Carrie Fisher’s Daughter Billie Lourd on Grief

How Billie Lourd Explained Mom Carrie Fisher’s Cause of Death to 5-Year-Old Son

Billie Lourd runs in many exclusive circles, but there’s one club she never wanted to be a part of.

And yet since losing mom Carrie Fisher two days after Christmas in 2016, she’s been a member of the Dead Parent Club.

In the almost decade since, the actress, 33, has turned her heartbreak into purpose by sharing her experiences with loss—including her innermost thoughts and the many highs and lows—with the world.

So it was to be expected that Billie would begin our grief chat with an enthusiastic, “We love the club!” And it didn’t take long to see how large a role her membership plays in her life.

“One of the most gratifying and important things that I get to do is talking about grief, because people don’t talk about it enough,” she continued. “Before I experienced it myself I didn’t have that many people that I could refer to that went through something similar. So, it feels like a really important thing for me to do, to talk about in an honest way, because it’s so complicated.”

Take, for instance, the Scream Queens alum’s reflection on what should have been Carrie’s 69th birthday.

“Every time I meet someone older than her I’m secretly jealous,” Billie wrote in her Oct. 21 tribute. “Why couldn’t she have lived as long as they have? Anyone out there who has lost a loved one too young can maybe relate?”

And based on the reactions from the fellow grievers who flooded her comment section, they could.

But while the uninitiated may shirk from Billie’s candor—within the same post, she admits to often feeling angry with her mom for not taking better care of herself, for shortening the years they could have together—her posts speak to the reality that, even if someone is no longer here, one’s relationship with them continues to evolve.

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“You go through so many different emotions, and all those emotions are all okay,” Billie noted to E!. “Some days I’m mad, some days I’m sad, some days it’s really lovely and light, like it was in the Redwoods.”

By the Redwoods, the American Horror Story star—who is mom to son Kingston, 5, and daughter Jackson, 2, with husband Austen Rydell—means her recent partnership with Columbia Sportswear for its new Star Wars inspired line, The Endor Collection.

The famed forest in Northern California was the filming location for the forested planet of Endor in Return of the Jedi, where Carrie’s Princess Leia helped lead the final battle against the Empire in the original film trilogy. For the new campaign, Billie walked amongst the trees in a poncho very similar to one worn by her mother in the film, her two kids walking by her side in fleeces paying homage to the teddy bear-like Ewoks.

“That was one of the magical moments where she just felt so present,” Billie gushed of the experience. “And it was all the good parts of her and those moments are few and far between. So, when I get to experience those parts of grief, I really hang on to them, and it’s a really gratifying thing to do.”

Columbia Sportswear

Including Kingston and Jackon in the photoshoot and making sure they understand the legacy of Star Wars are some of the many ways Billie has ensured her kids remain connected to their grandmother.

Though it also helps that they are quite literally following her path.

“I’m so lucky that I live in her house,” Billie said of the Beverly Hills estate she created by combining her mom and grandmother Debbie Reynolds’ properties. “That is the biggest gift—because my kids didn’t get to meet her, they get to know her through her house.”

It means that holidays are enjoyed in the same rooms Billie celebrated them with her mom, that Kingston and Jackson run through the same backyard she once played in with the actress: “It makes her feel really present.”

Other ways Billie keeps her mom close? Enjoying her favorite foods—including Coca Cola and a specific salad, even though “nothing’s healthy about it, but she loved it”—and writing by her mother’s grave.

Billie Lourd/Instagram

“It’s so weird to say I like to go to the grave, but I will go to her grave site and bring a coke and sit there with my kids and just talk about her,” she said. “Because a lot of the time, because she’s not here, I don’t get the opportunity to talk about her. And it’s such an opportunity—I really see it as that—to get to share stories about her and sit with her friends and talk to my husband about her.”

Which brings us back to her public musings on grief.

“I really started enjoying doing the grief posts that I do,” she said. “I take a few days before the anniversary and start writing things that I’m feeling. Because it changes every year, and now it’s something that I actually look forward to, because so many people feel similarly to me.”

“I literally read every single comment. There’s like, 2,500 and I read every single one,” she continued. “It feels so comforting to know—it’s not comforting because it’s grief—but it’s slightly comforting to know that other people are going through the same thing. So, I really look forward to that every year.” She added with a smile, “Weirdly.”

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And in those moments when she is feeling alone, she finds comfort in the Star Wars fandom’s continued love for Carrie.

“It feels like this extended family that, even though they didn’t know her personally, everybody has such a connection to her, and to get to have all these fans is such a gift,” she said. “My mom really infused her real self into Leia. So if you know Leia, you know Carrie—and that is so special.”

After all, as Star Wars promises: the Force—to which all energy returns—will be with us, always.

For more on Billie and Carrie’s sweetest moments together, read on.

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Twinning

Billie posted this throwback photo on what would have been her mother’s 61st birthday, 10 months after her death.

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Baby Love

Billie posted this throwback photo on Mother’s Day 2017, the first Mother’s Day without Carrie.

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All Smiles

The two share a sweet moment.

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