Rashida Jones is opening up about experiencing "grief shock."
The 45-year-old actress became a mom for the first time in August 2018. Rashida and partner Ezra Koenig welcomed a son named Isaiah. It was an exciting time, but Rashida's life changed drastically just months later.
Rashida's mother, actress Peggy Lipton, died of cancer eight months after Rashida became a mom. The loss of a parent is something you simply cannot prepare yourself for. Rashida has described the time since as "an emotionally intense few years," as she revealed in her recent interview with NPR.
Rashida Jones has been prepared for a lot of what life has had in store for her. As the daughter of model and actress Peggy Lipton and music industry icon Quincy Jones, she's had some unique life experiences. But none of what she's seen and experienced prepared her for the "emotionally intense few years" that she's recently experienced.
Rashida opened up about her experiences in an interview with NPR. She explained that as her parents experienced more fame, she wanted less.
"It changed the dynamic of our household," she shared.
"People think [fame is] this wonderful, magical heal-all, and it's actually the opposite. It can be a poison. It can be intoxicating and destructive."
She found her happy medium in comedy, which allowed her to be creative both in front of cameras and behind the scenes.
"I had a ton of friends in college who became comedy writers," she said.
"And I think being friends with funny, witty people at a certain age makes you want to, I don't know, do that for a living."
One of the hardest things for Rashida has been trying to find the bright side after her life took an intense turn. She became a mom after giving birth to son Isaiah. Just eight months later, she lost her mother to cancer.
"This has been a very emotionally intense couple of years. … It was sort of like back-to-back-to-back-to-back, just wrenching, pulling my heart in all different directions," she shared.
"I was in grief-shock. I don't even know if that's a word, but I was just not in my body at all and just had a baby. I was doubly not in my body."
"The thing that's the craziest about birth and death is just the utter rawness of feeling. I still feel this way, I think," she continued.
"It's like something cracks in you. It's very binary, both things — becoming a mother and losing my mother — like, there's my life before and there's my life after."
"And strangely, there's something that's not recognizable before those two things happened. And it's just this utter rawness of emotion where it doesn't matter where I am, what I'm doing," she admitted.
"If I'm overwhelmed by that grief or that joy, that's it. I have to feel that thing. I can't suppress it. I can't run away from it. It's just there."
At 45 years old, matters of life and death feel very heavy and real to Rashida.
"But I think my relationship with the world, and how I see my life unfolding from here on out, and what's important to me and to be honest, my relationship with death, because that's something that really kicks off, I think, in the middle of your life where you're invincible until then. And then all of a sudden you lose the person you love the most who brought you here and you wouldn't be here without them," she noted.
"And it really incites this much larger thing, which is like, OK, how do I live my life in a way that will honor my inevitable death? … As my dad always says, 'Live every day like it's your last, and one day you'll be right.'"
Rashida and sister Kidada Jones announced Peggy's passing in a statement.
"She made her journey peacefully with her daughters and nieces by her side," the statement read.
"We feel so lucky for every moment we spent with her. We can't put all of our feelings into words right now, but we will say: Peggy was and will always be our beacon of light, both in this world and beyond. She will always be a part of us."
