Mikaela Shiffrin On the ‘Maze’ of Grief For Her Dad

Anderson Cooper· Host0:00

This is a special Father's Day edition of All There Is, which is weird for me to say because Father's Day is something I've ignored for nearly 50 years, ever since I was 10 and my dad died. I was recently sent a bunch of letters my father, Wyatt Cooper, wrote to a friend of his. The man he sent them to, Jack McLarty, died years ago, but he'd asked someone to make sure the letters got to me. And a couple months ago, they finally did. I just read them today. I have lots of photos of my dad from his childhood in Mississippi, his life in Hollywood as an actor and screenwriter, and his life in New York with my mom and brother and me. But in these letters, he feels alive to me in a way he doesn't in the photos. Reading his words, I can hear his inner voice, his humor, his insecurities, his humanness. This is the last letter he sent to Jack, postmarked December 22nd, 1977. He sent it from the hospital a few weeks after he'd had several heart attacks. It had our family Christmas card in it and a brief note confirming he'd meet Jack and his wife for a coffee in a month's time. He wrote, "It's nice to have a date that far ahead. It makes one feel one couldn't possibly die and leave an unfulfilled engagement." I think he was only half joking. On the back of the envelope, after he'd sealed it, he wrote three more words. "I'm holding on." 14 days later, my dad was dead. I'm still learning new things about him,