Andrew Garfield and Sesame Street’s Elmo recently tackled an emotion rarely discussed in children’s programming: grief.
The video of their conversation went viral after appearing on X (formerly Twitter) on Friday: By midday Monday, it had been viewed over 14.2 million times on that platform alone.
In the clip, Garfield discusses missing his late mother, who died of pancreatic cancer in 2019. “She passed away not too long ago, and you know, I just miss her,” he tells Elmo.
When the Muppet offers his condolences, Garfield reassures him that feeling upset or grieving someone is OK. “That sadness is kind of a gift,” Garfield says. “It’s kind of a lovely thing to feel, in a way, because it means you really loved somebody when you miss them.”
Garfield explains that his memories actually help him cope: “When I miss my mom, I remember all of the cuddles I used to get from her, all of the hugs I used to get from her. It makes me feel close to her when I miss her, in a strange way.”
This interaction is “extremely important” not only because it shows how to handle loss, but how to comfort someone who has experienced loss, says Sherry Cormier, a psychologist and author of “Sweet Sorrow: Finding Enduring Wholeness after Loss and Grief.”
“Both at the beginning and at the end there is such an emphasis on listening,” Cormier says. “Listening is pretty hard to do.”
Listening is the ‘greatest gift’ you could give a grieving person
Elmo begins the conversation by saying he is “checking in on everybody” and wants to know how Garfield is doing. Garfield asks if Elmo is sure he wants to listen, to which Elmo responds: “Oh, Elmo would love to!”
That’s great modeling because, when comforting a friend who is coping with a recent loss, many people become too preoccupied with what to say, Cormier says. A grieving person usually just needs to feel heard.
“If we didn’t spend so much time worrying about what to say and what’s the right thing to say and what’s the wrong this to say and we showed up and just listened, that would be the greatest gift you could give to any person who is grieving a loss,” Cormier says.
The conversation between Garfield and Elmo emphasizes that grief often doesn’t have a finite end, says Karla Vermeulen, an associate professor of psychology at the State University of New York, New Paltz.
“It’s getting away from the idea that there is some magical, tidy closure where the loss doesn’t hurt any longer,” Vermeulen says. “Andrew did not pretend he was over it. He acknowledged that even though it was a few years ago, it still feels very recent to him.”
That may be part of the reason the video triggered an outpouring of emotional responses online from people who could relate. A writer for the Guardian UK called Garfield’s candid, vulnerable performance on the Sesame Workshop the actor’s “best work yet.”
The clip shows that mourning can be complex and sadness isn’t altogether negative.
“It’s a simple and more nuanced way of recognizing sadness is the cost of having loved someone now that they are no longer here in person,” she says.
