“Mom was determined that we were going to look at the body. If you weren’t already predisposed to be a goth teen, that would put you right over the edge.”
This episode’s themes are fear and regret. Fear that we will die at the same age, or the same way, that our parent died if they died young, and regret over the last words we may or may not have said to them.
Erin and Elizabeth’s guest for the episode, Natalka Burian, has lived with both. When she was 15, her father died suddenly of an aneurysm after dropping her off at school. On the way, the two had gotten into an argument that ended the way so many do when you’re a teenager — with a petulant Natalka slamming the door and saying, “I hate you!” By the time she got home from school, he was suddenly dead at 44.
Natalka herself is now 44, and her oldest daughter is 15.
Natalka has accomplished a lot in 44 years. She is the co-owner of the influential Brooklyn bar, Elsa, as well as the co-founder of The Freya Project, a nonprofit reading series. She is the author of four books (find her reviews on TikTok), has a hot husband, two daughters and great friends. Underneath her creative life, however, is an ever-present anxiety that she, too, will die this year.
Natalka has suffered from intense migraine headaches since she was a teenager. Doctor’s have found no link, but her headaches have only intensified her fear that some unforeseen shadow on an MRI could take her away like it did her father. Her situation speaks to a real fear that many of us carry: that we are destined to inherit not just our parents’ features or habits, but their illnesses and their endings.
Ultimately, this conversation is an inspiring reminder that we all need to learn to let go of the unknowable, and trust that love will outlast our most painful, imperfect moments.
Hang in there everyone,
Erin & Elizabeth
