Hey all, I'm Joe Piazza and you're listening to Committed.
Today's relationship is one that I think about a lot.
It's a relationship between a mother and her adult daughter.
When Susie Hopkins' husband of 30 years unexpectedly left her to pursue an old flame, who just happened to be a marriage counselor, of all things, the grief and disorientation she felt was so overwhelming that that she thought her own heart might stop from the pain of it all.
She had no idea how to take that first step forward after losing such an integral part of her life.
The answer was to go through the grief.
And to go through it with the help of her grown daughter, Hallie Bateman.
Hallie was Susie's rock as she was figuring out what to do with this next phase of her life.
That was going to look completely different than what she'd expected.
And as they went through that process together, they thought maybe they could help other women.
Now, Susie and Hallie had worked together on projects before.
Susie's a journalist, an author, and Hallie's an artist and New Yorker illustrator.
As they mined Susie's grief, they started on a book called What to Do When You Get Dumped.
A unique and heartfelt look at loss and love.
Hi, guys.
Hi there.
I've got to say, having a mom and daughter on the show brings me so much joy, because I am a mom of two little girls.
And all I want is for us to you know, when we're all grownups in the world, to do things together and to create things together.
So what you two have done is so inspiring to me.
Thank you.
That makes me so happy.
Yeah.
I'm obsessed with my mom.
I love it.
You know what?
I'm obsessed with your mom, too.
So.
Oh, no.
Just to start off by saying all my friends want to be friends with my mom and are like is your mom going to come?
Will she hang out with us?
And I'm like, I don't know.
She's busy.
She's hard to wrangle.
She doesn't understand how cool and sought after she is.
And I'm constantly being like, no, they want you to be there.
And she's like, I can't.
I'm too busy.
This is what I want.
This is what I mean.
I like I sometimes fantasize a 20 years in the future where my kids' friends just want me to hang out with them.
So, yeah.
Well, you know what?
Hopkins has written a couple books.
I'm sure you can follow it.
I shall.
I shall indeed, Susie Hopkins.
I'm just going to put a picture of you above my desk.
It's pretty great, I got to say.
Something I never expected was this super close connection, you know.
And the trust building over doing two books together has been incredible.
That's awesome.
That's awesome.
What do you attribute that connection to before we dive into those books?
And how do you think you got to here?
Well as the child who kickstarted the first book by asking my mom to write it for me.
I will say that I attribute
A lot of it to her because she raised me and my brothers along with my dad.
But so much of it is my mom as far as the.
Oh my gosh, I thought the way you just said that that she also raised her dad.
And I'm like, I'm also raising my husband.
I'm raising him every day.
It didn't work.
Thanks, okay?
Yeah, I mean.
Raised in a household by two journalists and a mom who made us feel safe to talk about absolutely anything.
And I came to my mom in my early 20s and was like hey mom, will you write me a book on what I should do starting the moment you die?
And to her great credit, A, I felt safe to ask that question.
And B, she was like, yeah, okay, sure, I'll do it.
You know, it took a while, but we got there.
And so, I mean...
I don't know, mom, you did this.
You created me.
What do you attribute it to?
Well, I mean, our connection is what I would have wanted.
I came out of a pretty dysfunctional childhood.
My mom was pretty badly abused and there was a lot of silence in our household.
And I so wanted children and I so wanted to recreate, to create a space that they're.
Nobody was scared.
Everybody talked about everything.
And he was, in a way, coming through a bunch of childhood issues that led me to go boy.
When I have kids, I really want to be able to have them express themselves with no fear of being censored or told to.
You know, go out to the woodshed just to be able to share and express themselves.
And that's what I did.
That's what I wanted to create in my own family.
Well, it certainly seems like you've done an amazing job of it, even while raising a husband, which is so hard.
Impossible, actually.
Impossible.
So before we dive into the two of you working together, could each of you just introduce yourselves as who you are separately from the other?
Okay.
You want me to start, Hallie?
Yeah, you go.
Okay.
I'm 65 years old.
I was a journalist for my whole career from about the age of 20.
I worked for four newspapers.
And then I had three children with my husband.
And then I founded a magazine.
So lifelong journalist and three children.
And then after 30 years of marriage, got dumped by my husband, which led to this book.
That's my synopsis.
Perfect.
Perfect synopsis.
And for me, I'm Hallie.
I'm 35 and I'm a writer, cartoonist, illustrator combo.
I work with words and images and yeah, make all kinds of books is pretty much my jam.
Lately, and I live in Cincinnati, Ohio, and I had twins 10 months ago.
So I have two little babies.
Oh, my gosh.
I live here with my husband, Jack, and our dogs, Vanelli, and our babies are Max and Nora.
Oh, my God.
Stop.
I love those names so much.
I pretty much just can't handle it.
I would have another baby girl just to name her Nora, but my husband got snipped, so I can't.
Oh, no.
I'm so sorry.
There's three of them.
It sounds like you got a good little group there.
Yeah, it's good.
It's good.
It's a nice little coven.
So talk to me a little bit about how this particular project came about.
The book is What to Do When You Get Dumped, A Guide to Unbreaking Your Heart.
And I mean, frankly, this is a book I could have used from age 16 to 34 and a half.
How did you come up with this idea?
This, this book we wrote we were our first book was what to do when I'm gone about the loss of of your mother and coming through that grief.
And then, when we were preparing to launch that book, my husband, of 30 years, suddenly left me to my, to my great shock.
And it it really devastated me.
Unexpected two days before I was going to retire and we were to launch off on a retirement trip and went and found an old girlfriend that he felt like he wanted to have that relationship instead.
So this sent me into a grief spiral and a couple years into it, I still had not recovered very much.
And I just began thinking.
You know, I had counseling, I had medication, and I just thought what's wrong with me?
Why is this taking so long?
And that is where the book came from.
I wrote it as sort of a pep talk to myself to push through the grief that was not going away very, very quick.
And I wasn't getting through it.
And it was such a universal thing.
I thought that I talked to other people and cobbled together what was working and what wasn't working and really wrote it when I was really in a sort of a pivotal stage of healing from it.
What was that like for you, Hallie, for your dad to suddenly make this decision?
It must have upended your life too, right?
Yeah, it upended our entire family.
It was incredibly shocking.
My dad is a very mild-mannered person and, you know, a very sweet person.
You know, boomer man.
So emotional communication skills, not so much.
But, you know, not someone that this was expected out of.
So we were all really taken by surprise.
And, you know, it was horrible seeing my mom go through that.
And my brothers and I were all you know there with her.
You know, talking on the phone and and visiting and trying to be supportive.
And then, you know, mending and refashioning our relationship with our dad, who we're all close with.
But you know, it's just, it's different.
And yeah, I think that when I remember I was visiting my mom at some point you know when when You're saying mom at that point, when you were like what's going on?
Why don't I feel better?
It was like two or three years in.
And my mom was largely coping by doing really intense manual labor like chopping tons of firewood and growing a huge garden.
I moved to the country.
Yeah.
I would call her and it would just be like the really loud sound of a wood splitter whirring in the background.
It would just be like, my mother is a manual labor worker.
But.
I also knew that she, you know, she would tell me she had book ideas, including this one.
And I'm really I'm I think my mom has described it as I'm a pusher.
I'm someone who's like, why aren't you doing that?
Why aren't you writing that?
What's going on?
How come you're not?
Yeah, exactly.
The worst with that.
And my my friends and I have a name for that.
It's called an emotional snowplow.
Oh, my God.
Yeah.
So I was that.
OK, this this is actually a great time for a quick break.
We'll be right back.
And we're back.
How did you figure out how you could work together?
Because working together is such a specific thing.
I have recently realized I cannot work with my husband, nor do I want to.
I realized that a few years ago with my husband.
It's a nice thing to learn.
Yeah.
Yeah.
How did you figure out your process?
And if this was even a thing the two of you could do?
Our first book is called What to Do When I'm Gone.
And it began because, like I said, I asked my mom to write me a book of instructions on what to do, starting the moment she dies.
And what happened was I asked her, she said yes.
And then I was an emotional snowplow for like five years to no results.
Like she was like, I'm working on it.
I'm busy.
It's in my head, whatever.
Like she and I was like, Mom, you're going to get hit by a bus.
I'm not going to have the book.
Finally, she came to visit me.
I was living in New York at the time.
And we were going to go on a little trip to Maine together.
And I brought my laptop.
And when we got to this cabin, I was like, all right, mom, we're starting the book.
I asked her questions.
She probably was drinking a glass of wine and just responded as I typed out everything she said.
And that was the beginning.
It was born out of my desire to have a manual for what to do of this thing that I was really scared of, of losing her.
And initially I was just like, mom, write me a book.
But I saw that I had to be a part of it for it to happen, not just, you know, to be the snowplow, but also to ask the questions.
And And then we were like oh, it's OK, it's going to be illustrated.
And then it was actually something we were going to pitch instead of just being a book for me.
When you're going through all those questions, do you think it brings you closer together?
I mean, I think that we could all benefit by having the death talk decades before a parent dies.
And yet we live, we're in a society that's so afraid of death.
That we just don't confront that.
When we were working on it, I remember in certain moments being like, oh my God, I'm a genius.
Like, to make a book for this because it's not a, oh, what if this happens?
It's like, this is going to happen.
So it's basically a meteor loss and losing, you know, someone we love is...
It's headed for you, sorry.
It is.
Everyone dies.
Yeah, everyone dies.
Which could also be the name of a book, but it probably wouldn't sell that well.
Well, you know, no one wanted this book except our publisher.
Everyone was scared of the subject.
They were, you know, nervous to publish something to do with death.
But it's gone far.
It's published in other countries because...
You know, I think our publisher did see, like, people are desperate to talk about it.
It's hard to talk about it, but that's why it's so needed.
Talk to me a little bit about how this project brought you closer together.
Examining what would happen when Susie dies, how did it improve your relationship?
Well, I think my mom would say squabbling.
Squabbling.
Yeah, that sounds right.
Because to me, squabbling is the key to success.
It was the mother-daughter way, right?
Yes.
But on the first book, I would say I had to shift from my life vantage point.
And it happened during that book where I'm the mom, you're the daughter.
And when we're holed up in a hotel room working as collaborators, I came to see what a talented artist Hallie was, and that she was, in fact, an adult.
And I think...
A lot of parents, when they have grown children, they're still their child.
But moving into the collaborative space, I had to shift into Hallie is not under my dominion.
She's my child, but she's an adult who is now bringing her own skills and sensibilities to this.
And when I made that shift out of the mom mode, then we became, I think, true collaborator.
So that's what it did for me.
And then I think that from the first book to now, like I think, when we were working on the first book even though my mom apparently learned that I was a grown adult I remember being a huge brat while we were working on it.
And I remember just being like, mom, you don't get it.
Like I just remember, my mom would be like really supportive and enthusiastic and like talking about how our book would sell.
And I would just be like, it's not going to sell.
Like, I was just so...
I just remember being a little brat.
And then I think that through you know the arc of that and seeing my mom be celebrated in the public eye and having our second book sell, becoming a mom myself, like I've tried to lower the brat quotient a lot, which is huge, as any adult daughter will know.
It's like you can be so close to your mom and then like your second day home.
You're like being such a little brat.
Oh my God.
Yeah.
The brat quotient is high, but I also think the brat quotient goes down once you become a mother yourself.
Yes.
Yeah.
Like now I'm like I sort of openly which I've always been like such a mama's girl, but I think there's like a lot more mutual adult respect going on.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And now my mother lives in my same city, so I don't have that thing where I revert, because I only see her in person four times a year.
I'm like, I'm like very, I'm like, she's my, she's my mother.
I respect her deeply.
And I think the fact that Hallie basically joined me on a grief journey in the course of not just my husband leaving but, you know, walking through this with me and then putting it into book form, which is another walk through it, and it's very intense and that has developed a lot of trust between us, because you're talking about issues that are painful and personal and you feel I felt very vulnerable writing this and I trust Hallie on so many levels as a consequence of working with her, and that's been a great development of this, a gift to me.
I do think we've learned a lot.
I've learned that my mom... So I'm very fast.
I'm a fast drawer.
I'm a fast writer.
I'm a fast thinker.
I'm not saying it's all genius.
I'm just saying I move really frenetically fast.
And my mom is slower.
And I've learned over the years to trust that and give it space.
And I'm still a pusher, but I have to also understand that she's a different person and she's not going to need the same things I do.
Like she doesn't need me like screaming, rewrite it, give me another idea.
Like she needs a minute to gather.
Yeah, I'm a ponderer and we have learned that.
And those are two very different styles, I will say.
My husband is also a ponderer and I'm an emotional snowplow is what I am.
Oh, cool.
That's good to know that there's another one.
There's a lot of us.
There's a lot of us.
Okay, let's take a break.
And then I want to talk about this grief journey and what that's like to go through with your mother, and then what you discovered going through it to give advice to other women going through things like this.
Okay, we're back.
Now, you went through a real grief journey together.
It's not all, you know, it's usually the other way around, right?
It's usually a daughter helping, or it's usually a mother helping a daughter through a breakup.
And this was the opposite.
And so what was that like for the two of you?
And how were you able to support one another through it?
Well, I think I'll just start like before we started working on the book.
It was just, you know, being there for my mom, same as my brothers were.
We were all, you know, really supportive and trying to be there for my mom as much as possible.
And then, once my mom started to work in earnest on the draft and, you know, once we started actually working together on the book, it really satisfied for me this desire to process the divorce, as you know, as someone who was also affected by it.
I think that it felt like my job was to help craft and honor my mom's story by lending my skills to that and helping to make it into this book.
And I think we both kind of saw what it wanted to be like, had a sense of like oh, this is kind of a sibling to our first book, but it's different.
I think it's a lot more my mom.
Like.
The first one is I think there's a lot of me being like okay so mom, and then what do I do if this happens?
And this happens?
And this is my mom's, you know, real actual story.
And so I saw it as my duty.
And I really wanted to honor that as much as possible and also, you know, have fun with it and use it as a as a fun reason to squabble with my mom.
Fun, fun squabbling.
That's the title of your next book.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
And Susie, what about you?
I really wanted this book.
Well, the book was helping me heal by, I just didn't have the awareness of how alone you could be.
I'd had friends get divorced and left and And I was honestly looking back, I was quite cavalier about it.
I thought well, it's probably they're just with the wrong person and they'll get over it and they'll find somebody else and all will be good.
And it can't be, you know that hard.
And in fact, for me, it was that hard and it was shocking.
And I wanted to, I guess, explore why it was so hard and what would help get to the other side.
And so the existence of this book is, I hope is, a note of encouragement that I just could not find on how to get to the other side of heartbreak.
And I'm basically documenting what I did and what I observed that other people did, that in some cases just you know irritated me and made me angry.
And, you know, I think people that are in grief often hear things that are not helpful in the least.
And I wanted to sort out and really hope to convey to other people what really is supportive and that there is real hope.
But it takes a lot of time.
And you have to allow yourself so much time and grace and find compassion for yourself that maybe, if you're a person who didn't do a lot of self-care which was certainly me for years I was just a real workaholic and didn't pay attention to my own needs.
And it was a learning experience.
And I think that's the best of what grief can do is give us some lessons on how to show grace to ourself.
Yeah, I think that showing grace to ourselves is one of the hardest things.
When we're not always good at showing grace to others either.
But I think it's even harder to show it to ourselves.
Yeah, so yay.
Yay on you for doing the work and getting this done.
And the book is getting very good blurbs.
It got one from Emily Henry, the very famous romance author.
Oh my gosh.
She said what to do when you get dumped is an emotional, wise and genuinely comforting read for anyone whose heart is broken, has been or broken or will ever be broken.
So everyone, everyone, except for sociopaths, actually.
And I do love that it's in graphic novel form, because I just I think that makes it so much more accessible.
Yes.
Yes.
That's how I feel too.
I think I think that it's so hard to read when you're in a dysregulated place.
Like I was telling my husband this morning, there's fires in LA right now and a lot of our friends are affected and I feel super dysregulated.
And I was like, yeah, I picked up a book and I couldn't read.
No, the words swim on a page.
Yeah.
So there's something so nice about a book where there's There's like four sentences and then there's a big lush image.
And I love about comics and graphic books that you can stay on that page for as long as you want.
You're reading not just the words, but the image as well.
And something is washing over you that's beyond words, that is in the realm of feeling, that's reaching on a different level.
And it's so fun to work with my mom because my mom is like a deep thinker, like thinking and talking about stuff that I think most people find really hard.
And then getting to deepen something that's already working on that level is like so fun and challenging and interesting.
And then, and then you can also like lighten it with the image.
Like you can, the, the line is kind of wonky.
So then it becomes kind of funny.
And then you're kind of laughing at the thing that's really sad.
And then there's like alchemy there.
And I just think that's like the most fun, satisfying process is is like combining all those forces together.
What do you think is the best advice in the book?
Oh, that's a good question.
Does one jump for you, mom?
I think, okay, this is the slow thinker me.
I wrote a, I want to call it a dumpy bill of rights.
Love that.
Yeah.
D-U-M-P-E-E, right?
Not dumpy.
Right, a dumpy bill of rights.
And that's in the beginning of the book.
And I think that contains, what I tried to go by, which is, I'll just tell you what they are.
You have the right to express yourself fully and honestly.
You have the right to say no to whomever or whatever does not help you move forward.
And you have the right to grieve and heal in a way that works for you and you alone, for as long as it takes.
And that was what I realized were the three things I needed, because The world wants you to get over it.
And that's not always the timetable for grief.
And I had to let go of some people in this process because they were not helping me move forward.
So all this was what I learned.
And it made me also express myself more honestly because... things I might not have said before.
Now I go on.
Here I am.
This is my one life and I'm going to be clear about how I feel.
And I think those things.
I just got a little bit braver after self-examination of what had happened in my life.
I witnessed my mom in the aftermath of the divorce and I called it like.
She developed like a give no fucks type of zen that I would always kind of be like shocked by, like hey, mom you, there was so many things that I would bring up something that I might be worried about, or I'd be afraid she would be worried, and to just be like don't care, like that doesn't matter.
Like it does, it does sort out.
It does sort out grief.
Grief helps you sort out what's important what what um, what matters and um, That is a lot of stuff doesn't matter.
Right.
A lot of things that we get caught up in just isn't that important.
What matters to me are my relationships with my kids and my friends and my, the work that I do in the world and how I show up.
So that it really did sort it out for me.
I love that.
I love that.
And how do you feel now?
How long has it been since the divorce?
How do I feel?
Yeah.
I'm still sorting things out.
I feel I'm much better than I was.
I have a better perspective.
My husband is fundamentally a good person.
I've never argued that.
I just objected to.
I thought what he did was unkind and unfair, but he's a fundamentally good person and And I feel like I have a better understanding of what I want going forward.
So I can't say I'm grateful for what happened, but I'm happy with where I am now.
When Hallie told me she was having twins, I moved cross-country to help her with the babies.
And that's been just a tremendous gift.
And in fact, if I was married, he wouldn't have wanted to move.
So my life is taken a course that is really feels good to me as a consequence of the aftermath of what happened, which is kind of funny to think about.
So, yeah, no, I mean, I, I hate, I hate the phrase everything happens for a reason.
Cause that's not true.
Hate it.
It's not true.
Everything does not happen for a reason.
There's a lot of stuff that's just chaos.
A lot of things that are just terrible, but just suck.
Okay.
For no reason.
Right.
Yeah.
But you know, there is often a freedom that opens up from some terrible, terrible situations and being able to be present for your grandchildren and be able to make that move.
That's incredible.
And it'll change their lives as well as yours.
Right, and it's in line with my values.
I didn't have grandparents around growing up and I just go wow, I get to do this now to be part of it.
So it's just a huge gift to me.
Well, and it's a huge gift to me.
I mean, I painted most of this book while I was pregnant, and then I...
I remember in my, I was writing the dedication.
I remember it was like, it's due this day.
Like, and I wrote it and my mom watched the babies so that I could write the acknowledgement.
Like the art that I am making now is enabled in part by my mom's presence.
And I hope we'll make more books together.
And it's a team effort in so many more ways than just the the work itself.
It's like I think about.
This is my.
I don't know how this is connected, but I just I'm just thinking about how our, our lives are so entwined and that that it's not just like we show up to do the work of writing together.
It's like my mom goes on her first shitty bad date after the divorce and then I laugh and talk with her about that and then, when we're working on the book, I know that that story happened.
And then I'm like, oh mom, that's gotta be in the book.
Like here's this thing that you told me.
Like just because you know, just because we talk, like you told me this thing, but I think that should be in the book and the ways that you know, like we are able to share our lives and then so many ideas are shared in that, that can come be a part of the art.
Those are my only questions.
Is there anything that I'm not asking you?
Hmm.
Mom, I don't, I don't think so.
I don't think so.
When is this coming out?
That's a great question.
Probably Wednesday.
Oh, okay.
Well, then the release date probably would be.
Yes.
Well, I am going to say that in the introduction.
Okay.
Well, if you're in Cincinnati, we've got our book launch on January 21st at Joseph Beth Bookstore.
And then, if you're in Brooklyn, we have an event at Books Are Magic on February 13th, followed by a little reception at a gallery nearby, where there will be some original art.
So if anyone wants to come to either of those, I think it'll be really fun and kind of an anti-Valentine's thing, if you're not into that.
So, yeah.
That is all we have for today.
If you love this show, please leave us a rating in all of the review places.
It really does help.
And if you have a story that you want to share with Committed, email me at joe at influentialmedia dot biz.
I'm the creator and host of this show, and our executive producers are me and the magical, wonderful Ramsey Yunt.
Thank you so much for being here with us today.
Take care of each other.
