054: moving homes, cleo dang would rather be dead, + how grief & joy coexist
This week, we grieve the places we've left behind, the people we've lost, & the joy we find anyway.
Nins says goodbye to the apartment that held five years of her life, reminding us that moving to a new home isn't just about leaving a physical space; it means leaving behind the version of you who lived there, too.
Arns dives into Mai Nguyen's 2026 novel Cleo Dang Would Rather Be Dead, a story about infant loss, motherhood, depression, and the messy reality of grief. We explore why we should stop trying to "fix" our grief, how to help others grieve, and all the beautiful ways grief and joy coexist.
Content warning: pregnancy loss, infant loss, miscarriage, depression, suicidal ideation, substance abuse, postpartum grief, and death. Full spoiler discussion for Cleo Dang Would Rather Be Dead.
In this episode:
the grief of closing a chapter and becoming someone new
Cleo Dang Would Rather Be Dead by Mai Nguyen
infant and child loss, motherhood, & complicated grief
why grief can look messy, uncomfortable, and even ugly
the power of community, connection, & simply staying
how grief and joy don't cancel each other out; they coexist
Chapters:
0:00 - Preview
4:29 - Arns' life rec: Elix
8:47 - Nins says goodbye to her old home
14:05 - The apartment that witnessed five years of becoming
25:40 - Saying goodbye to an old version of yourself
35:02 - Arns discovers Cleo Dang Would Rather Be Dead
55:12 - When grief becomes impossible to carry alone
59:46 - Grief & joy are a dance
Referenced in this episode:
"My Family Never Talked About Death. Then I Lost My Baby" by Mai Nguyen for Oprah Daily
Voicemails for Isabelle (2026)
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Speaker 6: 00:00
And I was just hit with this thought that, hmm, I think this apartment will be good for me. And it was. A therapist said it is the most accurate depiction of grief that she has ever read. Over the next five years.
Speaker 5: 00:18
I don't know how I'm gonna do this. I can read it for you. Over the next five years.
Speaker: 00:28
Should I guess? People get so confused.
Speaker 4: 00:31
This is BRB Crying.
Speaker 6: 00:44
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to BRB Crying. I'm Arns. And I'm Nins.
Speaker 4: 00:51
And we are your ballin' babes. Oh you could say we know ball. Okay. B-A-W-L, guys. Like crying. Thank you. Keep clarifying. We because we cry and then we like tell each other about it on the pod and like why that was so. So it's it's a it's a pun on the word balling, like as if I'm crying, but then like the phrase And the balling, like ball it. Yeah.
Speaker 6: 01:19
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Wonderful. Thank you. Uh if you're new here, I'm sorry. Uh welcome. Welcome. We're so happy to have you. If you're old here, welcome back, cry babies. I'm gonna start hard and fast with a fucking plea.
unknown: 01:37
Oh.
Speaker 6: 01:38
Yes. A prayer. A prayer. A dire wish. Yeah, a dire w it is dire. So we have here stickers. And we made way too many on accident. They're business cards, actually. But we will give you a free sticker if you leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify. And let me tell you, I did a little bit of math this morning. Based on the number of downloads that we get, the number of listens we get per month. 0.8% of those people have left us a review. You guys! We talked about this. Shameful. Shameful. And listen, I'm not here to shame you, but truly, truly, truly, the reviews matter way more than you think. So if you would please leave us a review, send us the proof of your review, and we will mail you a sticker for free. They're so cute. We sell these people. We sell these. I know. So you would get it for free. Okay. Yeah. And also we're at BRB Crying.podcast on all socials if you haven't followed us there yet. Uh sign up for our newsletter, blah, blah, blah, all the things.
Speaker 2: 02:54
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 4: 02:54
Yeah. But really, though, we would so love if you have been ballin' with us. Ballin. Yes. Sorry. It really does help us. We are still indie creators for now. For now. And so any review really, really just helps amplify our exposure and uh gets us in front of more people. So thanks, love you. Thanks. Okay. Okay. How are you? I'm great.
Speaker 6: 03:25
Yeah.
Speaker 4: 03:26
Yeah. I'm feeling good. It's like peak summer. I'm really like busy. Okay. But it's like it's fine. It's like manageable. It's like busy where I'm like, ooh, I'm so busy. You know, ooh, I have so many things to do because I'm big and important, you know? Love it. Can't complain. Yeah.
Speaker 6: 03:46
How about you? I've been good. Uh right now, uh the is this TMI? Maybe. I just started my period. But I thought it might be a fun little way to talk about things that we love. Okay, so Ninz and I, a little context for all you cry babies. Ninz and I were talking about how, you know, I mean, yes, we come on here to cry and tell you why, but we're also just girls. And we got some wrecks. Ooh. We got things that we love, that we use on a daily basis. And we were like, why not just tell the world like all the things we use at home? You know? So I thought I would do a little bit of that today, just because it's very relevant. Okay. So I
Speaker 6: 04:29
am really big on traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture, all the stuff. I used to see a naturopath back when I was trying to get pregnant. And since then, uh, she used to give me these herbs to take every morning, and they super, super helped with my cycle. I had the worst PMS symptoms, all that stuff, like super, super heavy. I have two pretty large fibroids, and that contributes to the heaviness. And I had really bad cramps, debilitating, debilitating stuff physically. So I since have switched over to this. This is Elixir. This is my cycle balance. I know I've told you about this in the past. And it's cool because their intake form was pretty much exactly like what my naturopath did like take a picture of your tongue and like do all these crazy things. And then they give you a custom formula. And I put six drops in my water every morning. And that has so completely regulated my cycle. And I get maybe maybe a little twinge of a cramp. And that's it. Damn. It is life-changing. So not sponsored elixir, but it could be. But yeah, Elixir cycle balance. Yeah. Highly, highly recommend, especially if you're into more holistic ways of healing and balancing your cycle.
Speaker 4: 05:48
Yeah.
Speaker 6: 05:48
Hormonal stuff. That's uh yeah.
Speaker 4: 05:52
I started going to your the naturopath that you went to. What do you think about her? She's so sweet.
Speaker 6: 05:58
Isn't she the fucking nicest person on earth?
Speaker 4: 06:00
For those of you who were like me, had never even heard of the term naturopath until your best friend started going. Um, I like just really was not educated on like what healthcare could be. And like obviously, you know, very standard. Like, I just go with the insurance that my work offers and whatever corporate health care. But for those of you that have been listening know that I struggle with PMDD and I was trying to do basically on my own, like, yes, trial and error, what's gonna work. And finally, because I knew you had experience with a naturopath, I started seeing her. And it's interesting because you you had told me many times, like, oh yeah, she made me take a picture of my tongue. She has never asked me to do that. And it's just cool. No, but it's not, it's not weird because you realize, like, oh my gosh, healthcare is unique for every single person. And we are so accustomed to just trying to fit ourselves within the standard ranges of health and Western medicine. Going to a naturopath who is actually asking these very specific questions about just me and then coming up with a treatment plan for just me. It was a life. Like I was like, this is this is unbelievable.
Speaker 6: 07:24
Everyone deserves to have that kind of custom treatment. Because you're so right. Everyone is so fucking different. Everyone is so different. Crazy that we try, and and no amount of Googling can get you to that point of like, here, like, let's do all these labs, figure out all this shit, right? And then from there, like it's so yeah. I don't know. That's cool.
Speaker 4: 07:48
I'm so happy. I'm so happy for you. Yeah. I mean, we're still like testing out a few things. Yeah. But that's cool that like Elix seems like it also is kind of in that same lane of like, okay, like let's hear about you specifically.
Speaker 6: 08:03
Yes. And I like that if it's not necessarily accessible to go to a naturopath if you don't know where to start. Yeah. I think it's a good starting point. Yeah. Even to just if you're curious, cool. Cool. I loved that. Yes. Maybe I'll come up with one next week. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Would love to hear. Okay. All right. I guess we can do the actual episode. Yes, so you start.
Speaker 4: 08:29
Yes. Okay. Um, you guys, I forgot my iPad at home today. So our like hardcore fans are like, wait, that's a different iPad. Wait, that's different. Yeah, sorry. It
Speaker 4: 08:47
feels like it's been so long since we've just had like a quote unquote normal episode. I'm excited though. Right? Yeah. It's like coming home. Yeah. Like, ooh, okay. Coppy, cozy. Yes. I'm about to change that. Oh. Ooh, okay. Okay. I might be emotional for this one. Uh, I will be. Okay. So we joke all the time that we're 30-something teenagers. You'll see it in like some of our taglines. But sometimes I'm really not joking. I really still feel like a child in so many ways, like a preteen navigating this world. I still sort my peers according to what grade level they are in relationship to mine. But for this podcast, I still stay up late writing papers. Yeah. Critical research analysis that I then present to the World Wide Web with sources. And at the start of every summer, I always get a little weepy during graduation season. I know it's commonplace to cry at weddings. We all do it. It's normal, boring. You're not that special. Graduations, however, I cannot recall the last graduation I attended where I didn't cry watching my friend or my family member reach a milestone. Same? Same. Okay, okay. This year, however, I had my own little graduation of sorts. Not in an academic or professional sense, but more so in a life sense. Because this past month pause for an ad. This past month, I moved out of my apartment and into a new home. And I really did not expect to get so emotional about this. But oh my god, did I? So I guess as with all things, in order to understand why this hit me so hard, we must start at the beginning. Please. In 2020, Lou and I moved into our first apartment that was just for the two of us. We had a roommate before, shout out Urban, but this new place was just Lou and me. It was one of those apartments owned by a huge leasing corporation, and I was sold on the pretty landscaping and the big buildings and the lavish pools. I was still new to renting, only having lived on my own for like two-ish years at that point. So I was a noob when it came to picking the right unit. So when I signed this lease, I did not think about south-facing windows or what floor I preferred to be on. And I gave zero thoughts about parking for me, for my husband, for my guests, whatever. The grounds were nice, you know? In short, Lou and I signed a lease for an apartment on the ground floor with literally zero natural light in the common spaces and a really weird layout that didn't really provide like a great place for a couch. It was weird. It was weird. Like it wasn't intuitive. This was also at the height of COVID. So I was stuck in this dark hole, both figuratively and literally. My depression was really starting to reach flow state. You know, it was like, girl, we're peeking, you know, like this is it. Yay. I was three years into hating my job. Everything on the news and on Twitter made me want to rip my fucking hair out. I didn't really have direction or goals, or honestly any idea who I was or what I cared about. And to add a nice little cherry on top of it all, we had to postpone our entire wedding because of lockdown. In short, living here in this time in my life was a hellhole. So once our lease was up for renewal, I immediately told Lou, I'm ready to get the fuck out of here. Let's find a new place. Did not care that we would need to pack up all our shit again. I just knew that this place was not the vibe. So, apartment hunting once more. The one benefit of looking for an apartment during this time was that the monthly leases were delicious. Okay. It was a great time to look for an apartment. All the rates were so cheap. And we were excited because this time around, Lou and I were eyeing a two-bedroom with two baths. Yeah, she's a little fancy. The abundance even back then. Crazy.
Speaker 4: 14:06
So after touring, I think five or six different places, we found our spot. Two bedrooms, two baths, two parking spaces on the second floor. Two, two, two, two, a washer, dryer, a walk-in closet, and so much sunlight. I still remember the weekend. I moved in five years ago. Lou went out to grab food, and I was too exhausted from the move to join him. So it was the first time I had been in the unit by myself with boxes all around me, mess everywhere, so much to do. I took a moment for myself and sat there on our sofa. And I was just hit with this thought that, hmm, I think this apartment will be good for me.
Speaker 2: 15:01
And it was.
Speaker 5: 15:07
I don't know how to do this. I can read it for you. Over the next five years.
Speaker: 15:17
Should I guess? People get so confused.
Speaker 4: 15:24
Over the next five years, we filled that apartment and made it our home. Our entryway opened up to our dining room. My cat and Mare's food and water tucked in the corners. Black and white photos of me and Lou and Mare mounted on the wall. In the middle, a dining table I got for $100 on Facebook Marketplace. I ate every meal sitting at that table with so many of them, surrounded by our friends and family. On the right, our kitchen, countless hours washing dishes, storing them in the dishwasher, unloading the dishes and storing them away. The fridge at one point donned, I think our record was 11 wedding invitations and saved the dates with magnets from our recent travels and latest school photos of our nieces and nephews. On the counters were dried tea leaves and sprinkled flour and splashed oil. And every weekend, Lou and I loved making breakfast together while dancing in that kitchen. Off the kitchen, our living room, an expensive West Elm couch that TVH isn't super comfortable but is pretty beautiful to look at. Our TV sitting on a console table that housed all our board games and randomly all our packing cubes for when we travel. I don't know where else to put them. Then there was the rug, and on top of that rug, at any given time, about four or five different cat scratchers, cat tunnels, and cat wands. This was Mare's favorite place to play. Down the hall was our second bedroom, which Lou and I made into our makeshift office and home gym. I spent every workday in this room, taking my Zoom calls, sipping my tea, writing my little emails. Lou would play his video games, swing his kettlebell, and keep me company whenever I stayed up late editing the pod. And last but not least, our bedroom, my sanctuary, my safe space. Outside our window were these huge trees, and every golden hour I loved getting into bed and watching the leaves cast dancing shadows across our walls. In the corner of our room sat my vanity, and every day and night I sat there doing my beauty rituals, my everyday and every night routine. I felt beautiful there. And at night in bed, I slept and I dreamed and I wondered what more this beautiful life had in store for me. Yes, yes, yes. Romanticize your life, and I sure as hell am romanticizing this apartment. But since I've been weepy from the start, let me just take a quick breather and vent about all the things that were my daily crosses to bear living in this place. Please do. Parking. Yes, we had two parking permits, but there was no assigned spot. So sometimes I had to park three floors up from my unit. And then every day when I would be rushing to get to someplace, I'd fucking forget where my car was.
Speaker: 18:56
I would not be like going up and down the stairs.
Speaker 4: 18:59
Like, where the fuck is it? And like, don't even get me started when like Lou would take my car and then he would like it was awful. It was fucking bad. Second, the endless noise. Yes, this apartment was filled with light, but it was also loud as hell. Okay. Pro tip for those looking for a place to live. Maybe don't pick a spot that is located right at the corner of an expressway and a freeway entrance and across the street from a fire station and an ambulance park. Also above a priest, like it's just a lot of stuff. It's a lot of stuff. Okay. And also, I know that like we can't really control this all the time, but I also would not recommend living below a young family.
Speaker 6: 19:49
Why? What's wrong with the young family? What do you have to say? Say it.
Speaker 4: 19:54
Just the kid just running up and down the halls at all. Like I knew this kid intimately. I knew his everyday schedule. I knew when he woke up. I knew when it was like he had just finished lunch. I knew when he was about to go to sleep. Whew. Wish that kid well. Do you? And lastly, annual fire alarm inspections. Did you know that apartment complexes are required by law to have every single fire alarm inspected by the fire department every year, at least in California. So that means for one to three days out of the year, the sirens would go off from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. while a fire marshal walks into every single unit to check that they were all functioning correctly. I lived in an apartment complex that had a thousand units. Okay. There's probably more. And I know that these are all menial things. None of them were single-handedly the reason we decided to move out. After five years, Lou and I just recognized that maybe over time we just come to outgrow it. And it was time to level up. I won't give away too many details about our new place because this is the internet after all. But we did find a new place. Why were you going to give out my address? You don't want to tell. It's weird. This new place is almost double the square footage with can you believe it? Even more light. And it's so peaceful and quiet and beautiful. When we found this new place and signed the lease, obviously I went insane with the vision boards. You know, let me completely start from scratch building this interior design aesthetic. Why not? Why not, right? I got so excited making all these big plans about our new place and could not wait for the day that we could finally move in. There was only one small problem. I had to like actually start packing. You know, annoying. So I started moving little things here and there. My winter jackets, my junk drawer, my bookshelf. I started donating old clothes and unused appliances. I loved throwing out shit that no longer served me. I feel like it's like a millennial thing. It's like our way of tackling generational trauma by being the absolute opposite of a hoarder. Yeah. Fucking shit away. Minimalist, baby. Amazing. So anyway, I'm throwing out hella shit. I'm packing up hella shit. I'm labeling everything. An earth sign moving. She's having the time of her life. You hate to see it coming. Watch out. Her and her label maker. And then on the weekend before our big move, I am in our apartment by myself while Lou is out at work. I got my headphones on. I got my tea in my thermos. I'm ready for a productive ass day. She's a Capricorn. She's fucking ready to go. She got this mapped out, you know? Yep. So I look at my packing to-do list. And on that list, one of the things is take down refrigerator magnets and photos. And I'm like, okay, yeah, I'm gonna do that in like five minutes. And then I'll feel like really accomplished. I'll feel really motivated, keep going. So I head to my fridge, I look at all the magnets, and then all of a sudden, I burst into tears. Standing there in the middle of this apartment, I realize that it really is coming to an end. This being my home. And yes, I am being super sentimental, but it really is sad when you realize that a chapter in your life is coming to a close. It hit me that pretty soon I was never going to walk through these rooms again. This place that had witnessed so much of my life. I started living here at a time when I felt really lost and broken. But once I moved in, I felt so many pieces start to lock into place. Within months, I finally left my toxic job and found a new workplace that was so much better for me. I started going to therapy and tackling so many wounds that were buried deep within me. Because we were still on the tail end of COVID, Lou and I got our marriage certificate on a Zoom call we took in our home office. And it was in that same home office where one day I received a text from my best friend asking me if I was still down to start a podcast about crying. So many things happened in my life over the last five years that make me feel like a completely different person from the one who first moved in. My joy and my gratitude expanded. I learned so much about myself, but more importantly, I learned to love so much about myself. My dreams and my goals and my visions for the future grew bigger and bigger. All of these beautiful, wonderful things happened while I was living in this apartment, and I'm so grateful for it all.
Speaker 4: 25:40
The thing is, I know without a doubt that this life is just going to keep getting better. I'm gonna keep leveling up, keep seeing the world, keep experiencing my dreams come true. And every time I do, I know that I will once again become a whole new person, wiser, more experienced, more healed, even more beautiful. If you can even imagine that. I can't. Right? My God. And while that's definitely something to look forward to, I will miss these old versions of me and these old chapters of my life. And I think that's why this move wasn't just me finding a new place to live. It was saying goodbye to this version of me that I am so proud of and this time of my life that was so full of beauty. To wrap up the story, I want to give a little shout out to Maggie. We're gonna get a little woo-woo to close this up, okay? Please. So, quick little backstory. One of the things that I would love to do while living in this apartment was take my daily walks during the work week around the apartment complex. I would call them my manifestation walks because I'd put on my headphones and I'd listen to music and just dream about the future. Think about all the things that I wanted and all the things I was excited for. And along this walking path of mine was a magnolia tree, which I lovingly nicknamed Maggie. Every spring, Maggie would go fucking off with the most beautiful bright pink blossoms. I mean, fucking like relax. Like she was stunning. Who me? But no matter what time of year during my walks, I would find myself sitting under her shade and I would talk to her. I would say hello or tell her how my day was. I told her about the podcast and our goals and all of the milestones that we had just hit. It was just this cute little whimsy thing that I enjoyed doing because, again, the world is magic and everything is alive. But I really loved that tree. And on one of our last nights living there, Lou and I went to say goodbye to Maggie. It was the fucking ugliest cry. Me sitting there and saying goodbye. And as I was weeping at her trunk, all of these words started pouring out of me. And I remember saying something like, Thank you for being my first tree friend and listening to all of my babbles. I'm really sad I won't get to see you anymore, but I'll keep talking to the trees. And who knows, maybe all of you trees are connected to some universal tree network, so that when I'm talking to another one, I'll really still be talking to you. And maybe that's a nice way to frame my grief at losing this old version of myself. Because it's not really goodbye, since she and I will be linked forever. Yes, this version of me now lives in the past. But I'll be continuing on in her sequel, living out the dreams she's crafting for me in that little apartment.
Speaker 2: 29:33
I'm gonna need five minutes. I'm seriously, hold on. Intermission.
Speaker 3: 29:41
Because it wasn't even my apartment. I don't know how you got through that. Um it was not even my apartment, but there is so much I will miss about that place. There are so many beautiful things that happened that I remember experiencing so many stupid things that we did.
Speaker 4: 30:08
Like one of our first meetings.
Speaker 3: 30:11
There's I will never forget when we asked Lou to take a video of us. But he put the ugliest filter, so we have these massive jawlines. And we look so insane. That's one of my favorite videos ever. And there, there we are at your kitchen table.
Speaker 5: 30:34
I mean, I know you didn't mention this, but you had was it nine photos up? I didn't mention it. You did? The black and white photos in the dining room. Oh, okay, okay. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I loved looking at those things.
Speaker 2: 30:52
Each of those photos. Okay. What the hell?
Speaker 6: 31:04
Okay. Each of those photos also had an older version of you. And the way you memorialized those versions of you on that wall. I loved every single time I came to your house. Again, not my apartment, but still a home of sorts in my own heart, too. Thank you for sharing that. I know so many of us move all the time and we're speeding to the next thing, excited, of course, to move into our new beautiful home. Excited about the next chapter, but to take the time to say goodbye. I mean, and Maggie.
Speaker 4: 31:55
Yeah. It's like I didn't want this apartment or that tree to think that I was just so focused on the bigger and better things because I needed them to know, and I need this old version of me to know. Oh my god, I was so in awe of you. Like, thank you so much, you know. It's like two things can be true, right? Like you can be ready to move on, but you can still love so dearly how things are now. It's just like I never really felt such a uh like a mourning for this. Like I, you know, I've moved many times, but I think that this was different because this was this was a time in my life where I had never felt such wonder or allowed myself to feel such gratitude. It's like I can't really separate my apartment from that experience. Like it's so tied into all of it.
Speaker 6: 33:01
And why would you want to? Yeah. Really poured yourself into that space.
Speaker 2: 33:06
Like I got to watch you blossom.
Speaker 6: 33:15
I had the pleasure of watching you from the sidelines pour into that space, pour into yourself in a way that you had never had before. And so you're right, it was a magical place because you recognized your own magic while you were there. Yeah. If you told me 25 years ago that you would be walking around talking to trees, I would not have believed you, you know? Right. Little Miss Capricorn going around being whimsical as fuck. Mm-hmm. No. Yeah. I know. I know we are very much grieving still, this old version of you, this old chapter, but I can't wait to see what comes next to. Both. You're right, both can exist at the same time. Yeah. And neither can she. Yeah. Yeah. I'm like dehydrated. That might have broken the record for how quickly you cried going into a story.
Speaker 4: 34:16
No, it was bad. It was bad. Like writing it. Oh my god. I can't imagine. Like I was crying that whole week that we were moving. I didn't even talk about like the day that we had to like finally drop our keys and then like fucking green days, like time of your life is play, you know. That's insane. Yeah. And then, you know, like we have been living in our place for like a couple weeks now. And like you think, like, okay, I'm cool, I'm cool. And then you sit down to fucking write your goddamn paper that's due tomorrow. You know? Yeah. Yeah. A plus. Thank you. Thank you. Star student. I'm
Speaker 4: 35:02
nervy. Why? He said this one was heavy too. I mean, yeah. Whatever. Yes.
Speaker 6: 35:09
While we're on the topic of grief, oh, starting strong. Starting strong. Shit. So if you've been on Netflix lately, I don't know if when you would have had time to. You've been so busy moving, but there's a rom-com that everyone's been talking about. I'm sure you've seen. Have you have you watched it? I have not. Okay. So it's called Voicemails for Isabel. Okay. Yep. Uh I didn't know that it was centered around grief. Okay. So literally when I was watching it, like crying within the first few minutes. That's what I've heard. Yes, yes. Okay. So in the movie, Jill leaves these voicemails for her sister, Izzy, who has recently passed away. She's been sick growing up. She was so, so sick. And so she passed away. And what Jill doesn't realize is that someone The love interest is actually getting these voicemails.
Speaker 4: 35:56
Someone who is so handsome and so sweet. Interesting. Kind. Yes. Single. Hmm.
Speaker 6: 36:03
So uh it's a great rom-com. It's fun. But my favorite parts are these scenes where the two sisters are doing their little choreo to the song Dancing on My Own by Robin.
Speaker 4: 36:15
Okay.
Speaker 6: 36:16
And, you know, it shows them growing up, they're doing their choreo to this song, and then another scene later on. But what I love about those is that it does such a great job of showing how grief and joy can coexist. So after watching that, I found myself yearning for a story that had a deeper kind of grief, a grief where it was central versus more part of the context and the backdrop. Not because I love being miserable, but because grief is so complex. It's something we as humans fear and dread and try to avoid, but none of us can escape it. It finds us all at some point or another. And so, with absolutely no knowledge of plot, like I love to do, I picked a book for my to-be read list. And that novel was Cleo Dang Would Rather Be Dead by Mai Nguyen. Have you heard of this? I don't even remember why it was on my I had I don't know where I saw it. I don't know who recommended it, but I saw it there and I was like, that sounds like a crier. I wanted grief, and boy, did I fucking find it. So before I get any further, I want to issue a content warning here. This novel discusses grief, infant and child loss, depression, suicidal ideation, miscarriage, substance abuse. So please, please take care listening. Also, it's a full fucking spoiler alert. I'm going through the whole plot. Okay. It's my favorite kind. Yep. Okay. So Clio Deng Would Rather Be Dead is a 2026 novel by Mai Nguyen. It is absolutely heartbreaking from the first page. The dedication reads for Gemma and all the babies who didn't get to stay. Return it to the library. I can't read that. The opening line of the first chapter. I didn't expect the casket to be so small. Buckle up. Okay, so so begins the story of Cleo Dang. She is mother to Daisy, a sweet baby angel who passed away shortly after birth. The opening scene is Daisy's funeral. Cleo is nodding robotically as people are filing through, offering these platitudes like, she's in a better place. Everything happens for a reason. You can always have another baby. It's fucked. And to make matters worse, there in all her postpartum glory is Paloma. Paloma is Clio's best friend. She's Filipino, by the way. Shout out. So Paloma and Cleo went to school together. They live across the street from each other. They are attached at the hip. So it's no surprise when they find out they're pregnant at the same time. And when nine months later, they both go into labor, hours apart. But the difference here is that Paloma's baby lived and Cleo's did not. We are brought to the memory of Daisy's birth, the disbelief when the doctor said Daisy wouldn't make it. The precious time Cleo and her husband Ethan spent alone with Daisy, pushing past the ventilators, tubes, and wires, giving her a bath, combing her hair, telling her they love her in their respective mother tongues, Vietnamese and Japanese. I want to add here that the way the novel is written, it's addressed directly to Daisy. So I think that's technically second person, but I want to read a little passage here. Cleo says, Your beauty was so startling, I couldn't look away. The cloud-like arches of your eyebrows, the tiny curves of your nostrils like doorways to heaven. I lifted an eyelid, brown, just like mine. I asked your father to hold open the other eyelid so I could pretend just for a moment that you were looking at me with those deep pools of wonder, realizing I was the one whose belly you were inside, that I was your mother. My one. What the heck? Yeah. So after the funeral, Clio succumbs to her bed. There's no reason to live. She pushes everyone away, cries nonstop, loads up on the meds, numbing the pain any way she can. Every single second spent alive is torture. Despite having originally taken a year of maternity leave, obviously this is Canada, because that shit would not fucking fly in the US. Cleo tries to go back to work early, but she is so clearly unwell that they're like, nah, girl, you gotta go home. You can't come back. So when the US would be like, all right, great. Sure. We're fine. Yeah. But now with nothing to do and nowhere to go, she needs an escape. Where does she escape to? Her best friend's house, which happens to be empty. It starts off very innocently. Cleo sees that they have a package outside. Oh, it's soaking wet, it's raining so hard. So she grabs their spare key and she brings it in for them. But then she's like, huh, I wonder what that nursery looks like. So suddenly she finds herself sitting in Paloma's baby's nursery, fantasizing about being a tired mother to a newborn. She's sanitizing every service. She's throwing out the diaper pail. At one point, she spots a dumpling plushie that it was actually the giveaway at her own baby shower. So she kind of sees it in the closet. She's like, oh, those were the, you know, those are for my baby shower. And she is overcome with this urge to rock the dumpling in her arms and pretend it is her baby. So she's like pretending to breastfeed it and like comfort it. And I just want to take a moment to commend the author, Main Wynn, here, because we so often see the side of grief where the person is in bed, unmoving, debilitated. But there's another side of grief that's almost uncomfortable to witness. It's the side that will do anything just to find some sort of escape. And, you know, from the outside, as the readers, we so clearly see that Clio is not well. She is deteriorating to the point where she's blatantly intruding on someone else's privacy. But from the inside, we also see how much Cleo just wants to exist in a space where the grief does not swallow her. And is that really so much to ask? So shortly after this little break-in, which will eventually become the first of many throughout the novel, Cleo and her husband, Ethan, get a call from the funeral home. Daisy's ashes are ready to be picked up. While they're there, Cleo sees an ad for a job and she takes a photo of it half-jokingly. She's like, What kind of weirdo would work here? The funeral home director, Kenneth, catches her in the act and in a strange turn of events, offers her a job. And in a stranger turn of events, she accepts it. Her husband thinks she's insane, but she needs a reason to get out of the house and away from the stifling grief. So she throws herself into this new role. She's busying herself with learning all the weird new protocol. She's observing her really mysterious but kind new boss, Kenneth. Who for some reason collects stray mustache hairs, puts them in a jar. Like his own? His own. Yeah. Yeah. He's like, and she's like, what the hell? Okay. Um, just as if it's like just super normal. Okay. And he has like a locked cabinet, and she's like, I know that man is hiding something in there. Again, huge props to the author because the way she threads in humor in this book is so subtle. Quote, we return to my desk and Kenneth tells me to play around with the company tools and software on the computer as they can be quite complicated to understand. I discovered the tools and software Kenneth was referring to is Microsoft Excel and Safari.
Speaker 3: 44:42
Crazy.
Speaker 6: 44:44
Kenneth, Kenneth. Like, come on.
Speaker 4: 44:48
So funny. He makes like $400,000 a year, though. You know.
Speaker 6: 44:53
Okay. So something else to note about Clio's new job. It's a funeral home, so there's an ease with which they talk about death. The rest of the world treats Cleo and her monumental loss as this elephant in the room. But here, death is just a part of life. So in this one scene, Cleo's talking to one of her new coworkers for the first time ever. Quote, I'm really sorry, by the way, about Daisy, Rachel says, catching me off guard. It was a somber day for us all when she arrived here. I asked the staff if we could play lullabies for her, and we did. We had it playing for her all day. You did? I didn't know how much I needed to hear that, to hear your name, to hear you were taken care of, and every part of me wants to wail to the skies. Outside of work, the grief is suffocating still. Cleo's parents visit, cooking her food, forcing her to eat. Cleo reflects a little bit on her own mom's miscarriage, and she asks, you know, does the pain ever get better? Paloma, her best friend, comes by, trying to drag Cleo out of the house, get some sun. They even go to their friend's baby shower, where Cleo manages to hold it together until she accidentally bursts into tears right in front of the expecting couple. And it becomes this whole thing. All the babies start crying, and she's like, I gotta fucking get out of here. She goes to see her unhinged OBGYN for a postpartum appointment. And this doctor is like, this amount of grieving is not healthy. Let me double up your meds.
Speaker 4: 46:23
Go fuck off. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 6: 46:26
So go see a naturopath. Yeah. Go see a naturopath. So Cleo is gleefully almost reading the adverse side effects of these meds. And she is passively hoping she just might not wake up one day. At some point, Cleo's parents and her husband decide to have an intervention. You've been acting different lately. You overwork yourself at the funeral home. You don't respond to anyone. And Cleo's fed up. For once, instead of numbing the pain, she actually lets the anger come to the surface. And when her husband says, it's just not healthy, all this crying, she does what all hurt people do and says the nastiest thing she can think of. You just don't love her as much as I do. And when he, rightfully so, storms off, and her parents berate her, saying, At least he wants to get better, it's like you enjoy being miserable. Cleo musters up more of that ugliness and says, Well, it's a good thing the other one died, so you only have to deal with one child's emotions. A jab at her own mother's miscarriage. Clio's mom is horrified, but Vietnamese parents that they are, familial duty prevails and they don't storm off. Instead, after a beat of silence, Cleo's mom asks if Cleo knows the meaning of the Vietnamese phrase Choon. Forgive my pronunciation, I'm not Vietnamese. I asked a friend how to pronounce it. But she asks Cleo if Cleo knows the actual meaning of this Vietnamese word, which is used for condolences. Quote, it means to divide the sadness. It's what we Vietnamese do. We all take a piece of the pain so that one person is not bearing the entire burden of grieving. I have a peace, your father has a piece. Do you understand? And then her mom delivers a hard truth, one that Cleo maybe needs to hear. It is not exceptional losing a child. Mothers have been losing their children for centuries. You are not the first, and you will not be the last person to know this anguish. And this becomes a turning point for Cleo because she's been alone in her sadness for so long. Maybe her mom is right. Maybe there's solace in recognizing she's not alone in her pain. And so, for the first time in as long as she can remember, Cleo starts to take care of herself. She draws herself a bath, scrubs every inch of her skin. She finally apologizes to her husband, Ethan, for saying all those awful things. And they end up having an actual conversation about Ethan's grief. From the outside, he appears to have bounced back beautifully. He's running, he's doing all the things, but in reality, he's numb. He confesses that he hasn't cried in months. The last time being three months ago, on what would have been Daisy's six-month birthday. And that he had to pull up a movie just to make sure he was capable of crying. What movie? He's were he's worried he's forgetting just you wait. He's worried he's forgetting Daisy. Maybe that's the reason why he can't cry. And in this tender moment, Cleo can finally see past her own grief long enough to hold Ethan in his. He hesitates for a moment, then spits it out. Mama Mia too. I pause, waiting for him to say he's kidding, but he's serious. The corners of his lips turn up and we both burst into laughter, our bellies clutched in a familiar but pleasurable kind of pain. It feels good to give humor another try. Ethan? I say Yeah.
Speaker 2: 50:26
You're crying right now.
Speaker 6: 50:29
He lifts his hands to his face as if to make sure the tears are real. He licks the tears off his fingers. He licks and licks and licks as if these are the first drops of rain after a horrendously long drought. That night we make love for the first time since you died in the pitch black, where he can't see the tears pour down my face. A secret jest for me at the pillowcase. Imagine the whole book is like this. So the following week, Cleo's like in the group now, right, with her new job. So she's with her boss, Kenneth, and they're doing a very routine hospital pickup. But as soon as they arrive, Cleo realizes they're not just at any hospital, they are at the hospital, the one where she gave birth to Daisy. And she has a full-blown panic attack. She's like screaming at Kenneth, like, Tono is fucking yours, Paloma. And Ethan has to come and retrieve her. And he is convinced that she needs a break from this job. He's like, I told you this is not a good idea. But what Cleo was convinced she needs is another midnight visit to Paloma's empty nursery, where she can momentarily escape into her fantasy with her plush dumpling baby. After watching their car drive away, Cleo slips into Paloma's house and tends to her baby. She does her usual cleaning and sanitizing of the nursery, and then she finds herself drifting into Paloma's bedroom. She snoops around, sifts through the drawers, and finds an expired pregnancy test. She even goes as far as to peeing on it just for shits and giggles. Not pregnant, of course. But then, surprise, surprise, guess who shows up in her own house? Paloma. What the hell are you doing here? And it all just comes crashing down on Cleo. She's like trying to muster up an explanation. But like, how do you even? Like, no words can justify the boundaries that she's crossed. She's fucking cooked. And this is it. She's like, this is the end of our friendship. But as she is scrambling to justify herself, Paloma interrupts her, pointing at the pregnancy test. You're pregnant. And in the aftermath, Clio has no choice but to confess everything. She expects Paloma to kick her to the curb, but to her surprise, Paloma apologizes to Cleo. Paloma says, When I think about losing my own baby, my world goes dark. I can't move. It feels like someone has ripped my heart out. And then I snap out of it and realize it's just a fleeting thought. For you, though, it's your reality. Hearing these words feels like the first sip of water after a long entrapment. An intense relief washes over me. It means she has imagined the unimaginable. Until now, I didn't realize that's all I wanted this entire time for the pain to be acknowledged, for others to know how much this hurts. So back at home, Cleo is ready to come clean to Ethan. She has this whole plan. She's gonna tell him everything about all the pills she's been going ham on, all the intruding on Paloma's home, the fact that she's pregnant. But before she can get to it, she finds Ethan livid because he has discovered Cleo's journal, and it's not just any old journal. It is a journal full of entries imagining an alternate life where Daisy lived. Dear Diary, the baby is here. She has a bit of jaundice, but otherwise is sleeping well. Dear Diary, I'm writing this as she sleeps in my arms. Dear Diary, the baby's birthday is coming up. We're going with a book theme. On and on it goes. And this argument bubbles over into a screaming match. You're a fucking asshole. Well, you're living in a goddamn fantasy land. It's not fair that we did everything right and she still died anyway. Suddenly, Cleo is filled with a violent rage. She's flipping over chairs, knocking over lamps, smashing vases full of flowers. When Ethan finally stops her, he's horrified and he's like, You're coming with me. She has no idea where he's taking her. They drive for an hour and they hike up this trail. When finally they stop at a cliff overlooking a lake. Cleo assumes he's going to make some long speech about divorcing her. He can't do it anymore. But instead he says, I've been coming here a lot to clear my head. This is Daisy Lake. I've been thinking this would be a good place to spread her ashes.
Speaker 6: 55:12
Time and time again throughout this novel, we see Cleo's grief swallow her whole. Pushes her to say these nasty things to people she loves and violate their trust. And each time she thinks, surely they'll stop loving me now. And what a relief that will be when I finally don't have to bear the burden of trying to be lovable anymore. But time and time again, Cleo is proven wrong. She pierces her parents with these hurtful words. In response, they say, Let us help you carry your grief. She betrays her best friend's trust, and her best friend says, If I could take away an ounce of your pain, I would. Her husband discovers she's been living in this fantasy land with her journal, and he says, Why don't we grieve together? Even at her lowest, even at her worst, they refuse to give up on her. And so, slowly but surely, we start to see a light at the end of this tunnel. No child will ever replace Daisy, but Cleo begins to feel something she thought she might never feel again. Hope. She starts to go to therapy, finally. She finds a new doctor who doesn't try to medicate away her grief. She starts to take care of her body, especially now that she's growing another human being. Towards the end of the novel, Cleo has a talk with her eccentric boss, Kenneth, who, again, she knows he's has a ton of secrets. Turns out Kenneth does have a secret. The secret being that he lost his own son at three months old. This is why he started the funeral home. This is why he collects the mustache hairs, because his son used to love yinking them out. So every once in a while, he collects enough and sprinkles them on his son's grave. This is why he has a locked cabinet. It's where he keeps an album full of photos. Kenneth says his own son would have just turned 41 years old. And as he's sharing this, his pain as fresh as it was the day that he lost his son, Cleo finally understands it isn't resilience or positivity that helps people get through grief. It's connection, community, and love. It's allowing yourself to be seen in all your grief, finding people who understand, giving people the chance to understand. Cleo reflects, I no longer feel like I'm a problem to be fixed. I'm a part of something bigger, a community of parents who have lost children, who light candles for them on anniversaries, who press their lips to the cold glass of framed photographs, who search for their children in a mighty maple tree or a sparkling rainbow or a flicker of a passing butterfly. To be honest, there is a part of me that feels like I have no right to even talk about this magnitude of grief because it's something that I have seen people in my own life experience, but it's not something that I personally have gone through. But there's a bigger part of me who hopes that every grieving person has the chance to feel seen. So, my Nguyen, thank you for this gift. Thank you for taking your own pain and your own lived experiences in losing your sweet Gemma and transmuting it into something other parents can carry and for giving them a chance to feel understood. When it comes to the loss of a child, we often hear the phrase unspeakable tragedy thrown around. But if there's anything I learned from this novel, it's that this type of tragedy is not unspeakable. In fact, it begs to be spoken about. Whenever we're unsure of what to say to someone who's grieving, we stay silent because it's safer than saying the wrong thing, potentially hurting someone. But the thing is, there are no right words. No words are capable of making it all better. So in those moments, maybe we can just stay. Keep sticking around, even when it gets weird and messy, keep sharing our love, even when the healing journey looks like one step forward, two steps back. Keep remembering that their grief is not a sickness, but a constant weight they have to carry. But maybe they don't have to carry it alone. I
Speaker 6: 59:46
wanted to end by bringing it back to voicemails for Isabel. This is a spoiler warning, by the way. I'm not spoiling plot, I'm just spoiling the very last scene of this movie. I actually, I wasn't sure if you wanted to watch it. I figure you might want to watch the movie. So maybe not. She's game, y'all. So in the scene, I mentioned earlier that my favorite part of Voicemails for Isabel was when the two sisters, Jill and Izzy, are performing their little choreo to Dancing on My Own by Robin. And in this last scene, again, spoiler spoiler warning. In this last scene, Jill is at the park and she's leaving Izzy one last voicemail when she hears their song come on, and she starts screaming, It's our song. She has to do the choreo. She has no choice.
Speaker 2: 01:00:34
So let me play it for you really quick. Great movie.
Speaker 6: 01:00:41
Um, so in this scene, she looks ridiculous. She's dancing alone in front of all these strangers, but her joy is infectious, and pretty soon people start joining her, and it's all fun and light, and then you see visions of her sister Izzy dancing with her in the background. And then you see another part where these two younger versions of them in their little school uniforms are dancing with their hands intertwined, and it is heartbreaking and beautiful, and it is exactly what came to mind when I read this passage from Cleo Ding Would Rather Be Dead. This fight between grief and joy was not a fight, but in fact a dance. One that didn't need to vanish for the other to exist. They were a pair inextricably linked, twirling in the most dizzying, twisted, reckless fashion. You want to die, and you want to live, and you want to cry, and you want to laugh, and you want none of it, and you want everything the world has to offer. That is the dance of life. As it turns out, Clio Ding doesn't want to be dead. After all.
Speaker 2: 01:01:52
Actually, Cleo Ding very much wants to live. Wow.
Speaker 4: 01:02:02
You're right. It's like I don't really know that I how did you phrase it? Like if I'm even qualified. Yeah. Qualified to speak on this. Who am I to talk about this? Yeah. But I love what you said about how we on the outside of the grief feel so scared to say the wrong thing, so we don't say anything. And how that too just compounds the grief. There's no right way to go about it for the one that is grieving and the ones that are wanting to help someone through their grief. It is very complex and hard and messy. I I had a question, but I didn't want to distract from your incredible storytelling. Thank you for that. That was I I'm hurting and read it. Um, what was the dynamic between Paloma and Cleo while Cleo was creeping? Because I can imagine that of all of the relationships would have been the hardest one for me.
Speaker 6: 01:03:22
Oh, yeah. Paloma was the one who organized the entire funeral, and Cleo is almost bitter about it. Like, give me something to be mad about. Why are you being so caring? Why are you going out of your way to not ever once bring up your child? Like Paloma was just like not even, wouldn't even talk about it. She didn't even know Paloma's baby's name for like months and months and months until she saw it on Instagram. Yeah. Because Paloma was doing such a great job of being a friend who and then and then Paloma was like was the one who confronted her. She's the one who found the pills. And she was like, What are you doing? Like, what are you doing? And so sh to her credit, she was doing everything that a best friend would do, especially one who is relishing in the newborn goodness. Yeah. But it's hard because you could still do all the right things. Exactly. And it doesn't fucking matter. Exactly. Because you have a baby and and I don't. Yeah. And that's just how it goes. Like you can't do anything about that. Right. It's like you can't change that fact. And that's why it's like Cleo just kept trying to push and push and push away. But um, but there there is a point where you know she's finally, finally like making strides with her healing towards the end. And she says to Paloma, like, Can I meet Jude? Her baby's name. And Paloma's like, I would love that. And it's like, God, I swear it was nonstop. It was non-stop. Everything about it. And not even because it was so painful. Yeah. That, but also like all the beautiful parts, too.
Speaker 2: 01:05:05
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 4: 01:05:07
Ooh, it's so true. Like it sounded like Paloma was being literally the best, best friend. And Clio hated it. She was like, Yeah, it's like if Cleo wasn't ready to see that, then she was not gonna see it. But I'm sure Paloma understood that and didn't care and was still gonna keep showing up. Exactly. Exactly. You know?
Speaker 6: 01:05:31
You find out that your best friend has been intruding on your home for like nine months, right? And like her response was like, I'm sorry, you know, like I'm sorry. Yeah. Yeah. And it is all rooted in my Nguyen's own personal experiences.
Speaker 4: 01:05:48
I'll link a couple of different blogs and stuff that I read, but I was like, there's no way that she could have ridden I mean, even from like just the few short lines that you shared, there was no way That could not have been written without personal experience, which is heartbreaking to know.
Speaker 6: 01:06:08
Yeah. I think in one of the interviews, she said something like a therapist said it is the most accurate depiction of grief that she has ever read. So yeah, you're right. There's no way something that and the part that gets weird and messy and uncomfortable, right? Like that's something that people don't often try. You wouldn't know that unless you two were having these crazy thoughts and inclinations. Yeah. So I I'm grateful that as difficult, I'm sure, as painful, I'm sure, as it was for her to write this, it gives other parents who have experienced the loss of a child a chance to see themselves and the depths of their grief in someone else's experience and to know they're not alone. And also as people who may not have experienced that but are on the other side watching someone grieve, like giving them a chance to understand that maybe do talk about it, you know? And and again, grief looks so different for everyone. And that's okay. And just stick around. Just be there.
Speaker 4: 01:07:21
Yeah. Yeah, you're saying all the things. Yeah. You're saying it. You're saying it.
Speaker 6: 01:07:28
Yep. Yeah. Well, we have one brain cell, so no.
Speaker 4: 01:07:32
Um I appreciate the way you tied it with voicemails for Isabel and the last quote that you read about this two things kind of existing at the same time, the grief and the joy. Yep. And not that my grief is anything, anything in comparison to the biggest grief you could ever imagine. But the theme is the same.
Speaker 6: 01:07:59
It's the same. That's partly why I was crying so hard listening to your story, because I was like, I'm saying the same thing. Whatever. As usual. Yeah.
Speaker 4: 01:08:09
Yeah. There is a wonder I still see, even when you are going through something really sad and really painful. And that wonder like stays the same, even as that grief then slowly, slowly transforms into joy. It's still a wonder to witness it all.
Speaker 6: 01:08:32
Yeah. Obviously, my story was so long. I had to cut out so much, so much plot, so many incredible quotes. But throughout the novel, Cleo's mom is sending her these quotes to help with her grief. You know, like the things that you see on walls and stuff. And she's texting her all these quotes. And obviously they're great quotes, but like she she jokes. Like it's kind of weird how like the timing gets really accurate. Like she's sending her her mom starts sending her quotes when she really needs to hear it. But there was this one quote from Lebanese American poet Khalil Jabran. When you are sorrowful, look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
Speaker 4: 01:09:20
Okay, maybe not so accurate because my mom would just tell me to go to church and pray the rosary. Just kidding, mom.
Speaker 6: 01:09:28
But yeah, it's like the wonder. Yeah. When it all kind of subsides, like wow. And there were, of course, so many quotes about that in the book that like I want to be able to do.
Speaker 4: 01:09:40
Read the fucking book front to back for you.
unknown: 01:09:43
Fuck.
Speaker 4: 01:09:44
Oh, that sounds like such a profound book. It was so good. And it's so recent, 2026.
Speaker 6: 01:09:51
Like a few months ago. I was like, I don't even know how this came on my list, but I am so glad I read it. I'm so like it came to me at the perfect time. And I'm I'm so thankful. I'm so thankful for this. Thank you for covering it and covering it so well. Thank you. This is so fun today. We're a comedy pod. Oh my god. Grief. Shit. Yeah. Wow. Look at us. I'm really proud of us, though, to be able to speak so grief griefly, so freely about grief, you know? And talking about past versions of us, there are past versions of us who would never have.
Speaker 4: 01:10:32
I think about that all the time. Like how I used to be just so afraid of saying the wrong thing. So I would just like ignore it. Yeah. But turns out when we do talk about our feelings, that is when we feel the most connected and seen. Exactly. Which is so strange. A concept that I constantly need to wrap my head around. If only there were two beautiful, stunning, intelligent women that could show me how to do it over and over again.
Speaker 6: 01:11:00
If only she's talking about us. Yeah. Cool. Cool.
Speaker 4: 01:11:11
So fun. Back at it. Light. Just a cozy. We're so co cozy comedy.
Speaker 6: 01:11:20
Grab a steaming mug of hot cocoa. Yeah. Alrighty. Okay.
Speaker 4: 01:11:25
I think that's it then. I think that's fucking it. We had the time of our lives. Too much fun. Yeah. But um, thanks for listening. Thanks for tuning in. Thanks in advance for the five-star review. Again, I know your little water bottle is in need of a new sticker. They're so cute. They really are so cute. Everything about this pod is cute. So write that review, send us a screenshot. Yep. And that sticker will be in your mailbox. Yep. Okay. All right. We will be back at it again.
Speaker 6: 01:11:59
Mm-hmm. But until then, brb crying.
Until next time…brb crying :’)