Speaker 1: Pushkin, Karen, I'm I'm sorry to be intruding like this,
Speaker 1: you know, just calling up at it O.
Speaker 2: Hi, oh hi, sorry, my mom called on.
Speaker 1: So then you just you just drop whoever you're talking to.
Speaker 2: That's the kind of daughter.
Speaker 3: I am not.
Speaker 1: Very professional, but okay, yes, it actually is. Well, because
Speaker 1: you know you're a you're a dear friend of Jackie.
Speaker 1: So I thought maybe you know, I would turn to
Speaker 1: you with my concern. I I've been trying to call
Speaker 1: Jackie and she doesn't seem to be accepting my phone calls.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, I could confirm that she's okay, okay,
Speaker 2: Oh that's good, thankful, Oh, thank god. Yeah, I could
Speaker 2: confirm that, and I can confirm that she's annoyed by
Speaker 2: your persistence that I could confirm, okay, And I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't know what to tell you. Maybe she just
Speaker 2: feels that you're using her, well, I am, well, maybe
Speaker 2: she doesn't like.
Speaker 1: That, yeah, because she wants to be the user.
Speaker 2: Right, that's an excellent point you've got there.
Speaker 1: Okay, Jackie, if you're out there listening, which let's face it,
Speaker 1: you're probably not. If I am using you, it's on
Speaker 1: behalf of America in Canada, of course, from Pushkin Industries.
Speaker 1: I'm Jonathan Goldstein and this is Heavyweight Today's episode. Stephano
Speaker 1: right after the break. It's impossible to talk to Debbie
Speaker 1: without hearing stories about her mom, Anita. Anita was Italian,
Speaker 1: and in every story it's her autemismo for roach or
Speaker 1: fierce optimism that takes center stage.
Speaker 4: Truly, for her, the glass was beyond half full. It
Speaker 4: was always full, even if there was a drop of
Speaker 4: water in there, Jonathan, it was just always full.
Speaker 1: As an example, Debbie tells the story of how Anita
Speaker 1: comforted some cousins who were concerned their child was crying
Speaker 1: too much.
Speaker 4: And my mom said, no, you don't have to worry.
Speaker 4: She's like me. I was like that for years. I
Speaker 4: was always crying very easily. My mom was around seventy
Speaker 4: eight years old at the time. And they said, did
Speaker 4: you grow out of it? And my mom goes, yeah,
Speaker 4: and they said when and she said about two years ago,
Speaker 4: So you know, they had something to hope for.
Speaker 1: Anita died in twenty twenty, and her death was hard
Speaker 1: on Debbi. She misses her mom a lot and thinks
Speaker 1: about her a lot, and perhaps because of this, she
Speaker 1: finds herself returning to the one Anita story that has
Speaker 1: yet to find its happy ending, and that is the
Speaker 1: story of the airplane and the baby. Anita grew up
Speaker 1: in a part of Italy called Eastria, and after World
Speaker 1: War Two the region was seated to Yugoslavia. Suddenly, her
Speaker 1: family was under oppressive socialist rule. So Anita and her
Speaker 1: brother hatched an escape plan. They double layered their clothing,
Speaker 1: borrowed a motor boat, and sailed into the Adriatic Sea.
Speaker 1: Anita could easily have drowned.
Speaker 4: But my mom said, you know, you're young, and you
Speaker 4: don't think about that kind of stuff. You just think
Speaker 4: about freedom.
Speaker 1: And her brother made it to Italy, where the police
Speaker 1: took them to a refugee camp. In the coming years,
Speaker 1: Anita would live in several such camps.
Speaker 4: When I would talk to her other friends about it,
Speaker 4: her friends would say, oh, it was hard, you know
Speaker 4: it was. The food wasn't good most of the time,
Speaker 4: and we didn't have money. But you would never have
Speaker 4: known that. Talking to her, she was just eternally optimistic.
Speaker 4: She said, it was wonderful. They opened the doors and
Speaker 4: I saw so many people that I knew. There we'd
Speaker 4: play cards, and we'd drink, and you know, the girls
Speaker 4: would do each other's hair and just had fun.
Speaker 1: In nineteen fifty nine, Anita got her chance to leave
Speaker 1: the camps a visa to the United States, and so
Speaker 1: all alone, Anita set out to America.
Speaker 4: So she was getting ready to get on the flight
Speaker 4: from Rome to New York. And there was an adoption
Speaker 4: agency that were taking children from orphanages from Italy to
Speaker 4: the United States. And they asked my mom if she
Speaker 4: would babysit this little boy, this little two year old boy,
Speaker 4: and she said, of course. Did she learn his name, Stephano, It's.
Speaker 5: Anita, and you have I got a picture of a
Speaker 5: little baby Stefano.
Speaker 1: This is Anita in a video Debbie filmed a year
Speaker 1: before her mom's death. In the video, Anita is clutching
Speaker 1: a photograph taken during the flight.
Speaker 5: So you look at how beautiful he is.
Speaker 1: The photograph is oddly composed, almost like it was taken
Speaker 1: by accident when the camera was set down. Anita and
Speaker 1: Stefano's faces are both partially cut off, but you can
Speaker 1: tell that Anita is smiling big with the two year
Speaker 1: old Stefano peaceful in her arms.
Speaker 6: How old were you there?
Speaker 5: Twenty four? Look at how beautiful and sixty years ago
Speaker 5: nineteen fifty nine.
Speaker 1: It was a long flight to New York and they
Speaker 1: had to stop three times to refuel, so for eighteen hours,
Speaker 1: Anita held Stephano close.
Speaker 4: I think she just fell in love with him. She
Speaker 4: just fell in love with that little baby. She said,
Speaker 4: he was the best baby you could ever see.
Speaker 5: How good baby heels. He's the best baby. It was
Speaker 5: very happy. I was happy, Eddie. The baby was heavy.
Speaker 1: It was Anita's first time on an airplane and Stephano's two.
Speaker 1: They were both leaving behind everyone they knew and setting
Speaker 1: out alone for a new life in America. Clutching this
Speaker 1: baby over the ocean, the two of them smiling at
Speaker 1: each other. Anita and Stefano bonded. They were both off
Speaker 1: to what she hoped was a better life.
Speaker 4: They get to New York, she was holding the baby
Speaker 4: and the agency came up to her and then just
Speaker 4: took him right out of her arms. She said, they
Speaker 4: didn't say anything to her, They.
Speaker 5: Just take him away from me, and he started crying.
Speaker 5: He don't know nobody.
Speaker 1: There was no chance to even say goodbye.
Speaker 5: And I was crying him. I would crying out.
Speaker 6: Yeah, of course that's sad.
Speaker 5: It was like my baby.
Speaker 4: She would cry. She would cry when she talk about it.
Speaker 1: Even after raising two kids of her own, Anita never
Speaker 1: stopped talking about the child who was hers for a day.
Speaker 1: All through her life, even into her last years, everyone
Speaker 1: heard about Stephano. Anita continued to hope, always needed to
Speaker 1: believe that Stefano's life was a good one.
Speaker 4: She would say, I wonder where he is. Was he
Speaker 4: in a good home? What was his life like?
Speaker 5: I would like to know him and see how he's doing.
Speaker 5: I'm sorry, maybe you're far away. I don't know where
Speaker 5: are you. I was thinking all this year about him
Speaker 5: all the time. Yeah, and I love you even if
Speaker 5: I don't see you too long.
Speaker 6: That's a nice story, and I don't know if you
Speaker 6: understand it. I think so.
Speaker 1: When Anita was still alive, there were several attempts at
Speaker 1: finding Stefano. Anita sought out help from various friends and family,
Speaker 1: but no one was able to get anywhere. They even
Speaker 1: looked into a TV show that reunited adoptees with their
Speaker 1: birth parents, but Anita wasn't Stefano's birth parent. But then
Speaker 1: One day, Debbie brought up the subject of Stefano with
Speaker 1: her close friend Lindsay.
Speaker 4: Lindsay starts plugging stuff into the computer and she said, up,
Speaker 4: I found him.
Speaker 1: Hang on, but did you even have his last name?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 1: And who's this, Lindsay. Does she work for the state
Speaker 1: department or something? You would think as someone who makes
Speaker 1: his living tracking people down, like a nice version of
Speaker 1: dog the bounty hunter, A dog the bounty hunter who
Speaker 1: rather than dragging people off to jail, drags them off
Speaker 1: to heal. I'm professionally piqued by this, Lindsay.
Speaker 7: I have a skill for finding digital footprints of people.
Speaker 1: This is Lindsay.
Speaker 7: I'm the person that people go to if you want
Speaker 7: to know something.
Speaker 1: The only information she knew about Stefano was his age
Speaker 1: and the date of the flight. But with that she
Speaker 1: found Stefano's immigration record, which had the name of the
Speaker 1: man on it who was set to adopt him. From there,
Speaker 1: Lindsay found the adoptive father's obituary.
Speaker 7: Under the list of surviving children, there was the name Stephen,
Speaker 7: and you know, we put that together.
Speaker 1: As Stephaniel Stefano. In America, Stefano became Stephen, although Lindsay
Speaker 1: now had Stephano's full name, she had no way of
Speaker 1: getting in touch with them. She call Hied social media,
Speaker 1: but he was nowhere to be found. She did find
Speaker 1: his two brothers, though, so she messaged one.
Speaker 7: He said that it was a very nice story, but
Speaker 7: he doesn't speak to Stephen anymore.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And when Lindsay tried the other brother.
Speaker 7: It was basically this thing that they don't speak either.
Speaker 4: And then Lindsay dug a little deeper and it looked
Speaker 4: like he might have a criminal record.
Speaker 1: Debian Lindsay couldn't see what Stephen's criminal record was. It
Speaker 1: just came up as a flag on one of those
Speaker 1: people finding websites. But the reality of what they were
Speaker 1: doing suddenly sank in. They were looking for a potentially
Speaker 1: dangerous stranger to introduce to the elderly Anita, and it
Speaker 1: gave them pause.
Speaker 7: That paired with them not speaking to his brothers. Just
Speaker 7: we weren't there. Maybe this was our bapest way to
Speaker 7: go about this, and we wanted to take some time
Speaker 7: to kind of figure out a game plan.
Speaker 1: The time passed and no game plan emerged. Any year later,
Speaker 1: Anita died, never having gotten to reunite with Stefano. After
Speaker 1: the loss of a parent, there's often an attempt to
Speaker 1: honor a final wish, donating to a beloved cause or
Speaker 1: scattering ashes in a favorite place. But Debbie feels a
Speaker 1: need to fulfill a different kind of wish on her
Speaker 1: mother's behalf. She wants to know that Stefano is okay.
Speaker 7: Anita's death was very, very, very difficult, and I think
Speaker 7: it's healing for Debbie if we find him, and I
Speaker 7: think that she needs this more than b thinks she does.
Speaker 1: Lindsay says, Debbie never got the chance to fully grieve
Speaker 1: Anita after she died COVID hit. Then her father developed
Speaker 1: dementia and Debbie became his full time caretaker. Then her
Speaker 1: father died.
Speaker 7: Just always onto this next draining saying, you know, and
Speaker 7: since it is honoring this wish of her mom, it's
Speaker 7: helping her feel And I can just see that when
Speaker 7: we talk about the story, she's so hopeful and she's
Speaker 7: so determined, and this is something that I haven't seen
Speaker 7: with Debbie in a very long time.
Speaker 1: And for Debbie, she hopes this story might mean something
Speaker 1: to Stefano too.
Speaker 4: Maybe he needs to know that this woman thought of
Speaker 4: him for most of his life, loving him from a distance,
Speaker 4: wondering about him, praying for him. I mean, what a
Speaker 4: thing to know after the break, Let's find him. Let's
Speaker 4: find that guy, that little Stefano.
Speaker 1: So so here we are, here, we are, my producer,
Speaker 1: Khalila Houlton, I gather in the studio or mission is twofold.
Speaker 1: We want to find a way to contact Stephen. But
Speaker 1: before we do, we want to figure out what Stephen's
Speaker 1: mysterious criminal record actually is. Khalila starts tiptapping away on
Speaker 1: her computer while I settle in and offer the kind
Speaker 1: of input that only an investigative journalist with a decades
Speaker 1: long track record can I've gone through different phases in
Speaker 1: my life where a V neck was more appealing than
Speaker 1: a crew neck. It kind of goes it's always darkest
Speaker 1: before the dawn? Is that true? I was like to Augie,
Speaker 1: I was like, smell how good that is? And He's
Speaker 1: like that smells disgusting. I was like, I could think
Speaker 1: of other times when it's darker. It's probably darker at night.
Speaker 1: My gal don't do much talking dances even when she's
Speaker 1: walking on ontok Oh, look at that little squirrel. Oh,
Speaker 1: here's criminal traffic, and then finally we find the record
Speaker 1: we've been looking for. Do you why uh okay? In
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nine. That was a long time ago, so
Speaker 1: there's really no other criminal past except to that's all
Speaker 1: I'm seeing. Boy, that's sad that that was enough to
Speaker 1: kind of make them drop the whole thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, please leave your message for five.
Speaker 1: Khalila digs up some possible phone numbers for Stephen online,
Speaker 1: and in the weeks to come, I leave numerous voicemails.
Speaker 1: Hi there, I'm looking for a Stephen. I call so
Speaker 1: many numbers. I hear automated messages entirely new to me.
Speaker 4: The number is in service?
Speaker 1: Is in service?
Speaker 4: By your call again.
Speaker 1: None of these phone numbers lead me to Stephen. They
Speaker 1: just lead me to different robotic voices.
Speaker 3: You're calling out, all right?
Speaker 7: That's it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: With the telephone having crapped on our heads, we decide
Speaker 1: that what we need is an even older form of communication,
Speaker 1: the US Postal Service. Khalila uncovers three possible mailing addresses
Speaker 1: for Steven. So we write three letters and drop them
Speaker 1: in the mailbox, letting them fly off into the world
Speaker 1: like three hopeful birds. And then time as is its
Speaker 1: wont passes two years go by two years. It's unlikely
Speaker 1: the average podcast listener's brain, raised on podcasts about celebs,
Speaker 1: elk Steak and the science of why people go to
Speaker 1: the bathroom, can easily conceptualize the passage of so much time.
Speaker 1: If this was a video podcast, I'd stare into the
Speaker 1: camera with my patented deadpan affect as my beard and
Speaker 1: fingernails grew in time lapse. But since it isn't a
Speaker 1: video podcast, I present you an audiophonic aid that was
Speaker 1: only ten seconds. Now imagine two years, two years of
Speaker 1: refreshing my inbox and calling my answering service to no avail,
Speaker 1: and then Debbie and I check back in Where are
Speaker 1: you right now? It appears that you have a ladder
Speaker 1: behind you.
Speaker 4: Yes, I'm at home.
Speaker 1: And where does this ladder lead to?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 1: Nowhere, it's ladder to.
Speaker 4: We're going nowhere with this ladder.
Speaker 1: I hope we're going somewhere with this story. I hope
Speaker 1: we're not on a ladder to nowhere. It seems Debbie
Speaker 1: hasn't given up on Stefano. She tells me Lindsay found
Speaker 1: some of the same phone numbers we did, So Debbie
Speaker 1: two tried calling and leaving messages. No one ever called back,
Speaker 1: though still Debbie wants to keep trying, and so more
Speaker 1: letters are sent, more voicemails left, and two more months
Speaker 1: go by. I've completely given up hope. And then one
Speaker 1: afternoon I finally hear from Stephen. You did, I did?
Speaker 1: You did?
Speaker 6: I did?
Speaker 4: Wow?
Speaker 1: Yeah, sucked. I wasn't holding out a lot of hope
Speaker 1: me either. I tell Debbie about the phone call. How
Speaker 1: Stephen told me he dismissed my letters as a scam.
Speaker 1: I asked if he'd be open to a conversation with Debbie,
Speaker 1: but he said he doesn't have transportation, and when I
Speaker 1: said we could do a video call, he said he
Speaker 1: hasn't a cell phone nor a computer, and he quote
Speaker 1: doesn't follow the Internet. But eventually he said he'd be
Speaker 1: okay with a telephone call.
Speaker 6: I would love her.
Speaker 4: I think it's a gift that he doesn't realize.
Speaker 1: You know, So he is available one o'clock green Mountain time,
Speaker 1: So that would be like, oh, sorry, mountain time, Mountain time,
Speaker 1: not green Mountain After the break, Stephano at long last,
Speaker 1: his green Mountain time A thing sounds like a coffee thing.
Speaker 1: That would be three o'clock in St Cafe, So one
Speaker 1: o'clock Green Mountain. The next day, at one pm, Green
Speaker 1: Mountain time, Debbie and I convene. Okay, I'll give him
Speaker 1: a call, I'll phone him all and I'll introduce you guys.
Speaker 3: Okay, okay, Hello.
Speaker 1: Hello, Stephen. Y Hi, it's Jonathan phoning. I'm here with Debbie.
Speaker 3: Oh you are Hi, Stephen?
Speaker 4: How are you?
Speaker 8: I'm fine? How are you?
Speaker 4: I'm good. I'm really good, and I'm really excited to
Speaker 4: hear your voice and to know that you're here right now. So, Stephen.
Speaker 4: My mom her name was Anita.
Speaker 1: And Debbie lays it all out for Steven, the plane ride,
Speaker 1: the love Anita felt for him, and how that love
Speaker 1: endured for Anita's entire life.
Speaker 4: You were always on her mind for many, many years
Speaker 4: and told many people about you.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 3: God bless your mom.
Speaker 8: I wish she had adopted me.
Speaker 4: I think she would have liked that too.
Speaker 1: Anita always wanted to know whether, after being taken from
Speaker 1: her arms, Stephano's life had been a good one. So
Speaker 1: we started at the beginning with Steven's adoption.
Speaker 9: My foster parents told me.
Speaker 8: Roughly at the age of eight.
Speaker 1: You call them your foster parents. Did they adopt you?
Speaker 8: Yes?
Speaker 1: Were they good people?
Speaker 8: I mean there was three squares a day.
Speaker 9: I mean there was no abuse or anything like that.
Speaker 8: I don't mind. Uh lickens is what my dad called it.
Speaker 1: Did you say, Lincoln?
Speaker 8: Yeah? About It wasn't abuse.
Speaker 9: It was just for disappoint purposes?
Speaker 8: Was that?
Speaker 1: Was that? Roth?
Speaker 8: Well for a little kid, it is?
Speaker 1: Did did you? But did you feel loved?
Speaker 8: Yes? I did?
Speaker 9: Oh I remember from childhood. Out of the friends and
Speaker 9: they turned out to be drug addicts. I turned out nominal.
Speaker 1: What do you mean when you say nominal?
Speaker 9: Well, I have a serious alcohol problem. Okay, I know
Speaker 9: I sound like I've been drinking, but I haven't. I
Speaker 9: don't have anything here. I was pretty much known as
Speaker 9: a boozer.
Speaker 1: Back in the day. Stephen says the drinking got bad,
Speaker 1: which led to the duy.
Speaker 9: You don't think when you drink, you get behind the
Speaker 9: wheel of a vehicle drunk is preposterous.
Speaker 3: Did your father?
Speaker 4: Did your adoptive father do something similar?
Speaker 8: He drank, but not in excess.
Speaker 9: I never saw him on a drunken stupor well, nobody's
Speaker 9: ever seen me.
Speaker 8: I won't watch them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you drink Alone.
Speaker 9: Yes, that song by that one guy, George sirgood, I
Speaker 9: Drink Alone reminds me of me.
Speaker 1: As the conversation goes on, Debbie grows increasingly quiet. So
Speaker 1: I do my best to draw Steven out. Did you
Speaker 1: did you get married?
Speaker 8: No, I've never been married. I've had relationships that they
Speaker 8: come and go.
Speaker 1: Would you say that you that you've been in love?
Speaker 8: I've been infatuated, proved that.
Speaker 9: And I lived with a lady for many years, but
Speaker 9: that was back in the eighties.
Speaker 1: What can you say about her, Joanne?
Speaker 8: Hmm uh, she died in a long camp. Sure, and
Speaker 8: I lived with her for like nine years.
Speaker 1: Oh boy, did she pass away while you were living together?
Speaker 8: Yeah?
Speaker 1: That must have been hard.
Speaker 8: Yeah was, But I moved on.
Speaker 1: Stephen tells us that he was in the Navy for
Speaker 1: four years, that he missed Vietnam by just a month.
Speaker 1: Most of his professional life was spent working in factories.
Speaker 1: I asked him about his brothers why they no longer speak,
Speaker 1: but he says nothing in particular happened. They just drifted. Overall,
Speaker 1: he says his life has been nominal and fortunate. When
Speaker 1: I ask how so, he cites the fact that he's
Speaker 1: never been homeless, although there was a brief period in
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen when he ended up in a veteran shelter.
Speaker 1: It was fine, says, except for the fact that he
Speaker 1: couldn't control the heat or the air conditioning, and shortly
Speaker 1: after that he moved into a room in his friend
Speaker 1: Carl's house, which is where he is now.
Speaker 4: I took a video of her telling the story. I
Speaker 4: don't know if you're interested in hearing it.
Speaker 1: DeBie wants Stephen to hear what he meant to Anita
Speaker 1: in Anita's own words. In response, Stephen says that he
Speaker 1: doesn't have access to a car right now, plus he's
Speaker 1: sick in bed. I assume he thinks we're asking him
Speaker 1: to go somewhere, So I try again to explain, we
Speaker 1: could try to play a little bit of the video
Speaker 1: over the phone so that you can hear Anita's voice.
Speaker 9: Not right now.
Speaker 1: I'm good, it's no misunderstanding. Stephen doesn't want to hear
Speaker 1: Anita Bill. Debbie tries to explain her mom's feelings for
Speaker 1: the baby she held during that flight to America.
Speaker 4: I think in some ways she felt like sympathical with you,
Speaker 4: you know, like sympathetic with you that you were both
Speaker 4: leaving your homeland.
Speaker 8: Hm hmm.
Speaker 1: I mean, is it strange to think that as a
Speaker 1: baby you were able to have such a strong effect
Speaker 1: on somebody.
Speaker 9: Well, I don't think of it.
Speaker 1: As that, but well, how do you think of it?
Speaker 8: That could be anything like I love this little toddler,
Speaker 8: you know, I love Peta. It could be.
Speaker 9: Anything.
Speaker 1: The conversation feels like an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object.
Speaker 1: If it's a battle between optimism and pessimism, it feels
Speaker 1: like pessimism is winning.
Speaker 8: It was surprising to get the letter, and I thought worries.
Speaker 4: People doing Yeah, I just felt like it was a gift.
Speaker 8: Okay, thank you.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I'm a little old now to be concerned.
Speaker 1: Did you feel like it's too late?
Speaker 8: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I do.
Speaker 3: That.
Speaker 1: Baby Stephano doesn't exist anymore. When he was taken out
Speaker 1: of Anita's arms, he became Stephen, and Stephen is a
Speaker 1: sixty eight year old man dealing with ill health. Feeling
Speaker 1: of a stranger who encountered him for one day as
Speaker 1: a toddler seemed largely irrelevant. Debbie wanted to give Stefano
Speaker 1: a gift, but Stephen doesn't want that gift.
Speaker 9: I'm going to have to discharge now, so I'm going
Speaker 9: to leave you folks.
Speaker 1: Me Before he goes, though, Stephen asks if we could
Speaker 1: mail him a copy of the photograph of Anita and
Speaker 1: him on the plane.
Speaker 8: Mail that to me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, please, okay, thank you, Okay.
Speaker 6: Thank you.
Speaker 4: It was so nice talking to you. I really appreciate
Speaker 4: you taking the time. I wish you the best. I
Speaker 4: wish you well.
Speaker 8: Yay, thank you.
Speaker 1: After we hang up, Debbie and I sit in silence
Speaker 1: for a moment. Yeah, hmm.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's hard to know what to make of any of it.
Speaker 1: On the one hand, Stephen's reaction is reasonable. It is
Speaker 1: strange to be called up by the daughter of a
Speaker 1: woman you spent one day with when you were a
Speaker 1: two year old. In some ways, the story of Anita
Speaker 1: and Stephano was an easier one to tell when it
Speaker 1: was incomplete. A woman immigrates with a baby and thinks
Speaker 1: about him for the rest of her life, and then
Speaker 1: what the baby becomes a man and doesn't care. The
Speaker 1: man who was once the baby faces hardship. Nice anecdotes
Speaker 1: become harder to sum up when you involve the lives
Speaker 1: of real people.
Speaker 10: He took it differently than I thought, definitely took it
Speaker 10: differently than I thought it Just I think the part
Speaker 10: that makes me cry a little bit is that he
Speaker 10: didn't want to hear my mom. Yeah, but you can't
Speaker 10: make people, you know, see things the way you see them.
Speaker 1: You can never assume a gift, you know. Debbie is disappointed, though,
Speaker 1: not just because of what she wanted and didn't get,
Speaker 1: but because of what she did get. Well, our picture
Speaker 1: of Stephen's life is fragmented. Did the details he shared
Speaker 1: contained a lot of sorrow.
Speaker 4: And I don't know how my mom. I think maybe
Speaker 4: how would it have been for her if she would
Speaker 4: have actually met him or talked to him?
Speaker 3: You know, maybe it's better that I did.
Speaker 1: How do you how do you think she would have
Speaker 1: dealt with it? Like, what do you think she would
Speaker 1: have said to him?
Speaker 4: Oh, she would have told him she loved him. She
Speaker 4: probably would have invited him over. Really, she would have
Speaker 4: figured out a way to feed him. My mom loved deeply. Yeah,
Speaker 4: she really loved people deeply. The love that was more
Speaker 4: than pizza. He can't. I don't think he could even
Speaker 4: comprehend it. I think most people couldn't comprehend that.
Speaker 1: In that video of Anita, the one that Stephen didn't
Speaker 1: want to hear, there's a moment where Anita wonders if
Speaker 1: she's being understood.
Speaker 6: That's a nice story, and I don't know if you
Speaker 6: understand it. I think so.
Speaker 1: When I fir saw it, I assumed she was referring
Speaker 1: to her accent or less than perfect English. But now
Speaker 1: I wonder if there was something more behind it. We
Speaker 1: live our lives in the desperate hope that if we
Speaker 1: find the right words, tell the story the right way,
Speaker 1: our love will be understood. We will be understood. We hope,
Speaker 1: even as we misconstrue and grow offended and talk past
Speaker 1: each other, we hope love, some iota of it will
Speaker 1: get through, even though time and time again were disappointed.
Speaker 1: The next time I speak with Debbie, she tells me
Speaker 1: how the night after her call with Stephen, she woke
Speaker 1: up at three am from a bad dream. She got
Speaker 1: out of bed and went downstairs, who was pouring outside,
Speaker 1: And Debbie thought about Stephano, the boy her mother held
Speaker 1: on the airplane back in nineteen fifty nine, And she
Speaker 1: thought about the man she spoke to on the phone
Speaker 1: sixty five years later, and she thought about her mom,
Speaker 1: and she grieved, crying for about an hour. Maybe this
Speaker 1: will plant a seed for Stephen, Debbie tells me, After all,
Speaker 1: he did seem to really want that photograph. Maybe someday
Speaker 1: he'll look back at the things she was trying to
Speaker 1: tell him and he'll finally feel that love from her mother.
Speaker 1: It seems like an unlikely hope, but in this way,
Speaker 1: Debbie is like her mom.
Speaker 11: Now that the Fernitures returning to its goodwill home, now
Speaker 11: that the last month's rent is scheming with the damage
Speaker 11: to pose, take this moment to deserve.
Speaker 1: If we meant it, if we turn we remember, felt
Speaker 1: around for funds from things that accidentally. This episode of
Speaker 1: Heavyweight was produced by Khalila Holt and me Jonathan Goldstein,
Speaker 1: along with Phoebe Flanagan. Our supervising producer is Stevie Lane.
Speaker 1: Editorial guidance from Emily Condon. Special thanks to Ben Natta, Haaffrey,
Speaker 1: Lucy Sullivan, and Trina Menino. Emma Monger mixed the episode
Speaker 1: with original music by Christine Fellows, John K. Samson, and
Speaker 1: Bobby Lord. Additional scoring by Blue Dot Sessions, Saigon Would
Speaker 1: Be Soul and Katie Mullins. Our theme song is by
Speaker 1: the Weaker Than's courtesy of Epitaph Records. Follow us on
Speaker 1: Instagram at Heavyweight Podcast, or email us at Heavyweight at
Speaker 1: pushkin dot Fm. Tune in next week for a special
Speaker 1: Pushkin Anthology show about mistakes with the hosts of Risky Business,
Speaker 1: Cautionary Tales and Heavyweight. Hey that's Me