Thanks For Being Here - When a Friend Loses a Parent

Jody Weverka wrote this sweet eulogy for her Auntie Marge - a woman who made everything from crafts to meals to gardens to family life better for everyone. (Previously aired)

A Maasai girl grows up milking cows at dawn, walking ten kilometers for water, sleeping eight to a bed, surrounded by 38 siblings and five mothers who all knew her name and sang her song. Then she leaves for the city—chosen husband, three children, a laptop, shoes with zippers. Kelly shares Ndinini Kimesera Sikar's TED talk about living in two worlds and the question that haunts her: what do we preserve as we rush toward the future? In the village, mental health was strong because life included everything research now tells us we need—movement, nature, community, belonging. In modern life, we've traded all of that for autonomy and advancement, filling bookstores with self-help guides trying to teach us what we once knew naturally. As AI promises to manage even more of family life, Ndinini asks us to pause and decide: do we know what we want to keep and do we know how we'll protect it before the current sweeps us away? (Previously aired)

Chelsea wakes up before 4:30 AM, drives a school bus through rain and mud, and still finds a way to give her sons the kind of stability she lacked growing up. Kelly opens a new four-part series, Can Do Moms with a conversation about what it actually takes to raise good kids on very little sleep and even less margin for error. They talk about the community that shows up when family can't, the quiet calculus of choosing presence over productivity, and why the old story about financial help making people lazy has never held up to scrutiny. It's a conversation about competence that goes unrecognized, love that runs on almost nothing, and the particular kind of intelligence it takes to hold a whole family together — all by yourself.This episode was made possible by the Monarch Foundation.To learn more about the Bridge Project visit:https://www.bridgeproject.org/

Quite often, it’s hard to know how to properly show up for a friend who’s going through a tough time - that is, until you’ve been through the experience yourself and can relate more fully. This is Kelly’s letter to friends who have lost a parent and also to those of us who feel we could have shown up for someone in a better way. (Previously aired)

What does it take to truly see someone before they're gone? Kelly shares an essay she wrote for an evening celebrating awe, reflecting on attention as a practice—learning to notice in wild places with a guide who insists you look closer, then bringing that same discipline to a quiet room where it matters most. (Previously aired)

Why do so many of us sit in silence next to a stranger, certain a conversation would go badly, when the data says otherwise? Kelly talks with behavioral scientist Nicholas Epley, author of the new book A Little More Social, about the small, quiet decisions that keep us more isolated than we need to be—and what happens in the rare moments we choose to reach out instead. We're airing this conversation as a part of the Be Hope Podcast Takeover, a project with the United Nations timed to the UN General Assembly — and Kelly makes the case that one of the simplest paths to hope is human connection. Kelly and Nick dig into why our own predictions about other people are so often wrong, what gets lost when we type instead of talk, and how a single question can turn a stranger into something closer to a friend. It's a conversation about the real, measurable cost of loneliness, and why connection might be less about finding the right words than about simply being willing to try.Thank you to our friends at the Aspen Ideas Festival where this episode was recorded.Check out Nick's book A Little More Social: How Small Choices Create Unexpected Happiness, Health, and ConnectionThis episode is part of the BE HOPE Podcast Takeover by Project Everyone, bringingtogether podcasts from around the world to explore the theme of hope and how we cancontinue to make progress in a rapidly changing world.

Kelly shares a listener's story that perfectly captures what Thanks For Being Here is all about - honoring the people who matter most, whether they're still with us or have moved on. Tracy Hargan's beautiful toast to her 80-year-old mother Janet shows us why these tributes are so powerful and needed. Through the toast given at her mom's birthday celebration, Tracy reminds us all to speak our love out loud - to grab those chances to tell someone exactly what they mean to us, creating moments of connection that stay with us forever. (Previously aired)

For almost 90 years, Harvard has been tracking the same group of men to answer one question: what actually leads to a long, happy life? Kelly digs into the findings, which point again and again to the same surprising answer — not money, not IQ — but the quality of our closest relationships. She connects it to research on chronic pain, a study on personality change well into old age, and a simple trick for staying connected that takes less time than a coffee run. It's a conversation about what actually protects us as we age, and why the smallest gestures of connection might matter more than we think.Links:Harvard Study of Adult Development:https://www.adultdevelopmentstudy.org/Robert Waldinger's TED talk on What Makes a Good Life? (discusses the Harvard study):https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KkKuTCFvzI&t=16sKelly's PBS Tell Me More (video) episode with pain psychologist Rachel Zoffness:https://www.pbs.org/video/rachel-zoffness-1vq8xc/Kelly Corrigan Wonders podcast episode with Rachel Zoffness:https://www.kellycorrigan.com/podcast/rachelzoffnessJancee Dunn's article in the New York Times: "The Secret Power of the 8-Minute Phone Call"https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/02/well/phone-call-happiness-challenge.html

Why do we still treat music like a luxury, given everything we now know about what it actually does for the human brain? Kelly talks with music educator and composer Cava Menzies and hearing surgeon and neuroscientist Dr. Charles Limb about the strange, powerful territory where sound meets the mind—the growing evidence that hearing loss may be tied to cognitive decline, and the case that music itself may be one of the most underused tools we have for mental health. It's a conversation about creativity, flow, and the case for treating music less like entertainment and more like medicine.Special thanks to our friends at the Aspen Ideas Festival, where this conversation was recorded.

Kelly reads a birthday letter from her lifelong friend Mary Hope McQuiston to her father Bob, who is turning 90. Instead of throwing a surprise party, Mary Hope decided to honor her dad by collecting the lessons he's taught her—one for each decade he's lived. What unfolds is a portrait of a life well-lived, told through stories about elaborate pranks, deep friendships, showing up when it matters, and never missing an opportunity for dessert or— pyrotechnics. It's about the quiet ways we shape the people we love, and how the best parts of who we become are often learned by watching someone live with generosity, courage, and joy. (Previously aired)