#15 Dina

Yello. Why hello? Now, what kind of greeting is that 0:00:09.240 --> 0:00:12.000 You've got your radio voice on? Could you elaborate on 0:00:12.039 --> 0:00:12.640 what you mean by that? 0:00:12.800 --> 0:00:15.320 I know in the first second, if I'm being recorded 0:00:15.400 --> 0:00:17.919 or on your inflections. 0:00:17.960 --> 0:00:21.799 Well, I always talk like this, Jackie. Back to you. 0:00:21.920 --> 0:00:23.560 The way you're speaking with me now is never the 0:00:23.560 --> 0:00:26.160 way you would normally speak. Okay, wait, hang on a second. 0:00:26.160 --> 0:00:29.560 I'm I'm just talking normal, but you're not talking normal. 0:00:29.600 --> 0:00:32.280 It's your radio voice. Hey, what's going on? It's still 0:00:32.320 --> 0:00:35.959 not It's still not. It's still not. Hey. No, hey 0:00:36.040 --> 0:00:38.879 Jackie again, Jackie, No, you wouldn't say him like that. 0:00:39.080 --> 0:00:40.440 How's it going? Too much energy? 0:00:40.800 --> 0:00:40.959 Hi? 0:00:41.440 --> 0:00:44.240 I can tell anyway. It can't be a radio voice 0:00:44.240 --> 0:00:49.000 because I do a podcast. It's a podcast voice, all right, 0:00:49.040 --> 0:00:57.800 And welcome to the show from Gimlet Media. I'm Jonathan 0:00:57.840 --> 0:01:17.280 Goldstein and this is Heavy Wait today's episode, Dina. Hello, Hello, Okay, 0:01:19.280 --> 0:01:22.800 so we just got to Montreal. We we What's that? 0:01:23.480 --> 0:01:25.119 Isn't that how you say yes in French? 0:01:25.480 --> 0:01:27.319 Yeah? But you just say it once you to say 0:01:27.360 --> 0:01:32.479 we we My folks are about to meet us, pick 0:01:32.560 --> 0:01:34.440 us up at the airport to take us back to 0:01:34.480 --> 0:01:37.520 their place. Where we will be staying for the next 0:01:37.520 --> 0:01:44.000 five days, five days, five days, in my childhood home, 0:01:44.280 --> 0:01:46.880 in the childhood bed i've not slept in in decades. 0:01:47.640 --> 0:01:50.680 My wife, Emily, and I are here for passover, to 0:01:50.760 --> 0:01:54.600 sup upon the bread of affliction. Growing up, though, it 0:01:54.680 --> 0:01:58.960 was everything of affliction, candy, corn of affliction, road trips 0:01:59.000 --> 0:02:08.799 of affliction, bedtime stories of affliction. I moved out when 0:02:08.840 --> 0:02:12.080 I was nineteen, but from age one to eighteen, what 0:02:12.160 --> 0:02:15.559 I remember most is the vague feeling of worry permeating 0:02:15.600 --> 0:02:20.880 the household. Worry that manifested is yelling, yelling through closed doors, 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:25.000 yelling across the kitchen table, my father yelling into a 0:02:25.080 --> 0:02:28.720 junk drawer desperately trying to find a working pen, my 0:02:28.840 --> 0:02:32.280 mother yelling into a clogged toilet, desperately trying to make 0:02:32.320 --> 0:02:36.200 it go down. But more often than not, the yelling 0:02:36.320 --> 0:02:39.840 wasn't over anything at all. We were just a naturally loud, 0:02:40.000 --> 0:02:44.480 anxious family, a race of nervous giants shrunk into the 0:02:44.520 --> 0:02:51.880 bodies of little Jews. 0:02:55.760 --> 0:02:56.079 Man. 0:02:56.280 --> 0:02:58.880 When I move out of here, I'd say in my teens, 0:02:59.320 --> 0:03:03.920 I'm going to live like sting, peace and quiet, meditation, 0:03:04.360 --> 0:03:09.480 tea and tantric sex, and now after years of oolong 0:03:09.639 --> 0:03:13.760 roubis and lemon roubis, I'm home again for my first 0:03:13.760 --> 0:03:21.079 trip back with Emily and our five month old son Aggie. 0:03:21.400 --> 0:03:26.360 Day one. Here they are my parents. Tyota pulls up 0:03:26.360 --> 0:03:31.040 to the airport, pickups and passes us. Try to catch 0:03:31.080 --> 0:03:37.600 They don't see us here. We're right here. My mother 0:03:37.680 --> 0:03:43.520 jumps out. She runs back towards us, pointing at Aggie's ears. 0:03:43.680 --> 0:03:45.000 His ears are exposed. 0:03:45.240 --> 0:03:49.400 Hi, Hi, emily ears are exposed. 0:03:48.600 --> 0:03:53.760 Both my mother and father where their woolen caps pull 0:03:53.880 --> 0:03:57.920 down well past their ears. In younger, stronger days, they 0:03:58.000 --> 0:04:01.160 might have stretched those camps right down over their feet, 0:04:01.200 --> 0:04:04.880 but they're old now. My mother Dina seventy two, and 0:04:04.960 --> 0:04:06.960 my father Buzz eighty three. 0:04:07.760 --> 0:04:09.960 I want to drive slowly, not too fast. I want 0:04:09.960 --> 0:04:10.920 to go carefully. 0:04:10.960 --> 0:04:17.240 Okay, okay, fine, Well, Buzz is high strung. Dina's intensity 0:04:17.440 --> 0:04:20.840 is capable of raising the emotional temperature of any space 0:04:20.920 --> 0:04:26.120 she occupies in elevators, walk in pantries, and tiotas. Her 0:04:26.160 --> 0:04:30.080 powers are especially acute. 0:04:29.120 --> 0:04:32.080 Like a funny feeling in my throat, Like it's like 0:04:32.200 --> 0:04:34.280 really emotional. 0:04:35.360 --> 0:04:39.760 It's like a dreamed, you know, It's like a dream Yeah, 0:04:40.000 --> 0:04:41.680 it's like such a weird feeling. 0:04:42.360 --> 0:04:45.440 I think the weird, elusive feeling my mother is trying 0:04:45.480 --> 0:04:47.520 to describe is happiness. 0:04:48.480 --> 0:04:51.280 It's just wonderful to see him, But I hope he's 0:04:51.320 --> 0:04:52.160 going to be warm enough. 0:04:52.200 --> 0:04:54.560 Did you bring him up a little something? 0:05:01.640 --> 0:05:04.760 Home? Sweet home? 0:05:05.560 --> 0:05:08.080 Walking through the door, I'm a twelve year old again, 0:05:08.480 --> 0:05:11.400 home from school and looking forward to zoning out with 0:05:11.480 --> 0:05:15.400 petticoat junction. I'm a sixteen year old rushing to the 0:05:15.440 --> 0:05:19.000 bathroom to gargle out the smell of cigarettes. I'm a 0:05:19.040 --> 0:05:21.919 forty eight year old, a grown ass man with a 0:05:21.920 --> 0:05:25.640 grown ass ass. Parenting a newborn leaves a person with 0:05:25.720 --> 0:05:31.000 no time for squats. So don't judge Alex so nice 0:05:31.040 --> 0:05:36.480 in here plate. I can't believe it. So normally the house, 0:05:36.720 --> 0:05:40.720 a modest, semi detached bungalow, has a certain storage unit, 0:05:40.839 --> 0:05:45.320 bombshelter vibe, walls of toilet paper, a cold room full 0:05:45.360 --> 0:05:49.960 of canned fruit, cocktail needle points of biblical scenes, and torreadors, 0:05:50.240 --> 0:05:53.120 all leaned up against the walls for fear of pounding 0:05:53.160 --> 0:05:57.440 in a nail and regretting it forever. But today the 0:05:57.480 --> 0:06:01.839 place looks positively sparse, So I just don't open. 0:06:01.600 --> 0:06:04.360 A closet or the chore everything I'll tumble on your 0:06:04.400 --> 0:06:07.279 head because when you've heard you guys are coming. I 0:06:07.360 --> 0:06:10.360 threw everything into the closets and hid them. 0:06:10.800 --> 0:06:14.040 My mother grabs Aggie and heads upstairs for a diaper change. 0:06:14.320 --> 0:06:15.680 Emily and I trail behind. 0:06:16.720 --> 0:06:17.560 I want him to be. 0:06:17.600 --> 0:06:18.480 Fresh and clean. 0:06:18.640 --> 0:06:22.760 Oh you're so sweet, You're so sweet, my angel. 0:06:23.480 --> 0:06:27.040 Where the frige is the bag? The friggin bag contains 0:06:27.080 --> 0:06:29.960 the friggin diapers that my mother bought for our visit. 0:06:30.800 --> 0:06:32.680 It turns out it's on her lap. 0:06:33.800 --> 0:06:35.640 I kept a bill because I wasn't sure if you 0:06:35.680 --> 0:06:36.920 want me to return them or not. 0:06:38.560 --> 0:06:41.440 Would you be able to return to use diapers? Yeah? 0:06:41.560 --> 0:06:45.360 You know me. I could return anything. I could return anything. 0:06:46.520 --> 0:06:51.120 You know that, Johnny, I do know that returning stuff 0:06:51.160 --> 0:06:53.760 is what my mother lives for. She sees it as 0:06:53.800 --> 0:06:57.479 a staring contest, a game of chess, but with yelling. 0:06:58.440 --> 0:07:01.080 I remember once going along with her as she returned 0:07:01.080 --> 0:07:04.680 a shirt she'd bought for my father two years earlier. 0:07:07.839 --> 0:07:12.000 It's missing a sleeve, she told the cashier, holding up 0:07:12.040 --> 0:07:15.600 the article of clothing. The cashier turned it around and around. 0:07:16.400 --> 0:07:19.760 It's not supposed to have sleeves. The cashier finally said, 0:07:20.400 --> 0:07:25.200 it's a poncho. A poncho, my mother repeated, as though 0:07:25.200 --> 0:07:28.200 it were a foreign word, which, in her defense, I 0:07:28.280 --> 0:07:31.600 suppose it sort of is. I don't care what it is. 0:07:32.080 --> 0:07:41.000 It's factory defective and my husband can't wear it. Whenever 0:07:41.040 --> 0:07:43.880 she'd get this way, I'd adopt a stance meant to 0:07:43.920 --> 0:07:47.760 convey filial loyalty, peppered with a touch of what Vietnam 0:07:47.840 --> 0:07:52.160 Vets call the thousand yard stare. I've stood next to 0:07:52.200 --> 0:07:57.280 my mother through countless exchanges, arguments, spectacles, and stinks. But 0:07:57.360 --> 0:07:59.520 this is the first time I've stood by her side 0:08:00.080 --> 0:08:01.240 as she diapers my son. 0:08:02.200 --> 0:08:05.480 Oh look how much peepee he has? Oh, you made 0:08:05.520 --> 0:08:10.080 a lot of pepi baby. See that's how I knew 0:08:10.080 --> 0:08:11.960 you were sick. When you were a baby, Johnny, you 0:08:11.960 --> 0:08:12.720 weren't peeping. 0:08:14.120 --> 0:08:16.720 What was wrong with me? As a kid, it was 0:08:16.760 --> 0:08:20.080 easy to be embarrassed by my mother. One time, a 0:08:20.160 --> 0:08:23.400 popular boy named Jeordie showed up at our house. I 0:08:23.520 --> 0:08:26.880 wasn't home, but my mother answered the door with her 0:08:26.880 --> 0:08:32.720 hair on fire. My hair's on fire, she screamed. The 0:08:32.760 --> 0:08:35.600 next day in school, Jeordie showed the whole class how 0:08:35.640 --> 0:08:38.560 she screamed it. He wiggled his fingers in the air, 0:08:38.880 --> 0:08:41.360 looking as though he was about to fall to his knees. 0:08:42.559 --> 0:08:46.080 That night, I asked my mother what had happened. It 0:08:46.160 --> 0:08:49.520 was the barbecue, She said, your father wasn't home, and 0:08:49.559 --> 0:08:52.560 I was so in the mood for barbecued lamb chops. 0:08:53.240 --> 0:08:56.600 It seems that while examining the chops for signs of spoilage, 0:08:57.000 --> 0:09:00.160 she leaned her hair sprayed boufont too close to the grill. 0:09:01.000 --> 0:09:03.920 While this explained the fire atop her head, it did 0:09:03.960 --> 0:09:06.760 not explain why she answered the door while nursing a 0:09:06.800 --> 0:09:11.400 fire atop her head. Growing up, this kind of stuff 0:09:11.440 --> 0:09:14.160 happened all the time, so I was always on high 0:09:14.200 --> 0:09:18.800 alert for humiliating emergencies. Being back home again, I feel 0:09:18.800 --> 0:09:21.840 the old muscle memory kick back in. What that smells? 0:09:22.240 --> 0:09:23.080 Something's burning? 0:09:24.040 --> 0:09:26.520 Did you turn on the heater? Did you touch the heat? Though, 0:09:27.520 --> 0:09:29.920 it turns out that one of the rag dolls my 0:09:30.000 --> 0:09:32.680 mother had been hoarding somehow landed onto one of the 0:09:32.720 --> 0:09:35.680 old lamps she'd been hoarding and had begun to burn. 0:09:37.640 --> 0:09:39.480 I could have had a fire because I was so 0:09:39.600 --> 0:09:41.720 careless for a shim. 0:09:42.559 --> 0:09:45.920 The day plays out as a series of minor disasters averted. 0:09:46.679 --> 0:09:49.720 In the morning, my mother loses her cell phone. We 0:09:49.840 --> 0:09:52.960 find it in the night table. In the afternoon, a 0:09:53.000 --> 0:09:56.200 screw to my father's glasses falls out. We replace it 0:09:56.240 --> 0:09:59.560 with a twist tie. At dinner, a waiter charges my 0:09:59.600 --> 0:10:02.720 mother for or potato. She claims she didn't order, but 0:10:02.800 --> 0:10:07.200 after ten minutes of Camp David's style negotiations, it's dropped 0:10:07.200 --> 0:10:11.800 from the bill. Before bed, my father can't find his passport. 0:10:12.360 --> 0:10:15.400 Why do you need a passport? I ask? You always 0:10:15.440 --> 0:10:18.600 need a passport, he says. We find it in the 0:10:18.679 --> 0:10:22.880 night table. In the past, having someone witness all of 0:10:22.920 --> 0:10:26.839 this would have made me feel anxious, But now having 0:10:26.840 --> 0:10:29.280 Emily here makes me feel like I have an ally. 0:10:30.160 --> 0:10:32.600 Turning to her in the midst of some crisis is 0:10:32.640 --> 0:10:36.160 like looking directly into the TV camera and winking at 0:10:36.160 --> 0:10:36.800 the audience. 0:10:42.559 --> 0:10:47.680 Doggy Day two. 0:10:49.200 --> 0:10:51.800 After we put Oggie to sleep, Emily and I lie 0:10:51.840 --> 0:10:55.080 in bed. I ask for her thoughts and reflections on 0:10:55.120 --> 0:11:04.280 the trip so far. Oh, come on, come on, no comment? 0:11:04.840 --> 0:11:07.920 How could she resist? Look at how my mother acts 0:11:07.960 --> 0:11:11.040 with Aggie, I say, trying to get Emily going, I 0:11:11.040 --> 0:11:13.440 saw her put a pocket mirror under his nose while 0:11:13.440 --> 0:11:15.600 he was sleeping to see if he was still breathing. 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:19.959 After every spoonful she feeds him, she asks, if he's choking. 0:11:20.840 --> 0:11:24.000 You realize, though, that you say all that about Aggie 0:11:24.040 --> 0:11:27.080 now too, like just a tiny little cough, and you 0:11:27.160 --> 0:11:28.400 are doing it. 0:11:28.480 --> 0:11:29.160 Is he breathing? 0:11:29.559 --> 0:11:31.959 Can he sit like that? Can he touch that thing? 0:11:32.320 --> 0:11:34.240 Can he eat that? Can he do that? Is he 0:11:34.240 --> 0:11:35.360 supposed to be doing that? 0:11:35.640 --> 0:11:36.040 What's wrong? 0:11:36.080 --> 0:11:36.480 What's wrong? 0:11:36.520 --> 0:11:39.120 What's wrong? What's he doing? What's he doing? Is he choking? 0:11:39.160 --> 0:11:39.640 What's wrong? 0:11:40.760 --> 0:11:42.080 You do a lot of that kind of thing. 0:11:43.559 --> 0:11:46.280 I can see to Emily that maybe I do just 0:11:46.360 --> 0:11:48.920 a little of that kind of thing. But I wasn't 0:11:48.920 --> 0:11:52.040 even in the parking lot of the ballpark of aDNA Goldstein. 0:11:55.720 --> 0:12:00.880 You one day you dropped, you dropped Aggie off, and 0:12:01.760 --> 0:12:05.800 you called me right afterward because you were so worried. 0:12:05.840 --> 0:12:06.480 Do you remember this? 0:12:07.920 --> 0:12:11.560 I do remember this. It was Aggie's first week of daycare. 0:12:12.200 --> 0:12:15.080 He shares a babysitter with two little sisters, But on 0:12:15.120 --> 0:12:18.720 that particular morning, when the babysitter opened the door, she 0:12:18.880 --> 0:12:22.160 was alone. She told me the girls were napping in 0:12:22.200 --> 0:12:23.199 another room. 0:12:23.840 --> 0:12:27.200 You called me and said she was there alone. She 0:12:27.280 --> 0:12:29.560 said they were in bed. I don't know. Maybe she 0:12:29.640 --> 0:12:32.520 killed the whole family, and now she's going to kill Oggi. 0:12:33.120 --> 0:12:35.360 And you weren't joking. 0:12:35.559 --> 0:12:38.960 Like you knew it was a crazy thought, but you 0:12:39.160 --> 0:12:42.840 needed me to tell you she didn't kill their family. 0:12:42.920 --> 0:12:44.240 She's not going to kill Aggie. 0:12:44.880 --> 0:12:47.160 I did not need you to tell me that. 0:12:47.760 --> 0:12:50.679 And you're misremembering you were freaked out. 0:12:51.720 --> 0:12:54.120 You were freaked out. I thought I was very stoic. 0:12:55.400 --> 0:12:56.199 You called me and. 0:12:56.160 --> 0:12:58.800 Said, I think the nanny is gonna murder our child, 0:12:58.800 --> 0:13:00.880 and that she murdered the whole family. 0:13:00.559 --> 0:13:04.319 That we do daycare with. I don't consider that stoic. 0:13:05.440 --> 0:13:05.840 All right. 0:13:05.920 --> 0:13:09.959 I mean, I'm just imaginative. That's one way to look 0:13:10.000 --> 0:13:13.480 at it. Yet another way to look at it is 0:13:13.520 --> 0:13:18.200 that I'm also crazy, just like my mom. Well, set 0:13:18.240 --> 0:13:27.120 my hair on fire and open the front door. In 0:13:27.160 --> 0:13:29.959 the days after Ougi was born, I couldn't stop thinking 0:13:30.080 --> 0:13:33.920 terrible thoughts. Things I couldn't speak, not even to Emily. 0:13:34.920 --> 0:13:37.880 With this new overwhelming love for my son came new 0:13:37.960 --> 0:13:42.920 overwhelming fears for his safety, his heartbreaks to come, for 0:13:42.960 --> 0:13:47.800 his old age, his loneliness, so I started seeing a therapist. 0:13:48.520 --> 0:13:52.080 I explained how worry was the lingua franca of my childhood. 0:13:53.280 --> 0:13:55.680 I wasn't allowed a paper route because it was a 0:13:55.679 --> 0:13:58.840 good way to get abducted, no barefoot in because of 0:13:58.920 --> 0:14:02.120 rusty nails. And I didn't even learn to swim until 0:14:02.200 --> 0:14:06.160 junior high because water that's where people go to drown. 0:14:07.320 --> 0:14:10.600 Worry and fear were how my mother communicated love. I 0:14:10.679 --> 0:14:13.800 said to my therapist with a shrug, But love is love. 0:14:14.320 --> 0:14:17.480 The important thing is that we feel it. But my 0:14:17.559 --> 0:14:21.360 therapist's response troubled me. She said that love was the 0:14:21.400 --> 0:14:25.160 transcendence of fear, that you might even say fear was 0:14:25.160 --> 0:14:29.400 the opposite of love. Sitting at my childhood desk with 0:14:29.480 --> 0:14:33.720 Aggie's toys scattered at my feet, my therapist's words returned 0:14:33.760 --> 0:14:37.640 to me. If I was becoming my mother, would AGGI 0:14:37.720 --> 0:14:41.160 someday become me? Someone weighed down by fear? And worry? 0:14:41.880 --> 0:14:44.920 Was our genetic line nothing more than an inglorious chain 0:14:45.000 --> 0:14:48.480 of Russian dolls? Should my therapist save the notes from 0:14:48.480 --> 0:14:50.920 our sessions so I can send Aggie to her at 0:14:50.960 --> 0:14:54.680 a discounted rate. I didn't want my son becoming me, 0:14:55.240 --> 0:14:57.360 and there were only two people who could help me 0:14:57.480 --> 0:15:01.360 understand how I became me, wh who charged New York 0:15:01.400 --> 0:15:04.680 therapy rates that might leave me bankrupted before I'm cured? 0:15:05.440 --> 0:15:13.880 And the other my mother day three. As a child, 0:15:14.080 --> 0:15:17.480 I felt trapped and embarrassed by my mother. As an adult, 0:15:17.760 --> 0:15:20.720 I came to be amused by her. It's only as 0:15:20.720 --> 0:15:23.880 a freshly minted father visiting home for the first time 0:15:24.320 --> 0:15:26.920 that I'm beginning to see that I am her. 0:15:27.560 --> 0:15:33.160 How much you pay for apples seventy but I'm desperate? 0:15:33.360 --> 0:15:35.800 This is what we normally talk about. Where to get 0:15:35.800 --> 0:15:38.160 the best price on paper plates? Where to get the 0:15:38.160 --> 0:15:39.720 best price on honeydew melon? 0:15:40.280 --> 0:15:40.560 Dina? 0:15:40.600 --> 0:15:42.960 What do you pay for a bottle of water. 0:15:43.800 --> 0:15:45.480 Twenty four for a dollar eighty eight? 0:15:46.760 --> 0:15:47.760 Bottle water. 0:15:49.000 --> 0:15:51.160 Cox twenty four for six forty nine? 0:15:51.720 --> 0:15:54.440 Will you pay for a loaf of bread? But after dinner, 0:15:54.680 --> 0:15:57.520 after Aggie's gone to sleep, my mom and I sit 0:15:57.600 --> 0:16:00.320 down at the kitchen table to have a different converse station. 0:16:01.360 --> 0:16:04.200 Emily is reading in bed, and my father's watching TV 0:16:04.320 --> 0:16:09.920 in the basement. It's just us. Hello, Hello, go ahead 0:16:09.960 --> 0:16:13.600 and talk here. I am Why do you say here? 0:16:13.640 --> 0:16:14.000 I am? 0:16:14.680 --> 0:16:14.840 Well? 0:16:15.040 --> 0:16:16.320 Where should I say there? 0:16:16.360 --> 0:16:18.320 I am? 0:16:18.600 --> 0:16:21.280 Tonight? I want to talk about the fear, that thing 0:16:21.320 --> 0:16:24.560 my family lives inside, like a snowsuit with a broken 0:16:24.640 --> 0:16:28.120 zipper that can no more be removed than our own flesh. 0:16:28.680 --> 0:16:31.360 I want to talk about the nameless thing that binds 0:16:31.400 --> 0:16:37.880 all Goldstein's, that ignites us, propels us, and ultimately paralyzes us. Well, 0:16:37.920 --> 0:16:39.760 I think about this stuff now, because you know, I 0:16:39.760 --> 0:16:44.400 have I have a I have a son, and I think, 0:16:46.040 --> 0:16:47.960 but I think he's so beautiful. 0:16:48.000 --> 0:16:52.840 And I saw those blue eyes like no horas Bay's eggs. 0:16:53.080 --> 0:16:56.400 My mother's not talking crazy talk, she's talking Yiddish. 0:16:56.560 --> 0:16:58.440 So Bay's eggs. 0:16:58.520 --> 0:16:59.440 Yeah, what does that mean? 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:00.440 Bad O? 0:17:00.480 --> 0:17:05.679 I shouldn't hurt them. The bad eye, the evil eye, 0:17:06.119 --> 0:17:09.480 the belief that merely saying something positive is enough to 0:17:09.520 --> 0:17:13.399 invite evil forces to snuff the good thing out. So 0:17:13.480 --> 0:17:16.280 even bringing up a normal son to mom question about 0:17:16.320 --> 0:17:19.960 good parenting is enough to attract the eye. On the 0:17:20.040 --> 0:17:23.000 day of my bar Mitzvah, my mother carefully sewed a 0:17:23.080 --> 0:17:26.760 red ribbon into my underwear. In this way, she reasoned, 0:17:27.040 --> 0:17:30.000 should the evil eye turn its gaze upon me, I'd 0:17:30.000 --> 0:17:35.760 be protected by my underwear. Why do you think you 0:17:35.920 --> 0:17:42.639 do that evil eyed stuff? It's what you say, it's cuckoo. 0:17:43.000 --> 0:17:44.800 I know it's cuckoo, but I can't help it. 0:17:45.200 --> 0:17:48.440 But then that's just a superstition. I don't know everybody 0:17:48.480 --> 0:17:52.199 does it. I've never met anybody who puts red ribbons 0:17:52.200 --> 0:17:54.600 in their own I'm saying I personally have never met 0:17:54.640 --> 0:17:57.639 anyone who does that. So I can't say everybody puts 0:17:57.680 --> 0:18:00.520 red ribbons in their underwear. But what what is it 0:18:00.600 --> 0:18:06.080 supposed to be? Warding off? But what is the evil eye? 0:18:06.600 --> 0:18:11.720 I don't know. This is how conversations with Dina often go. 0:18:12.359 --> 0:18:15.840 The derail hit dead ends. So when I ask her 0:18:16.359 --> 0:18:19.840 why was our home the way it was? I expect 0:18:19.840 --> 0:18:24.320 more of the same, But instead my mother grows quiet. 0:18:31.560 --> 0:18:35.160 I worry, Yeah, I do too. 0:18:35.359 --> 0:18:39.880 I'm afraid of this, afraid of that. Well, I was irrational. 0:18:39.920 --> 0:18:42.640 I wasn't thinking right, and I have a chance to 0:18:42.680 --> 0:18:44.160 redo my a little bit. 0:18:44.240 --> 0:18:49.399 Not with you, but with Augie. She stops talking and 0:18:49.440 --> 0:18:53.400 stares into her lap for a while. We just sit there. 0:18:56.560 --> 0:19:00.720 I look upon this as a second chance. I want 0:19:00.760 --> 0:19:04.639 to correct my mistakes, Johnny, I want to redeem myself. 0:19:05.560 --> 0:19:10.800 That's it. My mother doesn't usually talk this way if 0:19:10.800 --> 0:19:13.919 something's causing her grief. She returns it to the store, 0:19:14.400 --> 0:19:17.800 sends it back to the kitchen, and so talk of 0:19:17.840 --> 0:19:21.840 second chances and redemption. The words sound weird coming out 0:19:21.880 --> 0:19:24.080 of her mouth, and I don't know how to respond. 0:19:25.160 --> 0:19:28.240 Where's all this coming from? I ask? Are you thinking 0:19:28.280 --> 0:19:34.720 of something specific? It's too painful. I don't want Maybe 0:19:34.760 --> 0:19:37.199 if you talk about it, you won't talk about it. 0:19:37.240 --> 0:19:41.280 I don't think it could be anything. Then I can't. 0:19:41.320 --> 0:19:45.600 I can't talk about it. Don't press me, please well, 0:19:45.600 --> 0:19:46.800 I don't want to force you. I don't want to 0:19:46.840 --> 0:19:50.640 make you feel bad. I am ashamed of myself. Let's 0:19:50.720 --> 0:19:57.400 change the subject, and with that the conversation ends. I'd 0:19:57.400 --> 0:20:00.320 gotten to my mother for answers about my childhood, but 0:20:00.400 --> 0:20:02.960 instead she has left me with questions I didn't even 0:20:02.960 --> 0:20:06.439 know I had. What had happened that was so bad? 0:20:06.600 --> 0:20:09.320 She couldn't even talk about it? What was she so 0:20:09.400 --> 0:20:20.320 afraid to tell me? After the break, I find out, Hello, Hello, 0:20:20.560 --> 0:20:24.159 So mom's upstairs with Emily. Do you have any insight? 0:20:24.280 --> 0:20:27.800 Day four? I sit down with my father to see 0:20:27.840 --> 0:20:30.439 if he has any idea what the second chance is 0:20:30.480 --> 0:20:34.280 that my mother's talking about. He's hesitant to talk because 0:20:34.359 --> 0:20:37.280 that goes against his strategy of staying out of the drama. 0:20:37.960 --> 0:20:41.000 In fact, most of my childhood memories of him are 0:20:41.040 --> 0:20:44.200 of a man in bed napping with a large volume 0:20:44.240 --> 0:20:47.080 of World War II history splayed open on his chest. 0:20:47.720 --> 0:20:51.000 This retiring nature might be the secret to having stayed 0:20:51.040 --> 0:20:55.040 married to my mother for more than fifty years. What 0:20:55.200 --> 0:20:57.159 is the thing that she is carrying around with her? 0:20:57.200 --> 0:21:01.879 She's a very private person and she feels she doesn't 0:21:01.920 --> 0:21:05.040 want to be intruded upon. Don't take it the wrong way, so. 0:21:05.080 --> 0:21:07.680 You have no inkling. You don't know what's going on. 0:21:07.960 --> 0:21:10.000 Doesn't even discussed with me. I don't know what guilt, 0:21:10.080 --> 0:21:10.920 I don't know what she's talking. 0:21:10.960 --> 0:21:13.480 Don't find it odd or intriguing in a way. 0:21:13.520 --> 0:21:18.639 It's a touchy subject for her, and she's very reluctant 0:21:18.680 --> 0:21:19.760 to talk about it. 0:21:20.080 --> 0:21:21.200 Talk about it. What's the it? 0:21:21.720 --> 0:21:23.160 I don't know. You have to ask her, and she's 0:21:23.200 --> 0:21:26.480 going to shut down. She's going to shut down. 0:21:28.080 --> 0:21:31.359 This means she'll try to change the subject or start 0:21:31.359 --> 0:21:34.800 to yell. But today I don't care. I just want 0:21:34.840 --> 0:21:38.320 to know what the big secret is. I wonder what 0:21:38.440 --> 0:21:41.600 it is? I say to Emily, who knows? She says 0:21:41.680 --> 0:21:44.640 while brushing her hair. So many things about your mom 0:21:44.720 --> 0:21:47.240 are a mystery to me, like why is the kitchen 0:21:47.280 --> 0:21:50.320 faucet always running full blast? And why does she keep 0:21:50.359 --> 0:21:54.560 offering me paper towels. I think she says, you should 0:21:54.600 --> 0:22:01.679 just let it go, but of course I can't. What 0:22:01.800 --> 0:22:04.480 had my mother done that she wanted a second chance at? 0:22:05.040 --> 0:22:06.879 Was it for the time she bought me a shirt 0:22:06.960 --> 0:22:10.840 for my birthday that she later admitted was actually a dress? 0:22:11.320 --> 0:22:13.440 Did you want to redo the time she dropped me 0:22:13.480 --> 0:22:16.600 off at a birthday party and hollered out the car window. 0:22:17.200 --> 0:22:20.439 Have fun? But if you get diarrhea and someone's on 0:22:20.480 --> 0:22:24.679 the toilet, just making the bathtub diarrhea is not a 0:22:24.760 --> 0:22:28.440 time for pride. Of course I now see the wisdom, 0:22:28.840 --> 0:22:31.879 but as a child, her words were a source of shame. 0:22:33.200 --> 0:22:35.680 I need to know. So I invite my mother out 0:22:35.720 --> 0:22:38.720 for a Sunday stroll with Oggie and me. Maybe if 0:22:38.720 --> 0:22:43.680 she can just relax, it'll come out like diarrhea. 0:22:45.800 --> 0:22:46.240 We'll talk. 0:22:46.880 --> 0:22:47.720 What should I say? 0:22:48.359 --> 0:22:49.480 Learn to take your robble? 0:22:50.280 --> 0:22:50.919 So tell me? 0:22:52.920 --> 0:22:54.960 So, do you find walking with Hoggie relaxing? 0:22:55.359 --> 0:23:03.120 Very relaxing? So nice? It's a pleasure, my little friend. 0:23:02.040 --> 0:23:05.960 To start things off. I lobber an easy question, cocktail 0:23:06.000 --> 0:23:10.240 party stuff. What's your first memory? 0:23:13.200 --> 0:23:17.959 Kindergarten? And we lived on Colonial four h three nine Colonial, 0:23:18.640 --> 0:23:22.680 And I remember my father used to play peinockle and 0:23:22.720 --> 0:23:26.040 he had a thumb that was the nail like the 0:23:26.080 --> 0:23:30.080 thumbnail was very cut off, and all of a sudden 0:23:30.119 --> 0:23:32.679 I thought of it, and I started screaming and crying 0:23:32.720 --> 0:23:38.480 and carrying on. I'm worrying. Oh, I remember, how old 0:23:38.520 --> 0:23:40.600 are you must have been four or five. 0:23:40.880 --> 0:23:44.040 So an early memory is being at kindergarten and remembering 0:23:44.080 --> 0:23:48.119 your father's thumbnail and starting to cry. What was it 0:23:48.160 --> 0:23:50.560 that upset you about it? 0:23:50.560 --> 0:23:53.439 I read about it because it wasn't like a regular thumb. 0:23:55.359 --> 0:23:57.840 I was worried crazy. 0:23:58.280 --> 0:24:01.280 I tried a guide her towards happy red inniscences, but 0:24:01.320 --> 0:24:06.000 all her memories are awful. Rheumatic fever, scarlet fever, her 0:24:06.040 --> 0:24:09.080 mother slapping her in Woolworth's for whining about a balloon 0:24:09.160 --> 0:24:11.640 she wanted, waking up in the middle of the night 0:24:11.800 --> 0:24:14.360 to find a wall in the kitchen covered in moths. 0:24:14.960 --> 0:24:17.800 Then I remember my mother's pressure cooker in that house 0:24:18.160 --> 0:24:26.560 hits the ceiling and pea soup was splattered everywhere, all 0:24:26.640 --> 0:24:27.400 your memories. 0:24:27.600 --> 0:24:33.560 Let's hear another memory. With the small talk exhausted, I 0:24:33.640 --> 0:24:36.920 trepidaciously bring the subject back around to the do over. 0:24:37.880 --> 0:24:40.760 I don't know, Johnny. I don't want to talk about it. 0:24:40.800 --> 0:24:44.840 I don't want to remind myself the way I felt. 0:24:45.560 --> 0:24:49.160 Doesn't conjure up good memories. Please, and that's the. 0:24:49.240 --> 0:24:49.600 End of it. 0:24:49.640 --> 0:24:51.800 I don't want to go into details. 0:24:54.240 --> 0:24:57.439 Nonetheless, for the rest of the day, I can't stop 0:24:57.480 --> 0:25:01.640 myself from asking for details, I asked, as she puts 0:25:01.640 --> 0:25:02.879 away the breakfast dishes. 0:25:05.280 --> 0:25:06.840 I have nothing more to say, Johnny. 0:25:06.920 --> 0:25:09.720 Leave me be, I ask, as she cuts coupons while 0:25:09.760 --> 0:25:13.359 watching Judge Judy with Emily in broad strokes. 0:25:13.200 --> 0:25:16.359 Alone, Please Emily take him off me? 0:25:17.040 --> 0:25:20.280 And while she peels boiled eggs for lunch, Leave me alone. 0:25:21.760 --> 0:25:24.760 Later we all sit down for dinner and with it 0:25:24.840 --> 0:25:25.439 some wine. 0:25:25.880 --> 0:25:26.960 What's wrong with me? 0:25:27.119 --> 0:25:31.520 I think I'm off my rock. My mother rarely drinks wine. 0:25:32.200 --> 0:25:34.440 Oh my god, how did I get like this? 0:25:36.080 --> 0:25:36.320 Mom? 0:25:36.400 --> 0:25:41.400 You just had a glass of wine. As she drifts 0:25:41.440 --> 0:25:45.320 off into an inebriated slumber, I give it one last try, 0:25:47.200 --> 0:25:50.439 can I Is there anything you need to tell me? No, 0:25:50.680 --> 0:26:02.040 any secrets to reveal No, I was getting nowhere day five? 0:26:03.200 --> 0:26:10.679 All right, you want to change him? What? It's our 0:26:10.760 --> 0:26:13.040 last day, and I've decided to give it a rest. 0:26:13.760 --> 0:26:17.240 I stop asking weird questions and we all just hang out. 0:26:17.440 --> 0:26:19.600 We talk about the price of things, We yell from 0:26:19.680 --> 0:26:22.520 room to room, We search for lost cell phones, and 0:26:22.600 --> 0:26:28.840 grow pleasantly bored with each other's company. Overall, it's pretty nice. Well, 0:26:28.880 --> 0:26:31.680 while putting Aggie down for a nap, my mother has 0:26:31.680 --> 0:26:34.960 a question for me, Sonny, what was it. 0:26:34.840 --> 0:26:38.200 That you were hoping to get from me? Oh? 0:26:38.560 --> 0:26:40.199 I really did just want to be able to have 0:26:40.240 --> 0:26:42.879 a conversation, that's all I'm not. I don't want to. 0:26:42.960 --> 0:26:44.480 I don't want to cause your distress. 0:26:44.880 --> 0:26:46.440 You're not causing distress. 0:26:46.560 --> 0:26:48.320 It's it's what it was. 0:26:49.520 --> 0:26:52.200 And I don't even want to talk about old, painful stuff. 0:27:00.440 --> 0:27:02.560 Who was sweet? 0:27:03.040 --> 0:27:03.080 What? 0:27:05.000 --> 0:27:08.840 She lays Aggie down, She stands over the crib. She 0:27:08.920 --> 0:27:12.879 starts to say something, but then trails away. What are 0:27:12.920 --> 0:27:19.560 we saying? All right, I'm gonna turn it off. Then 0:27:22.800 --> 0:27:26.199 I was not adopted. I had no secret twin, and 0:27:26.280 --> 0:27:29.840 my mother had no secret family. There were no murders, 0:27:30.040 --> 0:27:33.600 no affairs. It turns out that my mother's big secret. 0:27:34.000 --> 0:27:35.720 The thing that was so hard for her to say 0:27:36.480 --> 0:27:39.160 was that she was sorry for a lot of things, 0:27:39.840 --> 0:27:44.200 some small, some not so small. Some I remember, some 0:27:44.560 --> 0:27:48.760 I don't, calling me names, screaming at me a lot. 0:27:48.920 --> 0:27:51.560 How she could have been nicer to my girlfriends, How 0:27:51.600 --> 0:27:55.560 she used to pull my hair, hit me. Hitting kids 0:27:55.680 --> 0:27:58.480 was like the hula hoop. Back then, I say, a fad. 0:27:59.080 --> 0:28:03.360 Everyone did it. It wasn't right, she says. Back then 0:28:03.440 --> 0:28:06.880 people didn't know better. I say, I should have known better. 0:28:06.920 --> 0:28:11.840 She says, I forgive you. I say, I don't forgive myself. 0:28:12.960 --> 0:28:16.560 So I forgive her again, and I mean it, And 0:28:16.640 --> 0:28:18.840 then I turned the recorder back on. 0:28:24.280 --> 0:28:27.520 I love you, honey. You made it a little easier 0:28:27.560 --> 0:28:27.919 for me. 0:28:28.080 --> 0:28:39.800 Thank you. I love you too much. When you become 0:28:39.840 --> 0:28:43.640 a parent, your whole life changes, but you forget that 0:28:43.800 --> 0:28:47.320 some things stay the same. I'd been so focused on 0:28:47.400 --> 0:28:50.520 becoming a better father that I forgot I was still 0:28:50.560 --> 0:28:53.840 a son. And maybe learning to be a better son 0:28:54.640 --> 0:28:59.400 is how you become a better dad. Anyway I want 0:28:59.480 --> 0:29:02.960 him to be. On the last morning of our visit, 0:29:03.320 --> 0:29:06.280 my mother and I head to the park. As a kid, 0:29:06.480 --> 0:29:09.040 the park was someplace I usually went with my grandfather 0:29:09.360 --> 0:29:12.080 or father. One of the only times I remember going 0:29:12.080 --> 0:29:15.080 with my mother, two collies appeared out of nowhere and 0:29:15.120 --> 0:29:19.080 began chasing us. I remember we separated and the dogs 0:29:19.200 --> 0:29:23.120 chased her while I hid behind a tree. I look 0:29:23.160 --> 0:29:26.480 around the playground from my own childhood with her. I 0:29:26.560 --> 0:29:29.840 knew most things were out sandbox because someone could have 0:29:29.880 --> 0:29:33.720 peed in there. Same for the swings, monkey bars, teeter totters, 0:29:33.720 --> 0:29:38.760 and merry go rounds. But then something surprising happens. Picking 0:29:38.760 --> 0:29:40.840 Aggie up out of the stroller, my. 0:29:40.880 --> 0:29:43.240 Mother says, I'll take him down the slide. 0:29:43.480 --> 0:29:45.200 He's never he's never gone down the side. 0:29:45.320 --> 0:29:47.880 Come with Bobby Henney. We'll go down the slide together. 0:29:47.960 --> 0:29:50.120 Okay, you're gonna go with him down the side. Well, 0:29:50.120 --> 0:29:53.280 what do you think I'll put himself? I didn't. You're 0:29:53.320 --> 0:29:54.520 not afraid to go down the slide. 0:29:54.800 --> 0:29:55.880 Why would I be afraid? 0:29:56.320 --> 0:29:59.640 I don't know. Okay, be careful, yeah. 0:30:00.160 --> 0:30:01.960 On my nervis, I wasn't afraid. 0:30:02.400 --> 0:30:08.000 Be careful. I don't know. My mother hands me back 0:30:08.040 --> 0:30:12.240 Aggie and holding onto the railing, she carefully climbs the 0:30:12.280 --> 0:30:15.680 steps to the top of the slide. When she gets there, 0:30:15.880 --> 0:30:18.760 I climb up too, and hand Aggie back to her 0:30:19.280 --> 0:30:23.040 with hesitation. She positions them onto her lap and I 0:30:23.120 --> 0:30:25.560 run around to the bottom of the slide to await 0:30:25.600 --> 0:30:26.320 their arrival. 0:30:26.800 --> 0:30:30.040 And you stand there and catch us in chase bad for. 0:30:30.120 --> 0:30:33.600 Me, And then Dina lets go. 0:30:33.960 --> 0:30:34.880 You're gonna go down. 0:30:34.960 --> 0:30:45.680 Whoo whoo. He's having fun. Huh, so much fun in fact, 0:30:45.960 --> 0:30:49.080 that my mother decides to do it again. And so 0:30:49.440 --> 0:30:53.120 again she climbs up the steps, all three of them, 0:30:53.640 --> 0:30:56.200 to the top of the ladder, and from the grand 0:30:56.240 --> 0:30:59.040 height of three and a half feet, my mother and 0:30:59.120 --> 0:31:05.600 son descend the toddler slide once more, sliding sliding down 0:31:05.880 --> 0:31:14.080 the snide. Oggie loves it, so they do it again 0:31:14.840 --> 0:31:19.080 a third chance, a fourth, and even a fifth. Then 0:31:19.240 --> 0:31:22.280 we move on to the bouncy caterpillar, the rope bridge, 0:31:22.760 --> 0:31:25.280 and the swings. 0:31:24.240 --> 0:31:34.320 Swim swingy Oggy's going swingy, the itsy bitsy spider win 0:31:34.560 --> 0:31:35.640 up the water. 0:31:36.720 --> 0:31:40.440 Parenthood is like a redo of your own childhood, and 0:31:40.560 --> 0:31:44.560 grandparenthood is like a redo of that. That's all life is, 0:31:45.240 --> 0:31:49.720 learning and relearning the same lessons over and over all 0:31:49.760 --> 0:31:53.160 of us, like those itsy bitsy spiders crawling up endless 0:31:53.200 --> 0:31:56.520 water spouts, trying to make just a little more progress 0:31:56.640 --> 0:32:00.280 each time we set out. There's comfort in knowing that 0:32:00.360 --> 0:32:02.920 no one ever gets it right, no matter how many 0:32:03.000 --> 0:32:07.160 chances we get. But hopefully at least a few things 0:32:07.160 --> 0:32:10.840 go right, a few purely kind gestures somehow get through, 0:32:11.800 --> 0:32:16.000 And for everything else we ask for forgiveness, And if 0:32:16.000 --> 0:32:20.800 we're lucky, we'll receive it, and if we're luckier, we'll 0:32:20.840 --> 0:32:25.680 forgive ourselves too. 0:32:27.400 --> 0:33:05.600 Horrors. 0:33:17.120 --> 0:33:21.800 Now that the vernitures returning to its. 0:33:21.760 --> 0:33:30.160 Goodwill home, now that the last month's rent is scheming 0:33:30.400 --> 0:33:32.000 with the damaged. 0:33:31.880 --> 0:33:38.160 Pole, take this moment to dissolved, if we meant it, 0:33:38.320 --> 0:33:42.560 if we tried, but felt. 0:33:42.280 --> 0:33:48.800 Around for far too empty from things that accidentally talk. 0:33:53.400 --> 0:33:56.600 Eavyweight is hosted and produced by me Jonathan Goldstein along 0:33:56.600 --> 0:34:00.400 with Khalila Holt. The senior producer is Caitlin Roberts, editing 0:34:00.440 --> 0:34:04.280 by Jorge just Alex Bloomberg and Wendy Tour Special thanks 0:34:04.280 --> 0:34:08.480 to Emily Condon, Emmanuel Berry, Pat Walters, and Jackie Cohen. 0:34:09.080 --> 0:34:12.280 The show is mixed by Kate Bolinski, music by Christine 0:34:12.320 --> 0:34:15.640 Fellows and John K. Sampson. Additional music credits for this 0:34:15.719 --> 0:34:19.120 episode can be found on our website Gimbletmedia dot com 0:34:19.160 --> 0:34:22.480 slash Heavyweight. Our theme song is by The Weaker Thans 0:34:22.520 --> 0:34:25.600 courtesy of Epitaph Records, and our ad music is by 0:34:25.600 --> 0:34:29.279 Hailey Shaw. Follow us on Twitter at Heavyweight. This is 0:34:29.320 --> 0:34:31.960 our last episode of the season, but we're already looking 0:34:31.960 --> 0:34:34.719 for stories for season three, so if you have one, 0:34:35.040 --> 0:34:38.440 email us at Heavyweight at gimletmedia dot com. And if 0:34:38.480 --> 0:34:41.880 you see fit phunch in some stars for us on iTunes. 0:34:42.640 --> 0:35:03.000 Thanks for listening. Oh oh sign 0:35:04.920 --> 0:35:04.960 M