My dream podcast guest

if only it were possible

You probably know that my podcast is called “I Don’t Know How You Do It.” I chose it based on hearing that statement every single day for more than a decade.

Here’s what I wrote about it in Huffington Post back in 2013. (It was a Mother’s Day post, hence the multiple references to mothers.)

“Not a day goes by without at least one person saying to me, ‘I don't know how you do it.’ The ‘it’ they're referring to? It could be mothering a child with a life-threatening, degenerative disease. It might be advocating for my son, whose ADHD often gets in his way as profoundly as my daughter's inability to walk gets in hers. Or it could simply be having three young children while working full-time, which so many of us do and wonder ourselves how we do it. 

I never know what to say in response. Do I dismiss it and tell them my life isn't as hard as it seems? That would be a lie... it really is that hard. It's hard for all mothers and maybe extra hard for working mothers and definitely extra, extra hard for mothers of kids with special needs and serious illness. So do I agree with them and tell them I don't know how I do it either? That I often feel I've been dealt a really bad hand and that it's unfair and why me? That would also be a lie. Because I know that while my hand is complicated and messy, my sister and friends have complicated hands too. They may look like beautiful and colorful and flowery hands on the outside but two (or four) shared glasses of wine is all it takes to discover just how messy their cards are too.” 

(You can read the rest here.)

My three kiddos at the time I wrote the Huffington Post article

So when I started my podcast, I knew I wanted to have conversations with other people who hear that statement all the time. People whose lives seem unimaginable from the outside. I wanted to dive into how they’re able to do the things that look undoable, whether their cards are ones they’ve chosen or ones they’ve been dealt. 

Even though I’ve always been uncomfortable when people said “I don’t know how you do it” to me, there are people I’ve said it to as well. I said it to my friend whose twin daughters are both in wheelchairs, making it impossible for her to take them out on her own. I said it to my sister when she threw a huge chanukah party while feeling horrible from chemo. I say it to my husband every time he cooks the swordfish so perfectly it melts in my mouth.

But really there is only one person who I ever looked at and truly thought “I don’t know how you do it.” My daughter Dalia.

Sweet Dalia had an insidious disease that stole her ability to walk, talk, eat, and breathe without a ventilator. Ever so slowly over her 17-year life, she dealt with losing all functionality – even the ability to blink. If she had wanted to give in or give up, I wouldn’t have questioned her.

But that wasn’t Dalia’s style. Dalia loved life and she loved the people in her life. She wanted to play and be silly and exude her incomparable sweetness. She wanted to go to Target and the movies and chase her siblings in her wheelchair. She wanted to snuggle with her dog and bake cookies for the family, even though she couldn’t eat them. 

I truly don’t know how she did it. And I’d give anything to be able to ask her.

---

New Episode

After her brother was killed by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan in 2009, Annie Sklaver Orenstein was heartbroken and unmoored. Standing in the grief section of her local bookstore, she searched for guides on how to work through her grief as a mourning sibling — and found nothing.

Annie shares how alone she felt in her grief, driving her to write Always a Sibling: The Forgotten Mourner's Guide to Grief. As a surviving sibling myself, Annie and I had A LOT to talk about.

We covered:

• The importance of gluten-free meatballs or a cozy throw

• Why grief isn't a pie

• What do about the aftershock of joy

• Whether you should read your sibling's private journals or letters after they're gone

• How you might recognize signs from your sibling and find comfort in unexpected places

• And much, much more

You can listen to the episode here.

Thanks for being part of this community. I’m so glad you’re here.

With grit and grace,

Jessie

P.S., Breath Taking is on a big holiday sale right now on Amazon. Pair it with a cozy throw and a vat of hot chocolate or a bottle of wine, and you’ve got the perfect holiday gift for yourself or someone on your list.