What actually keeps a long distance friendship alive for over two decades? Kelly is joined by her absolute ride-or-die, her best friend Aggie, who flew in from Chicago for this one, and they are getting into all of it.

These two met in the early 2000s on the Chicago club scene and have now survived a coast-to-coast move, heartbreaks, a loss, cancer scares, and somewhere along the way, a whole lot of matching tattoos. In this episode, they share the real, practical things that have kept their friendship not just intact but genuinely thriving for 23 years, including nine of them with 2,000 miles in between.

You'll hear about the importance of stating your intention out loud, why it doesn't have to be 50/50 (just mutual), the power of a FaceTime hit over morning coffee, always having something on the calendar, showing up for the big moments whether they're happy or devastating, and creating your own little rituals that make the friendship feel like home no matter the distance.

This one is warm, funny, and honestly a little emotional. Aggie flew out here and she delivered.

Follow Kelly on Instagram: @KellyRizzo

A special thank you to Home Run Inn Pizza for sponsoring this episode. You can learn more about Home Run Inn (the greatest frozen pizza on Earth) here: https://www.homeruninnpizza.com/

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Four years ago, on the night Bob passed away, two women Kelly barely knew showed up at her front door and said, "Where's the kitchen?" They spent the rest of the night doing Kelly's dishes, taking out the trash, and passing out waters to everyone in her house. Kelly has been telling that story ever since, and today she finally gets to tell it WITH them.

Elisha Krauss and Heather Cooney join Kelly for a conversation that is going to genuinely change the way you show up for people. They get into what made them decide to come over that night, why the most powerful thing you can do for someone who is grieving has nothing to do with finding the right words, and how even near-strangers can make one of the biggest impacts of someone's entire grief journey.

They also get practical: meal trains, what to send, what absolutely NOT to do (please stop asking "how are you?"), the dish return situation nobody talks about, and how to use your own specific skills to show up for someone going through any kind of hard season, whether that's loss, divorce, illness, or something else entirely. If you have someone in your life who is hurting, or if you've ever frozen up and done nothing because you didn't know what to do, this one is for you.

This episode was kindly sponsored by Lifeway Foods. Learn more about Lifeway here! https://lifewaykefir.com/

Follow Elisha here: https://www.instagram.com/elishakrauss/?hl=en

Follow Kelly on Instagram-https://www.instagram.com/kellyrizzo/?hl=en

Listen on Apple Podcasts-https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/comfort-food-with-kelly-rizzo/id1716987177

Listen on Spotify- https://open.spotify.com/show/5PW46ZYYpLlUCRPWn0Vfm7?si=100c49d2f5f64975

Visit Kelly’s Kitchen- https://kelly-rizzo.com/

Join Comfort Club:

https://www.comfortclubonline.com/

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This one is really special. And really personal.

Kelly recently found a grief journal tucked in her nightstand that she wrote in less than a month after losing Bob. The problem? She had completely forgotten she'd written in it. She opened it expecting blank pages... and found something that stopped her in her tracks.

In this episode, Kelly reads from that journal for the first time in over four and a half years, going through the prompts she answered just weeks after Bob passed: the happy memories, the hardest time of day (nights, always nights), what she was holding onto (keeping the silverware in the right drawers because that's how he liked it), and the last memory they shared together before he left for his final trip.

She also shares the lessons she wrote down that Bob taught her, things like always say I love you, order everything on the menu, and more. And she closes with something really practical: what you should NOT say to someone who is grieving, and what actually helps.

This episode is coming out the week of what would have been Bob's 70th birthday. It feels like the right time to share it.

If you're in grief right now, or supporting someone who is, or just missing someone you love, Kelly hopes this helps. Come find her on Instagram @KellyRizzo and keep the conversation going.

Subscribe, rate, and review. It really does help more than you know.

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