Stephen Colbert opens up about losing loved one: You can’t win against grief

Stephen Colbert and Anderson Cooper opened up about their respective feelings regarding grieving a loved one.

In the latter’s new podcast series All There Is, the late show host discussed the importance of keeping the grief alive in your heart and existing with it.

Colbert was only ten when he lost his father and teen brother in a plane crash near Charlotte, North Carolina in 1974.

“That is such a cliff that I fell off emotionally and psychically and spiritually at that age,” he said.

Cooper was also 10 when he lost his father in 1978 at age 50 after a heart attack. Ten years later, Cooper’s brother, Carter, died by suicide.

Despite confessing that such core losses “shattered” the lives of him and his mother, they did not “destroy” them.

“It’s a gift to exist,” Colbert told Cooper, “and with existence comes suffering. There’s no escaping that, but if you are grateful for your life, then you have to be grateful for all of it.”

Colbert went on to say, “You can’t win against grief because you’re the one doing it to you. Grief itself is a natural process that has to be experienced.”

He described his grief as “like living with a beloved tiger. It can surprise you, it can pounce on you. And it can really hurt you, but it’s my tiger, and it’s going to live as long as I do.”