Michigan.

Gotcha. And you look like. I. It looks like stars above you, but I'm sure that it looks beautiful. It's a great background.

Thank you.

Thanks for joining. All right, Diane's here from Virginia. Lisa's from here from Illinois. Shirley's from Paul. You won't see their name, but you'll see sort of where they're from as they come on.

I see.

Okay. And you know, I always say, some people like to say hello, others just sit back and watch.

Mimsy from San Francisco, Eva from Milford, Ohio. Carla from Georgia. Hi there. Ronnie from New York. Welcome. Janet from New Mexico. Good to see you. Christine from Bangor, Maine. Brenda from Orangevale. Is that California? I think it is, Diane. Fort Worth, Texas, but she's now in northern Michigan.

Oh, cool.

So phyllis is from St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. Deborah's here from North Hollywood, California. Karen from pa, Pennsylvania. Pat from Virginia. Welcome, everyone.

Hi, everybody.

Isn't it great to see, like, everyone's up? We've got. Let's see who's here now. Jennifer from Alaska. Yvonne from Melbourne, Australia. Ivy from New York. Bill from Georgia from IT From North Carolina. Janice from Vegas. Well, if you're new, joining us, is this your first time? I'm David Kessler. I have a guest on every night. I have a wonderful. Natasha Wagner's here with us tonight. And they all show up because in the age of COVID with so many people who have had a loss, maybe you were struggling with loss before this. Maybe you had a loved one die and you're newly bereaved. You haven't been able to have a funeral. We just want you to know you are not forgotten. And although we can't physically all get together in grief groups and get grief support, these days, we can at least virtually hold one another's hands. So that's what we're doing. There's no one voice in grief. That's why I love to have so many different voices. I love all of you joining us. Jamie's from Florida. Donna, Illinois Joe from New Zealand. Heather from Ontario. Elizabeth, Virginia. Welcome. Welcome, everyone. Glad you're all joining us. So we are here because someone we love has died. That's the thing we all have in common. So I like just to take a moment of silence for that person just to connect with them. I'm a big believer when our loved ones die, we don't stop loving us. I actually don't believe they stop. We don't stop loving them. And I actually believe they don't stop loving us. So you'll take a moment of silence just to honor them and send them love.

Thank you so much for doing that, Natasha. When I.

When I have a guest on, Usually when I'm alone, I send love to my younger son. When I have a guest, not only do I send love to him, but I send love. And thanks to the person who brought the guest here, who literally with you, she brought you into this world.

Yes.

So many, many people know Natalie Wood, amazing movie star. And I think I was looking. Is it true? Three Academy Award nominations before 25?

Yes, that is true.

Like, what have the rest of us done before 25? You know, I, I, I hope that wasn't your barometer because I don't think anyone would stack up against that.

No, it was not. But I, I am so proud of her. And I mean, wow, what, what a, what a huge accomplishment that was.

And I told you earlier when we were talking that my, I don't even remember which parent, but one parent brought me to a movie and I was pretty young and I just did the math. It was five years old.

How inappropriate. And I saw sex in a single girl. How inappropriate. But that was.

My parent must have really wanted to see the film.

They. Yeah, they must have. It was probably my mother, obviously. That's what I would guess too. But so, yeah, that's just many things that happen, but quick.

So just an extraordinary actress and I think people don't realize so much that she dealt with, from being a child actress to, My goodness, actually trying to find power in a system that really didn't give anyone power. And she found the power to choose a movie and choose, Chose west side Story, which is a remarkable choice.

So I'd love if you could just tell, I mean, we know Natalie Wood, the movie star. I'd love if you could just tell us about her and her life and then just share, unfortunately, how her ending came about.

Sure, of course. Well, for me, I was very, very close to my mom. We were, she was big Natasha and I was little Natasha. And we Were Natasha. We were very entwined.

My mom was somebody who really, really wanted to become a mother. And once she had me, I'm her firstborn. I have a younger sister named Courtney who's three and a half years younger. You know, she focused all of that attention that she used in her work onto me.

And we had this great kind of relationship. And she created a childhood for me that she didn't have for herself. And when she passed away, Suddenly, she was 43 and I was 11. I always say it was like my life had been in color. And then the moment she died, it turned to black and white. And I had lost my mirror. I had lost my safe place. I had lost my. My everything.

And I have spent most of my life dealing with her loss.

And I had my own daughter in 2012, Clover. And that has been an incredibly healing part of my life and really the impetus for me to make the documentary and write the book.

Really remarkable. And I'll tell you, one of the things that I said to you when we've talked is I can tell when someone's done a lot of work, and you've done a lot of work on this.

And I also know.

You weren't the first one to do work. I remember in the documentary. And we'll talk a bit about blame and self blame and all that stuff. But it sounds like your grandmother is someone who could easily find blame and stupiditious concept and could have easily, you know, instilled, and it sounds like she probably did in your mother. And your mother worked hard, it sounds like, to sort of be as mentally healthy as she could be.

Yes, yes. So my mother was a huge proponent of analysis, and she spent many, many years in therapy. And whenever she made a new friend or had a loved one in her life that was struggling, she would say, you need to go to therapy, and if you can't afford it, I'll pay for it. That was her thing. And she passed that love of introspection onto me and to my stepfather, Robert Wagner. And the first thing he did after my mom died was literally before he even got home to tell my sister and I what had happened, he went to see his own therapist to get advice about how to explain the news to us. And then I luckily began to see this incredible woman named Naomi Malan. And she changed my life because she created a space. She held the space for me to have my feelings, all of them. As, you know, the circle that you talk about that Elizabeth Kubler Ross talks about. And I think that. I think that Is something that continues, you know, even, I mean, many years later.

Right. And I think, you know, so many times when kids are young, there's a lot of distortions that happen, and the work becomes so important just to heal those distortions. And I would also think.

Those distort. Your grandmother was still alive when she. Correct. So that must have been brutal on her to have lost a child and she had so invested in your mom.

Yes, yes. So I, for sure. And I think I was a little bit afraid of my grandmother after my mom died because her reaction was so histrionic, was so.

Overly out of control that I was scared. You know, as a child, you look to the adults to balance and calm you. And if there is an adult that feels out of control, that's very scary for a child.

What would you say is the biggest lesson you had to learn? Grief.

Wow. I love that question.

Humility, I would say. And. And what I mean by that is the humility of your heart that no matter what you achieve, no matter who you marry, no matter how much money you have, no matter what you look like, where you live, grief is grief, and you have to face it. You cannot run from it. So you have to sit there and feel your feelings. And in feeling those feelings, there is humility.

So I would say humility.

Right. I think there's a.

What's the word? There's almost a sense, because I think celebrities, people of money, certainly have different lifestyles, and yet death and grief are the equalizers.

Absolutely.

And just from living in Los Angeles, I've gotten that question over the years. You know, what's it like when the celebrity dies? And I say for the celebrity, it's like the same as any other person.

Yes.

The only difference is, you know, the average person maybe doesn't have helicopters flying over, but otherwise it's this, you know, we're just human beings and our body dies at some point, no matter who you are or how rich you are, how famous you are.

Do you remember, and I think I had heard this too, what your dad was told, how to tell.

I do.

Okay.

I. I remember. So my. My father.

I remember going, that was good advice.

Oh, good. I'm so glad. So my stepfather, who I refer to often as my father, I have two fathers, but my stepfather, Robert Wagner, he went to see his psychiatrist, Arthur Malan. And Arthur said to my dad, R.J. don't minimize it. Do not minimize what has happened.

And he did not. And he also told us that we would always be a family.

And.

For me, you Know, at the time, I didn't know, but I know now that the way he told my sister and I and the amount of presence he gave us in that moment, in those moments, set me up to be able to feel the enormity of my grief and not.

Shy away from it.

Right. That's really quite extraordinary, to not shy away from the enormity of your grief.

Yes. Yes. Because I think. I mean, I am somebody, and I was somebody as I. As I developed, who.

Felt. I felt dwarfed by the media aspect of what had happened to my mom. And so I became a very private griever, if that makes any sense. To the outside world. I would appear like I'm completely fine and I don't need your pity, and I've got this. But with my close circle of friends, with my therapists, with my teachers, my healers, myself, I was very, very.

Open to my grief. And now, after writing my book and making the documentary, I feel that I can share all of that. But for a long time, I felt that I needed to be private about it.

I would think not to analyze it, but I would think that your mother was so shared with the world.

Yeah.

That you wanted to have this that belonged to you. That was your grief versus theirs versus their feelings. Like that was personally yours and not the public's.

Absolutely. And the other thing was that in those days, in the 80s.

People would find out who we were, and they would bombard my younger sister, Courtney and me with their own grief about what had happened to my mom, which would make me feel like I had to comfort them.

And then there was no place for my grief, you know? And so it was a complicated.

I call it like a hairball. It was like a hairball that I needed to pull the strands out of and sort of take it out of the dark and put it into the light and really look at it and figure out what is mine, what is theirs. How can I own my piece and detach almost from the public's piece?

Right.

Because I'm grieving her as a daughter, not as. As an actor, an actress.

Right, of course, of course.

So.

I'm also curious.

About. And this happens to so many people in death. Clearly it happened to your mom.

The end is so hideous that the end of their life becomes bigger than their life. And I admire so much your book and documentary were attempts to bring the attention back to her life.

Which I think is just a beautiful gift for a daughter.

Thank you. Well, and like you said, I mean, because my mother's death.

And there's been all speculate.

For Maya and I. We have never questioned what happened to her, knew that it was an accident. But we live where people like to point the finger, and you and I have spoken about this. Sometimes when there is a tragedy that is so epic, that is so painful, some people can only deal with that tragedy by pointing the finger. And I think, sadly for my Aunt Lana, the way. The way that she dealt with her suffering was by blaming my father.

And for that, I have great. I have great empathy for her in that way, you know? But the truth is, sometimes there are no bad guys. Sometimes, like, you know David better than me because you deal with people every many times a day. Accidents happen, tragedies happen, and there's no rhyme or reason to them.

Right? And we've talked about that concept, the idea that when something so horrible, so out of our control happens, we want to find control. And sometimes control is blaming ourselves or blaming someone else, because our mind, if it finds the problem, it unconsciously thinks it can be safer.

Mmm, that's so interesting. Yes. And. And I was definitely someone that blamed myself because my mom had invited me to come with her that weekend on the boat, and I had chosen not to go. And so I consciously and unconsciously have blamed myself all these years. You know, and that manifests in all kinds of ways, Ways that we're conscious about and ways that we're not conscious about.

Right. And, you know.

We have 2020 hindsight, and number one, we don't really know if you being on the boat would have actually changed anything.

Exactly.

And number two, you weren't making a decision that night to save your mother's life. You were just like, do I want to be on the boat or not? It was just that decision.

That's such a great. I love what you just said. I've never thought of it in that way. And you're right. I was 11 years old. I wanted to spend the weekend at my best friend Tracy's house. I didn't want to go on the boat.

Like a really valid, really valid choice. But you know what our mind does as it does this thing? I always say we think what preceded the death caused the death. When you're young. Oh, me not going on the boat. That was it. Yes.

That's so true. That's so true. And. And, you know, I. In March, on March 7, I lost my godfather, Mark Crowley, who was my mother's best friend, and I was incredibly close to him. And he died suddenly of a heart attack, which I was not expecting. And A lot of his belongings arrived at my house last week. He didn't have children or anything. And so I'm, I'm his sort of next of kin. And I was looking through a lot of them and I said to my therapist, I feel like I should have called him more, even though I talked to him like twice a month, you know, and I, I'm all, I was always in touch with him. And she said that's a part of the bargaining phase of grief.

Which I didn't know, or maybe I knew it and I forgot it. But it's like, here I am, you know, I'm going to be 50 in September, and I'm, I still get caught up in, in the wheel of, of grief. And I'm sure that I always will because I'm a human being.

Right, right. The what ifs, the regrets, the phonies, but you know, the voices may not go away, but I say you, you know, you see the merry go round, you just don't have to step on it anymore. Yes, I love that because we all know we've stepped on it. We've gone into the circular thinking and we finally found a way to get off of it, and then just until we see it again.

You wrote a letter to her, is that right?

I did. So my mom and I. My mom loved to write letters, and she was always writing letters. And had she lived, email would be her favorite thing, and so she was always writing letters. And so at a young age, she bought me my own stationery and I wrote letters too. I wrote thank you notes to people and I wrote to my mom. I wrote to her if I missed her. I wrote to her if she was working. And when she died, I, I, the only way I knew how to.

Process what I was going through was to write her a letter. And her assistant, Liz Applegate, who then became my stepfather, Robert Wagner's assistant, who I'm still very close to, is a big part of my life. She said to me that I, she recently said to me, do you remember, you came to me and you said, said I'm feeling like I'm in a downward spiral. And I don't. And I want to get out of this downward spiral. I was 11. Of course, I don't remember saying this. And so I've decided that I want to write mommy a note and I want to go see her in her coffin and I want to give her the note. And to me, that was my self preservationists. I think my, my ability to be a self preservationist at work And I did that. I wrote to her and my daddy Gregson, my physical father. We went and I write about this in the book.

We went and I. And I put the letter under her hand, and. And she is buried with that letter.

Wow.

And that is something that I. You know, I think that I knew that was what I needed to do to save myself.

She has her hand on your words.

Yes, she has her hand on my words. That is such a beautiful way to put it. Thank you for saying that.

Sweet. Very sweet.

The RJ thing is a challenging thing. Your stepfather, your dad.

I. I have and had a nephew who died of cancer. And.

I'm sorry. He. Thank you. He knew and worked with rj. His name was Jeffrey Hodes.

Okay.

Would tell me how kind RJ Was to him. So I. You know, I knew him apart from all that. Is like a kind man.

Yeah. And you know that you. You are gonna make me cry because I do cry when I speak about my dad, but he is.

By the way, you can cry anytime. You're with a grief expert, you're with a grief group. If you can't cry here, where can you cry?

Yes. Thank you.

Okay. And it's funny, I gotta tell you, once in. I cry here, too, and I'm like, can I do that? You're in the right place.

But he is the kindest human that I have ever come across. And.

So many times in my childhood, he would say to me, he would make friendships with different people. Children, adults. Some of them were sick, and he would write to them or he would visit them. And, you know, he's on the board of St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica, and he was with Jimmy Stewart in the Jimmy Stewart marathon. And so it doesn't surprise me that your nephew said that. And. And was he a fan of my dad's? How did they.

No, he was. My nephew was a TV writer.

Okay.

He wrote the Nanny and a few other different shows. Was a writer on them. And so I think they worked on a project. Project together. I don't think it became anything. We worked on a project together. And he just said, you know, he's so kind. And I even remember he said to me, I know what you want to ask, and the answer is, there is no way.

Yeah, that's right. That's right. And. And, you know, my dad is 90. He turned 90 on February 10th. I speak to him every day.

And for me, you know, as. I just. The misconception is such a mind boggler that if there's anything I can Do. To clarify.

And anybody that knows my dad, you know, knows that he is. And. And that I would say that everybody. If you ask them, what's the first word that comes to you when you think of rj they would say kind.

Right.

And. And I have a picture. So we. We are up in Northern Michigan, which, coincidentally, is the place where my dad spent all of his summers when he was a little boy. And we have a house five doors from the house that he grew up in. And my daughter has a picture of my dad on her desk when he was 8 years old in front of the lake that we now live in front of. And he gave that to her. You know, he's a kind man, but he is a sensitive man.

He understands pain, and you can sit with him and feel your feelings.

And that's kind of a big thing, you know, someone of his generation to have come as far as he has.

Right. And in the docker, in the documentary, it is so clear from so many people that this was just a horrible tragedy that happened.

The sensationalism that we'd love to find someone to blame because then we could not live in a world where bad, random things happen. And not only is it clear from everyone's words, there's moments in it when you're. There's moments. And of course, my phone's still on. There's moments in it where he is talking to you. And even when the topic comes up.

He'S the dad tenderly talking to his little girl. I mean, you just see that, you know, there's no part of him. Like that question again. I mean, he's like, you know, I. I couldn't even do it justice to imitate him, but you can see how big his heart is.

Yeah.

His heart and his love for you and his love for Natalie Wood. You can just see it.

And, you know, for me, I mean, I met my dad when I was about nine months old. And from the moment I can remember, he's always been in my life. And he's always loved me like I was his own blood, you know, and that's a really big thing. I mean, I'm not his blood, you know, but he and I are. We are bound by something in some time, in some ways, deeper than blood. And I don't know, maybe it's called choice. He chose me, and I chose him.

Right. Right.

And so I will forever protect him, honor him, you know, right any wrongs.

Right.

I'd love if you would be willing to take some questions, if anyone has questions.

I would love that.

So if anyone has my glasses back on. All right, and the other thing, while we're waiting on folks to write questions, if they have any.

I would love. Can you tell us about the butterflies?

Yes. Well, I'm wearing this butterfly I wear every day. This was my mom's and my mom loved butterflies. And we in my family, whenever we see a butterfly, we say that it's my mom. And speaking about my godfather, Mark Crowley, last week when all of his items arrived at my house, there were three butterflies and they were flying around all the boxes. And my mother in law, Kiki said to me, look at those butterflies. And, and so.

That is something that I, every time I see a butterfly, I feel a connection to my mom.

Very sweet. Very sweet. Pamela says in the documentary. And if anyone hasn't seen the documentary on hbo, the love between your mom and RJ is so evident, powerful and beautiful. It truly made me weep. And, you know.

There'S something I find fascinating about people who marry twice to the same person.

Yeah.

I think there's something kind of cool about it because the second time, because they talk about they were really young.

Yeah.

And the second time is such a truly mature choice. You know, it's not that, oh, we were young, we didn't know. So I love that they did that. Carol says, wonderful documentary and cleared up many things for me. You're a special woman and your mom is proud.

Thank you.

Caroline, Annette, you both loved your mother. That is the enormous bond between the both of you.

That is so true.

Jennifer says your mother was a stunning, beautiful lady. You look so much like her. How hard to live your grief in the public eye as a child. We thank you for sharing such deeply personal time with us today.

Thank you so much. It is truly my honor to be here and to talk about grief because it is the great equalizer, like you said. David.

Ned says, love the butterfly. I saw one today on a hike. I thought it was. I thought of my son. People sending you lots of love here.

I love that you had his support through your mom's death. I think you, you know, had so much more than that. Brenda says you're an inspiration to all of us in the grief club.

Thank you.

Jamie. You give such beautiful gifts to respond to how you hear someone's heart. That's lovely. Diane. I love Natalie Wood. Glad to see you here. Thank you.

Thank you. It is truly an honor to be here.

Frumit says, so profound how our mind tries to work through something, anything, blaming ourselves in order to get some control of a situation.

But, boy, do I know the bargaining phase.

Heidi says, now I want to read this, see the documentary and read your book. You should. Both of them, they're quite extraordinary.

Sherry says end of life becomes bigger than their life. Oh, yes. Sometimes I feel that my mom's death, now with the second year, I'm focusing on a more beautiful memories and blessings of her life. I'm curious about that. I would think you're an adult with this book, this documentary. It has to be such a huge revisiting.

Yes.

Was it as healing for you as it seems like it might be?

It was so healing for me. And, you know, it's funny, they say sometimes, you know, that idea of poison as medicine. And so it was like for so many years, I was so private with my pain. And then I inched out a little bit and spoke a little bit to the New York Times in 2016, and I felt really good when I read the article. And that was sort of the beginning of me thinking, actually, if I share, I feel better. And the community of grievers, the community of humanity, we're all connected. And if I can share my story, somebody else can share their story, and it becomes a collective healing. And so, yes, I have healed so much with it.

During the course of writing the book. I lost my father, Richard Gregson, last August, and I wasn't able to go to his.

Funeral because I had a health, out of the blue health issue. So I, you know, as I feel like making the documentary and writing the book, I was also. Things from the past were leaving my life and I was making space for the present and the future.

But the grief. The grief is. It's always there, you know, Always there.

One of the things that I think shifts so much for anyone is when we become a parent.

Oh, huge.

Oh. And you had such a relationship with your mother, and then for you to have daughter, how did that change it?

Wow. I mean, you know, it's funny, my daughter Clover was born on May 30, 2012, and my mom married my real father on May 30, 1969. Obviously, we didn't plan that, but, you know, having my daughter was the single most healing thing that's happened to me since my mother passed away. But it wouldn't. I do truly believe that that wouldn't have been the case had I not done the work all these years.

Oh, right. Absolutely. Yes. 100%.

Yeah. Because I was. I was in a place where I was ready to take that next step to become a mother and not. And I Say in the book, you know, I no longer feel motherless. I feel motherful.

Oh. Oh, wow, that's beautiful. I no longer feel motherless. I feel motherful.

I do. And I also, you know, my mother died when she was 43 and I'm going to be 50. I very much feel like I'm her mother now as well. And, and so the mother full is I mother my daughter, I mother myself. I mother my mother, you know, and so from loss and from scarcity can come abundance, I believe. But you have to do the work.

You do. You do. And I'll tell you the other thing that's so important in what you did. Grief and trauma gets passed down through generations.

I know.

You know, you're not going to pass that down to her.

I am aware of that and I do not want to pass that down to her. And even though my daughter knows, you know, she knows about her grandma Natalie, she knows that she died in an accident, that she drowned. We, we talk about her. But I am very aware if I'm starting to have anxiety around my daughter's well being, that I go and I reset myself so that I don't put that on her.

Right.

You know, because I come from a line of mothers, my grandmother, my mother, who are by nature nervous and worried, and I am that way as well. But like you said, David, I don't want to pass that on to my daughter. And she is fearless. So.

And we talk about, you know, when you've had a catastrophe, you can easily become a catastrophizer. And most of us become catastrophizers after a catastrophe.

Right.

You know, I always joke about I never have a headache. I only have the beginning of a brain tumor.

Yeah.

Where my mind goes to immediately.

So true. It's so true.

You're not late, you're in a ditch somewhere.

Yes. And. And with this pandemic that we've all been living through, it's like we sneeze and we're terrified that we have Covid. You know, my daughter told me that her stomach was hurting. And I, I, you know, in my mind, I'm like, is this multi inflammatory syndrome?

Right.

You know, and, and it's, it's.

Or is it that you ate.

Yeah. Or is it. Exactly. And, and this catastrophizing that we do, we do this naturally. Right, Right.

So. And you have to. And yes, we do it naturally. And let me just also say about that one of the things you say that you have to do, that you naturally are doing is you have to sort of mother yourself in those moments.

Yeah.

You have to be the one to go. Oh, they're, they're probably just late.

Yeah.

Just to sneeze pizza. I mean, you have to sort of do the mothering for you. The other thing. Go ahead. Sorry, I didn't want to.

No, no, no. And that mothering myself is something that has been a painful, messy, awkward process, I will just say right now, because I didn't want to mother myself, I was mad that I had to mother myself. I chose anybody else to mother me. But the truth is, the only person that can mother me is myself.

Right. And you, you know, you weren't someone who just sort of chose to not mother yourself. You were robbed. You were robbed of a mother.

There's two big, like, numerological milestones I think of. One you've already hit. One you haven't hit. One is the day you became. Because I thought about this, my mother died when I was 13. The day you hit her age.

Yeah.

That she died. What was that? And what was it like after hitting her age and living past that? Because I bet you like me, your mom was probably pretty old when she.

Died, in my mind.

Right. But now our moms are becoming younger each year.

Well, so when I turned 43, Clover was two and a half. And I was very aware that I was turning 43, which was the age my mom died. And I kept checking in with myself about how I felt, but I have to say, I didn't have a ton of feelings around it. And I think my feelings are gonna come when my daughter turns 11.

The second one I was gonna mention.

That'S the second one because when my. My daughter just turned eight, but the whole year that she was seven, I thought so much about my younger sister Courtney, who was seven, and I. It was very, very. It was not lost on me, that age.

Because you will see, you know, you. We sort of. We live in the eye, how I feel, what I'm thinking and all that. And so you live in the eye of what you were like back then, but we don't really have a good sense of it. And all of a sudden, when you see your 11 year old and see how she thinks and see how she figures out the world, and you have a moment, you see her just feeling so safe with you, and you're like, oh, my gosh, that is when it happened.

Did you find that when your sons were.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. I looked at them and I went.

The worst thing in their day is whatever.

Right.

The pizza was cold. Or the baseball practice was canceled. That's the worst thing. I had a mother who died. I had a shooting. I mean, it's kind of like crazy stuff, you know, you're like, wow, what a horrible thing to do to a child or to have done to a child.

But. But also it's that thing of like, so glad the worst thing in your day was that your pizza was cold.

Correct, Correct. Correct. Because that's how your childhood should look. And actually that's what you deserved and what you didn't get.

Right. And to be able to give that to my daughter in the same way that my mom wanted to give me the kind of childhood she didn't. Didn't get is a healing as well.

Correct? Correct.

So a couple of things here. Anna says, what does mothering yourself mean?

That is a great question that I didn't understand for so many years. But to me, what it means is I'm having a feeling of anxiety. I'm having a feeling of panic.

I go into the other room, I take a couple of deep breaths and I tell myself that the story I'm telling myself is not the reality. You know, I try to reconnect to the present moment. And then also I think of things that I. That. What is it that I feel nurtures me? So for me, I have a vegetable that nurtures me. I have chickens, I like to take care of my chickens. That nurtures me. Taking a bath. I like to cook. Talking on the phone with a girlfriend. These are things that I feel I do to mother myself. Taking a walk with my dog. Having a conversation right now with you, David, feels very mothering to myself.

I don't know. Does that make sense? Do you?

Lovely. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And I would say part of it is sort of learning how to self regulate.

Right.

You know, like, it's sort of like I would wish, number one, I had to think of the ideal mother. Like I said, I, you know, I had the mother who took me to sex in the Single Girl at five.

Right.

I think about the ideal mother and you know, the ideal mother, when I'm nervous or when I'm scared or catastrophizing or whatever that ideal mother or father would say. You know what? I understand you're scared. I bet it's going to be okay. I'm here with you. Let's see if they show up in a few minutes and just sort of literally parent child within. What'd you say? Hold them.

Hold. Hold your little. I mean, I, I have my little Natasha, you know, hold My little Natasha, hold her close to my heart. It's going to be okay. Little Natasha, you know, or whatever your name is, you. You find a connection. And then I've had people say, take a. Take a picture, a photograph of yourself from when you were a child and put it on your desk or put it next to your bed and talk to that small child that. The child of you.

Right.

Carol says, do you think to yourself whether it was an accident? Clearly you think it was an accident about your mom.

Absolutely, yes, 100%.

A few people want to know about grief through the generations and trauma through the generations. I think, you know, first of all, I think about.

Children I've known who their parents were, Holocaust survivors.

Okay.

And you just see how the grief got passed on to them. You see how the trauma, the traumatic event, you know, there's the grief and the trauma and the traumatic event, and all those things can get passed on to their kids. I mean, an example was your grandmother's superstitions and nervousness got passed on to your mother, and she had to work to get rid of them.

Yes, yes. And. And my grandmother had a lot of trauma in her own childhood. She saw her brother hanged when they were escaping during the Russian Revolution. So she was. She brought that into her mothering.

Right.

From. That says, for me, after umpteen years of therapy, I imagine myself as a child and I talk to that child to let her know that she is safe.

And does that. Does that make her feel better?

Yes.

Yes. I think there's something about, you know, and the other thing is.

We all look for the answers in the other.

Yeah.

When am I going to meet someone who's going to finally mother me, take care of me, love me, father me? And then what happens is you might meet the really wonderful man or woman of your dreams, and instead of having an equal relationship, you're trying to turn them into your mother or father.

Yes.

Haven't we all done that a hundred percent? I have. I have, I have.

Jamie says, and, you know, this is, you know what I think about? Obviously, I think about finding meaning. That's the book I did. I love how you found your own meaning when so many others have defined your loss for you.

Thank you. Yes, I think I have. That's a good way to. I haven't thought about it like that, but, yes, I have found my own meaning. And, you know, I think part of that is having two fathers who were very down to earth and very supportive of me.

Unfolding as the human that I was meant to be.

Right. I also think about. That's a beautiful way she put it, that in a book, in the documentary, you are defining your experience of it, literally word for word.

Right, right, yes, absolutely. And. And my experience is just my experience, but if I can be a guide, you know, or hold the space for others, for them to have their experience, their true, authentic experience in their own lives.

You know, that's what I think. Film and books and all that that does. It's like you watch something, but then you reflect back onto your own life.

Right. And that's the thing. You know, I think when we talk about even a celebrity, why we connect with them is because they remind us of us, something about our lives. They connect us to ourselves.

Exactly, exactly. And that's such a beautiful way to know ourselves more deeply is through art.

Right.

Tell me, for anyone who hasn't seen it, tell us about the HBO documentary. Tell us about the book. The other thing is, I think, about grief and smell and how smell is so important. And you've helped capture that about your mother, Right? About all that.

Okay, well, so this. This whole process started with Smell. For me, my mom wore a fray called Jungle Gardenia. That. And after I had my daughter, I was so. I was flooded with so much.

Healing that I wanted to create a modern version of that fragrance as a thank you to my mom. And so I created a fragrance called Natalie Fragrance. And that was me sticking my toe in the water to talk about my mom. And it was because of that experience and the way I felt when I was being interviewed for it, that made me start to think perhaps I could share my story.

Laurent Bozereau, who's an incredible documentary filmmaker, and I produced, he directed a documentary for HBO on my mom called Natalie Wood. What Remains behind that premiered in May and I think is still streaming.

Still streaming. You can find it on HBO Go.

Right? HBO Go. And then I wrote a book that came out on May 5 called.

More than Love. Sorry, I was thinking my. My father, my real father, Richard Gregson. That's his birthday. And so it was just interesting that the book came out on his birthday. And so I just was thinking of him for a moment, which is available, you know, anywhere you can buy a book. And the book is much more of a deeper dive into my grieving process and into my relationship with my mom. Whereas the documentary is, you know, just sort of very much about my mom and her work and her life.

We. We have the same publisher.

Yes, we do.

Simon and Schuster, Scribner. And I was talking to Roz There the other day, I like. And, you know, Roz was just telling me how lovely you were.

Oh, that's.

And it's interesting. You know, we think about publishers as sort of the big heart, all that. And one of the three reasons why my latest book was with them is after my son died, I happened to be in New York, and we were just talking about something, and they said, do you want to come by? And, like, they all just came and sat with me, and I'm like, it was so sweet. It was like, this is. My publisher is like, yeah. And. And Ronnell Ross has just lost her mother. So.

I didn't know that.

Yeah, she's didn't know that. So, you know, moms are in the air. Moms are in the air. And now we have Father's Day. And.

Yeah.

Had a double dose of some. Two really great ones.

I do. And I married a good one, too, so that was. That's lucky.

Good, good, good. Well, time has flown by.

Oh, my gosh. David, can I just say thank you so much for having me. I am. I am so honored to talk to you, and I am so grateful. Grateful that you do what you do. I cannot wait to read your book, which I already know is on the way. And I thank you for having me, and I'm happy to come back if you ever need a guest.

Oh, thank you. Thank you. And, you know, it was so sweet when you said to me, I wish I had known you earlier. I'm like, oh, my gosh.

I do. I really do.

Well, well. And I'll tell you my hats off to all your counselors and therapists, because tell them I'm impressed. Tell them I'm impressed.

Thank you so much. And thank you to everybody that came and listened and asked questions, and thank you for letting me share your space. I appreciate it.

And I think there's something so sweet about your. Let's remember her life. Let's remember her work. Let's remember the extraordinary talent, the extraordinary beauty. And, you know, I tell people the end was one day. It was like the worst day, but there are so many other days that mattered. And what a meaning and honor you also do to your living dad to make sure people know this was a horrific accident. That's the reality of this.

Yeah. And wow, that's so profound, what you said. The end was one day. That. That is really.

I mean, the worst day. The worst day, you know, and we don't want it to define her. And Lord knows that's what you've made sure. Didn't happen.

So thank you for helping me with this.

Oh, you're welcome. Thank you for honoring her and honoring her life and thanks for sharing your grief with us and your healing.

Thank you, David. I am so honored to be here. I appreciate you.

All right, well, stick around a moment and for all of you, thank you so much. I really, I'm so honored. Whenever you share this time. I see you online supporting each other all the time. You know, if you've got a bad day, tell us. If you've got an okay day, tell us. It will give hope to someone else. So I so appreciate you sharing yourself here and many, many different voices. Come on. And I thank you for that. We're going to have Paul Denniston's doing grief yoga tomorrow night, so you'll get to do that. And then Friday's, Joan Borin Senko, lots of incredible people coming on. And I will see you all very soon. Thanks so much.