Comedian Michael Cruz Kayne Learned How 'Un-special' His Loss Is from Twitter
Good morning, everyone.
As promised, I’m back with our regular monthly deep-dive newsletters. The last couple of months were full of things like final book deadlines, verrrrry long school vacations, and all sorts of Omicron life that I probably don’t have to explain to you.
But I’m proud to come back with a bang, and for a newsletter examining loss, this issue gave me such enormous joy to put together. You’ll see why for yourself below.
First, I speak with my friend Michael Cruz Kayne – who wasn’t a friend at all until our paths crossed because of our losses in late 2020. He’s a comedian, host of the podcast A Good Cry, a writer for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and apparently excels at Hamilton dramaturgy. He’s also a member of the grief community. Twelve years ago, his wife, Carrie, gave birth to identical twin boys. One of them, Fisher, died of sepsis when he was 34 days old, and after several months of varying diagnoses starting with Twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome. Michael has a lot to say that makes a lot of sense; I think so highly of him that I’ll be hosting an evening featuring him on Thursday, February 24 at Fotografiska in New York (more on that below, too).
Next, I recently learned that two people fell in love – and got engaged! – as a result of meeting on a Modern Loss Zoom event. Not to get all Yiddish on you, but I’m kvelling. So of course I asked one of them, Shelby Forsythia, to tell us all about it, because this may be the thing that I proudly share at cocktail parties forevermore.
We have so many terrific events on tap for our paid subscribers, including one examining the unique type of loneliness in grief with clinical psychologist and friendship expert Miriam Kirmayer, so please consider upgrading your subscription (or sending one to a friend!) to ensure that we can keep making most of our content free for everyone. Click on the button below to get 20% off. And who knows…maybe you’ll end up meeting someone extra special at our events, from a new grief friend to a life partner. I know for a fact that it happens.
Thanks for reading, and more updates in a few days.
— Rebecca Soffer
REBECCA SOFFER: Michael, what’s the most surprising thing that you've learned about grief?
Michael Cruz Kayne: I'm not surprised by this anymore, but the universality of it really was surprising to me. I know that sounds naive and kind of dumb now, but I really did think when my son was dying and I'm paying for his funeral, that it was totally surreal, a thing people make up for drama. A moment where you'd be like, "Oh, Meryl Streep would kill in this," because it's not a real thing.
SOFFER: Ten years after Fisher died, in 2019, you shared your story really candidly on Twitter. How did it feel?
MCK: All these people responded to it; thousands and thousands of people telling me stories of their losses, tragedies, whatever. It made me aware of how not alone I was and how sort of, like in the best way, un-special, un-unique my loss was. I'd been hanging on to the idea that my wife and I were the only people that this had never happened to. I had never thought about death as much as I did when people responded to that tweet, and how universal it was, and how that feeling of loss touches everyone at some point. The Internet is obviously not a perfect conduit for humanity, but when sexybunny667 reaches out to you and tells you her mom drowned when she was seven, you're like, "Oh my God, this has happened to thousands, millions of people, of course.”
SOFFER: I was one of those readers and remember thinking that this was one of those rare examples of the non-hellhole cesspool that Twitter could be: a forum for pulling each other in to human experiences and creating empathy, and the platform through which to share the real things that we think we might be The Only Person In The World to have ever experienced.
MCK: Yeah. It's the rare, best possible version of social media. The idea that it makes you feel less alone.
SOFFER: Speaking of not being alone, let’s talk about your marriage. Grief has an impact on all relationships, and I’m wondering how it was for you and your wife to be forged in this fire together.
MCK: No one who will ever know me in that way besides her. No matter what I say to anyone for the rest of my life, they will never know it, because you only have words, and words are limited. There wasn't any conflict between the two of us that happened as a result of this loss. What was difficult was trying to take turns being the one who was inconsolable for a second. There wasn't any tough stuff in terms of friction between the two of us on that subject, because it's like two people falling into a bottomless pit. All you have is each other.
There wasn't any tough stuff in terms of friction between the two of us on that subject, because it's like two people falling into a bottomless pit. All you have is each other.
SOFFER: Do you wish you had some sort of ritual? Like cultural, or bespoke, or otherwise that, at least in those early days, was missing in the loneliness of what it is to be a bereaved parent?
MCK: Our experience is very different from most people even those who've lost children because we had a baby that was alive. We had twins. So Fisher died, but Truman lived. We didn't really have the... I'm not even sure luxury is the word, but we didn't have the time to spend being utterly unto ourselves. We had a son that we'd left the hospital with. We really had to move forward and make sure he was fed, clothed, changed, warm, and meeting all his milestones. I think that might have taken the place of whatever a ritual might have been. If Carrie had only given birth to one child and that child had died, I think the situation would've been very different, because then you're in a house with no sound until either you have another child or, I don't know. I could see needing the ritual more in a situation like that.
SOFFER: Sounds like Truman was your ritual. You had no choice but to chop wood and carry water every day, channeling everything you had into his care. A newborn yanks you into the present because you have no choice.
MCK: Right. He may, in some way, be attuned to the feelings of his mom and dad, but at the end, he's also like, "I shat my pants, so somebody's going to have to deal with that. I understand you guys are going through what you're going through. But I did, indeed, shit my pants."
SOFFER: It happens a lot. I know you’re a musical theater geek so I’m gonna put you on the spot. What are some of the best musicals out there dealing with grief?
MCK: This answer is so obvious as to almost be corny, but I really do think Hamilton crushes it. I'm a fan of the show. I know it's kind of reached the point where it's so popular that now it's hip to not like it.
SOFFER: Luckily, I'm not hip, so I still like it.
MCK: The song about, spoiler, the death of their son [“It’s Quiet Uptown”], what it does lyrically blows my mind. If I'm on the subway listening to that song, I'm like, Well, these people are going to be treated to a real emotional outburst from a stranger. The rest of the musical is this intense, intricate web of rhymes, and interior rhymes, and three-syllable rhymes. Then, we get to that song. All of a sudden, the rhyming falls away. When they say for the first time the word “unimaginable,” it's in a spot where normally, you would rhyme. And your breath is taken out of your body, because your mind is like, "Oh, I expect this to complete itself and it doesn't." If you're just a casual listener, you wouldn't even notice that's happening. I guess it's possible that it was unintentional, but it really is brilliant.
SOFFER: You just blew my mind, as I am someone who has listened to this song many, many times.
MCK: I don't think I've ever talked to anybody about it. Whenever I say something that seems cool to me and someone else is blown away by it, I'm always worried. You'll go back and look at it and be like, "Hang on, every single thing in here rhymes." Like my memory will be completely wrong. But I'm pretty sure that I'm correct.
SOFFER: I didn't realize I was speaking with an academic today. You're like a Hamilton: An American Musical scholar.
MCK: Like a dramaturg of specifically Hamilton.
SOFFER: How do you keep Fisher present?
MCK: We do something every year on the anniversary of his death, which we call Fisher Day. The last couple years, we get food from the supermarket and donate it to a community fridge down the street. And we just always try to have conversations about him with some intention. My wife and I are just kind of doing what we think is best, which is being honest about how we feel with our kids, and also trying to make sure that Fisher is not a forgotten person.
SOFFER: Sounds like you’re doing a pretty amazing job of that. What was the best thing that someone said or did for you in the first days, weeks, months after his death?
MCK: Because of the care that we got in the hospital, my wife embarked on a journey to become an intensive care nurse. I were to describe the impact that that had on me and why I'm grateful for it, it's because it inspired me. She was taking this thing that was unspeakable and horrendous and making something out of it.
I'm not trying to impose it upon anyone, but finding some meaning or some purpose for yourself, something you can do with the grief, can feel really liberating. I don't want to pressure anybody to do anything. I'm out here talking to you, and I have a podcast about it, and I'm doing a show about it all because I want the ramifications of Fisher's death to be felt in a positive way everywhere.
I’m thrilled to invite you to join a very special show for the first time IRL in two years. Come on by New York City’s Fotografiska (whose gorgeous building is featured in Netflix’s Inventing Anna) on Thursday, February 24, where I’ll be hosting an evening featuring the very aforementioned Michael Cruz Kayne and his one-man funny show “So Sorry for Your Loss,” which deconstructs, destigmatizes, and demystifies grief. Bonus: A special opening act by comedian and Beautiful/Anonymous podcast host Chris Gethard. I will probably cry on stage because of it all, but that fits within the whole evening’s theme, so it’s fine.
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by Shelby Forsythia
After my mom died in 2013, I wondered if I would meet my “person” in a grief support space, where I suddenly found myself spending a lot of my time. Grief is generally gray and ambiguous, but I found it very black and white when it came to dating. When I went out for coffee with a potential mate, I rolled out my loss story early, testing the waters to see if they were in the Grief Club—or had at least some baseline familiarity with it. Prospective partners were swiftly corralled into two categories: those who knew grief and those who didn’t. Those who did continued to future levels of relationship intimacy. Those who didn’t—well—let’s just say things didn’t last long. To be sure: “griever” wasn’t the sole identity of my ideal partner, but it was an important one.
Despite the fact that I’d pondered meeting a partner in Grief World, I wasn’t optimistic. Facebook groups and in-person support circles aren’t designed for or intended to be pick-up scenes. More often than not, people are mourning love, not seeking something new. Conversations aren’t about building partnership; they’re about learning to do life alone.
Second, I’m a grief professional. So I didn’t want to participate in anything that felt presumptuous or predatory with regard to my work and clients. My first and highest priority is guiding people through loss, not landing a date.
That’s why I was so surprised to meet Heather in an online Modern Loss workshop in February 2021. I was leading the event—a conversation about navigating friendships after loss—and there she was, crocheting and listening intently in the upper right hand corner of my Zoom grid. My heart fluttered watching her hands move nimbly with the yarn, noticing her nod as I said something that resonated. She was beautiful and tranquil. And I wanted to know her.
Afterwards, I posted a picture on my Instagram about how well the workshop went and she left an appreciative comment. “This is my chance!,” I thought. And for the first time ever, I slid into someone’s DMs. I told her I was intrigued by her. I had no idea if she was single, if she was queer, or if she was anywhere geographically close to me, but I took a deep breath and pressed send anyway. Within two hours, she agreed to a date. I was over the moon.
Turns out yes, she was single; yes, she was queer; and yes, she was somewhere close enough to meet. After a handful of Zoom dates, we met in real life at Peace Arch State Park, a green grassy haven between the U.S. and her native Canada. Embracing her for the first time felt like an armful of home, and when we kissed, I knew I wanted to be beside her for the rest of my life.
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