How a Life-Threatening Health Crisis Led Laura Dern and Mom Diane Ladd to 'Talk About Things We'd Left Unsaid'

The actresses just released a joint memoir, Honey, Baby, Mine, filled with their intimate conversations

Hearing the doctor's words, Laura Dern felt the walls crumbling around her.

Her mother, actress Diane Ladd, now 87, had just been diagnosed with a lung disease called idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and was told she might have only six months to live. "The doctor told us the one thing that can help her is getting her to walk to breathe deeper," Dern, 56, tells PEOPLE in this week's issue.

So with Ladd on oxygen, the two began slowly walking together around Santa Monica. As they discussed everything from their own journeys as actors to the grief and heartbreaks in their lives, including Ladd's divorce from Dern's father, actor Bruce Dern, 86, and the death of Ladd and Bruce's first child, their talks "grew into a profound deepening of our relationship," says Dern.

Four years later Ladd's condition has improved, and the pair are sharing their intimate conversations in a new joint memoir, Honey, Baby, Mine, with the hope that readers will be inspired to begin their own chats as well. "All the deep listening filled us with love," says Ladd. "And it was very healing."

Related:Laura Dern Celebrates 'Amazing and Kind' Son Ellery on His 21st Birthday with Rare Photos

PEOPLE: During your walks, what were the most important things you learned about each other?

LAURA DERN: I think the quintessential part of a parent-child relationship, which really made me laugh, was that every time my mom asked me a question like 'What's your favorite food?' I would answer it. And she would say, 'That's not your favorite food.' So to me, one of the greatest experiences was having us both really listen.

DIANE LADD: As parents we do not tell our children all of our truths because we want to be loved and respected. So honestly, we lie a little. What I discovered is that there were things I hadn't told her that I should have because I felt it would make her feel guilty or burdened. Instead, it was a release for her.

DERN: We both longed to talk about the things that we'd left unsaid in our life together. The places we didn't go because we didn't want to hurt each other by bringing up heartbreak or trauma.

LADD: I thought I was dying, so Laura and I just told each other everything. Just fixing ourselves and our relationship was a darn good beginning.

What was the hardest conversation to have?

DERN: I think asking Mom about my sister [who died at age 18 months after a drowning accident] and not wanting to hurt but only heal. And then talking about it was an amazing experience. It changed our relationship in the feeling that we can talk about everything now.

LADD: The worst was to talk to her about her sister's death, which I hadn't really done because I didn't want to put her through that. But I wasn't doing her a favor by not sharing that—to go back there and talk about a pain that one never truly ever gets over. The actuality of what it felt like and what her father and I went through. We were starving actors with no money to pull any shades down to keep the ugliness out. It was a horrendous time in our lives. Also the divorce, which is divorce no matter how much you are friends.

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Laura, what do you find most beautiful about your mom?

DERN: She has the most open, honest face. You know what she's feeling. It's an amazing thing to have as a gift because I always knew I was loved. Even when it was a ferocious face or an angry face, it was so full and told so many stories that I always felt the love coming from her.

Diane, when were you most proud of Laura?

LADD: When she birthed my grandchildren and I was allowed to hold that child which she brought into this earth in my arms. It makes me tear up to think about it. The greatest treasures are when our child gives us children or they give you a child in the art they choose. Those moments are the proudest that I could possibly be.

Honey, Baby, Mine is on bookshelves now.

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