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Speaker 1: Family Secrets is a production of I Heart Radio. I'm

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Speaker 1: Danny Shapiro, and this is family Secrets, the secrets that

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Speaker 1: are kept from us, the secrets we keep from others,

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Speaker 1: and the secrets we keep from ourselves. It starts to

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Speaker 1: come together for my mother that he is literally forgetting

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Speaker 1: to lie, and my father sort of realizes that his

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Speaker 1: brain has betrayed him and he's admitted to this thing,

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Speaker 1: and he says, oh, oh, I did a bad thing.

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Speaker 1: My guest today is Sasha Rothschild. Sasha is a television

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Speaker 1: writer based in Los Angeles who made the recent discovery

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Speaker 1: that her father was not exactly the person she had

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Speaker 1: always thought him to be. This is a story of

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Speaker 1: a secret buried deep in a man's psyche. I grew

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Speaker 1: up in Miami Beach in the eighties, and at that

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Speaker 1: time it was sort of this forgotten place of old

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Speaker 1: age homes and crack houses and sort of a lawless town.

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Speaker 1: And my parents are incredibly I think of them as

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Speaker 1: submarine parents. They were always there, but opposite to like

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Speaker 1: a helicopter parent. They were never hovering. They were just

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Speaker 1: deep below the surface of my life and if I

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Speaker 1: needed something, I could go to them. But they weren't overbearing, UM,

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Speaker 1: and I kind of discovered my self and my childhood

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Speaker 1: and Miami on my own terms. Um. My mother was

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Speaker 1: this total free spirit who had lived a life of

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Speaker 1: a chameleon. She was a socialite in New York and

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Speaker 1: then she became a hippie, and then she met my father, UM,

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Speaker 1: who presented as this very upstanding journalists UM, and he

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Speaker 1: seemed like the normal one in the family. And so

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Speaker 1: growing up, my mother was sort of do whatever you

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Speaker 1: want as long as you're interesting, and then tell us

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Speaker 1: great stories at dinner. And my father didn't approve, but

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Speaker 1: he never gave boundaries or rules. So I grew up

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Speaker 1: running around Miami Beach, getting into trouble and doing drugs

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Speaker 1: and sleeping with older boys and sort of felt like

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Speaker 1: my parents were really interesting landlords, really interesting landlords. So

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Speaker 1: like if there was a problem with the sink or

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Speaker 1: the dishwashers, say, they would get somebody to come fix it.

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Speaker 1: But there wasn't huge parmental oversight that said. Sasha describes

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Speaker 1: her mom as one of her favorite people. She is

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Speaker 1: so smart and fascinating and nothing shocks her because it's

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Speaker 1: like she's done it all already, and so no matter

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Speaker 1: what I did growing up, I couldn't quite top her experiences,

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Speaker 1: and whatever I did, my father sort of was removed

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Speaker 1: from it. So when I started doing drugs, for example,

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Speaker 1: my mother said, you know, if you're going to do drugs,

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Speaker 1: just make sure you can trust your dealer, and just

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Speaker 1: make sure you never shoot up heroin. If you have to,

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Speaker 1: you know, smoke it because it's safer. That was sort

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Speaker 1: of her maternal advice, that that that definitely takes the

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Speaker 1: all the fun out of rebellion. Yes it did. It's so.

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Speaker 1: And my father's response was to put a lawyer on

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Speaker 1: retainer um in case legal matters came up. But his

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Speaker 1: response was never to like hug me or say are

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Speaker 1: you okay? Or you know, can I help or is

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Speaker 1: there anything I should be doing? So I felt alone

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Speaker 1: really as a child, and I have an older brother

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Speaker 1: and sister who were out of the house already for

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Speaker 1: a lot of my teen years, and um, I just

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Speaker 1: had this really strong sense of self preservation. So when

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Speaker 1: I started to really act out, I kind of pulled

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Speaker 1: myself back from the brink, and my parents were very like,

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Speaker 1: you know, see, you're an individual and you can take

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Speaker 1: care of yourself. And we raised you right. But one

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Speaker 1: thing that Sasha was always really clear about growing up

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Speaker 1: was how much her parents loved each other. It seemed

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Speaker 1: like a magical marriage. They were open with each other,

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Speaker 1: they laughed, they had intellectual debates, they traveled the world,

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Speaker 1: they had friends and adventures. This was one of those

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Speaker 1: marriages that wasn't primarily about the kids. It was about

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Speaker 1: two people in love. The kids kind of were an afterthought.

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Speaker 1: And as upsetting as that is, in a lot of ways,

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Speaker 1: I felt good about the fact that they were so

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Speaker 1: in love. And because I loved my mother so much,

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Speaker 1: um I hated my father less because he loved her.

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Speaker 1: And I never felt close to my father. I felt

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Speaker 1: like he was kind of an asshole. He had a temper,

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Speaker 1: not physically violent, but just sort of would fly into

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Speaker 1: a rage, you know, because there was bad traffic, or

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Speaker 1: you know, because I have all so many memories of

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Speaker 1: there's too many catchup bottles from Costco and why do

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Speaker 1: we need so much catchup? And he would just start

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Speaker 1: yelling about the catchup. Sort of all of his anger

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Speaker 1: was put into meaningless things. And I thought he was

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Speaker 1: a jerk, and I didn't feel close to him. And

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Speaker 1: because I didn't feel close to him. I wanted so

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Speaker 1: much for him to love me and to be proud

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Speaker 1: of me. So I followed in his footsteps, and I

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Speaker 1: desperately wanted to go to Yale, which is where he

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Speaker 1: went to college, and I ended up not getting in,

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Speaker 1: and it was the biggest tragedy of my life. At

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Speaker 1: that point, I learned that you can try and do

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Speaker 1: everything you can and still fail. And he's a writer,

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Speaker 1: and I grew up watching him sit in his office

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Speaker 1: off the garage writing and then all of a sudden

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Speaker 1: a book or an article would appear, and I thought

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Speaker 1: it was the most romantic like life and just uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, it's sitting there all day, seems not fun

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Speaker 1: at all, but like then this thing is in the world.

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Speaker 1: And I was mesmerized by that. And he really taught

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Speaker 1: me how to write. And so it's very complicated for

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Speaker 1: me because I never liked him, but I desperately wanted

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Speaker 1: to be just like him. When you say that he

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Speaker 1: taught you how to write, what do you mean by that,

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Speaker 1: aside from sort of by emulation. I remember, in like

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Speaker 1: seventh grade, we had to write a short story and

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Speaker 1: I wrote about um surfing, and I Umm, basically allergic

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Speaker 1: to the sun. I'm very pale. Growing up in Miami

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Speaker 1: was you know, I always wear hats and long sleeve

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Speaker 1: shirts and absolutely have never surfed a day in my life.

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Speaker 1: But surfing was cool and it was the cute boys

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Speaker 1: were surfers. So I wrote the story about surfing, and um,

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Speaker 1: he's He read it and he said, you know, this

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Speaker 1: is a false story. This isn't you. You don't know

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Speaker 1: about surfing. It doesn't come off as anything real and compelling,

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Speaker 1: and I think you should rewrite it. And I was

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Speaker 1: really angry because I knew that I would get in

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Speaker 1: a It was fine, the teacher would like it, who cares.

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Speaker 1: But I couldn't let that go. And so I thought about,

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Speaker 1: all right, what's a real story that I can tell?

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Speaker 1: And I ended up writing a story about a turtle

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Speaker 1: who really wanted to be a superhero and no one

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Speaker 1: would take him seriously because he was so slow. And

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Speaker 1: that story my father loved. He's like, there's meaning in

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Speaker 1: this and there's something personal, and he was right and

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Speaker 1: that in that way, he taught me how to be

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Speaker 1: a good writer, to not ever sort of take the

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Speaker 1: easy way out, and to really investigate why I'm writing something,

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Speaker 1: and I remember when I was in AP English in

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Speaker 1: high school and you're taught the very structured, you know,

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Speaker 1: five paragraph essays. My father really sat down with me

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Speaker 1: and told me, yes, it's important that you have a

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Speaker 1: statement saying what the article will be about, and you

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Speaker 1: back that up. But you don't want to feed your

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Speaker 1: reader everything up front. You want to sort of slowly

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Speaker 1: build tension and then have a twist or reveal or

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Speaker 1: an emotional something emotionally powerful. And those are the kind

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Speaker 1: of things that you don't necessarily learn in school when

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Speaker 1: you learn to write. Um, but I was sort of

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Speaker 1: taught every single day because he read what I wrote,

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Speaker 1: and my mother always encouraged me to write everything down.

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Speaker 1: And I think that was the one way that I

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Speaker 1: was able to really bond with him, because there were

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Speaker 1: no other ways that he and I had a real

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Speaker 1: conversation about anything. Let's take a quick break here. So

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Speaker 1: Sasha and her dad have this one shared language, the

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Speaker 1: language of writing. This was the way they communicated. Sasha

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Speaker 1: goes off to college determined to become a writer. She

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Speaker 1: goes to Boston College, where she majors in theater and

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Speaker 1: playwriting and graduates Phi Beta Kappa. At graduation, she's awarded

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Speaker 1: the highest honor in the theater program. Only one person

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Speaker 1: in each major gets an award. So there is this beautiful,

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Speaker 1: very small ceremony for like thirty five students, and I decided,

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Speaker 1: instead of going to graduation, my family should come and

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Speaker 1: watch that ceremony because it's really personal and I'm really

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Speaker 1: proud and I've accomplished all this stuff. And my name

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Speaker 1: is called, and I walk up on the stage and

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Speaker 1: I just so want my father to be proud. And

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Speaker 1: I look out and my entire family is sitting in

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Speaker 1: a row doing the New York Times crossword puzzle, looking

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Speaker 1: down with their little pens in their papers, and they

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Speaker 1: each have their own paper. I just feel like, nothing,

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Speaker 1: nothing I do, is going to get the attention that

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Speaker 1: i'd like desperately want. And that sort of feeling stayed

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Speaker 1: with me. I moved right to l A to start

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Speaker 1: my writing career, and I stopped sending my father things

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Speaker 1: that I had written, also because he was not someone

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Speaker 1: who understood scripts. He was definitely understood like sort of

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Speaker 1: you know, long form writing, but he didn't he wasn't

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Speaker 1: good at reading scripts or movie scripts or TV scripts,

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Speaker 1: which is what I was focusing on. And when I

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Speaker 1: started to become an adult, UM, I still talked to

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Speaker 1: my mother on the phone like every day because I

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Speaker 1: have so much fun talking to her. We gossip. She

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Speaker 1: knows everything about my life. My father and I. You know,

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Speaker 1: he'll sort of yell in the background, like how she

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Speaker 1: doing or put her on, and I'll talk to him,

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Speaker 1: but it's like small talk. It's it's just meaningless. And

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Speaker 1: I think for most of my adult life I felt

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Speaker 1: very disconnected from him, and yet still knowing that I'm

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Speaker 1: trying to make a living doing this thing that he

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Speaker 1: inspired me to do to a great extent. So when

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Speaker 1: she's writing her first book, Sasha calls her father for

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Speaker 1: advice and he offers it. He tells her, the minute

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Speaker 1: you don't want to write a thing, you have to

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Speaker 1: write it because that's where the good stuff is so true.

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Speaker 1: She takes his advice and writes a memoir about her

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Speaker 1: first marriage that's real and raw and scary. During that

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Speaker 1: year of her books publication, the two of them grow closer.

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Speaker 1: I felt really connected with him, and then it again

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Speaker 1: sort of slipped away. And then it wasn't until several

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Speaker 1: years later that we started to notice that his memory

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Speaker 1: was going and he was no longer writing. He said

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Speaker 1: he was retired, but we had realized he had been

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Speaker 1: trying to write a new article about something he was

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Speaker 1: interested in and couldn't quite get it done, which is

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Speaker 1: something that had never happened him before. What were the

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Speaker 1: signs of his memory going. One of the first things

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Speaker 1: I remember being very concerned about him is he didn't

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Speaker 1: know which side the espresso pod went into the machine.

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Speaker 1: And he had been using this machine, you know, every

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Speaker 1: day for years, and all of a sudden, this pod

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Speaker 1: in his hand seemed foreign to him. Um, that was

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Speaker 1: the first time I thought, oh my god, there's something

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Speaker 1: wrong with his brain. And then actually another thing happened

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Speaker 1: with the espresso machine, which it was broken. The thing

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Speaker 1: about me being out of town and my brother and

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Speaker 1: sister were all out of town. We would come visit

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Speaker 1: every few months and see my parents, and because we

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Speaker 1: had three or four months in between every visits, we

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Speaker 1: could really see him declining, whereas my mother, who was

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Speaker 1: with him every day, didn't see it as clearly. And

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Speaker 1: also there's a great deal of denial when your spouse

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Speaker 1: has Alzheimers. It's a horrible slow thing, and and she

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Speaker 1: really didn't see it for a long time. Another thing

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Speaker 1: happened where he started to confuse my husband with my

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Speaker 1: sister's partner. Um just sort of not quite sure who

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Speaker 1: was with who. And that's you know, was completely not

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Speaker 1: like him as distant did as he was in our lives.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes he absolutely, like you know, knew who are husbands were.

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Speaker 1: How old was he at this point? And how old

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Speaker 1: is your mom? He was sixty nine when we really

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Speaker 1: started to notice things happened, and my mother is seven

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Speaker 1: years older than him, so she was seventy six. We're

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Speaker 1: going to take a quick break when we get back.

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Speaker 1: Sasha talks about how her father's failing memory at first

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Speaker 1: changes him into a nicer, kinder guy, and then inadvertently

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Speaker 1: opens the door to a lifetime's worth of massive secrets.

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Speaker 1: Something that started happening for me was my father while

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Speaker 1: his memory started to go, he became a really different person.

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Speaker 1: He was so patient and calm, and if there was traffic,

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Speaker 1: he said, that's okay, you know, we'll get there. When

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Speaker 1: we get there, his entire demeanor changed and he really

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Speaker 1: became like this loving, kind person. And I felt like

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Speaker 1: I have a few years now with him where I

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Speaker 1: can change our dynamic and call him and talk to

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Speaker 1: him and visit. I tried to visit every month. Um.

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Speaker 1: And at one point he said he was proud of me,

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Speaker 1: and it was the first time he had said that

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Speaker 1: in my entire life. And he was also physical for

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Speaker 1: the first time in my life. My family are not

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Speaker 1: a physical family. We barely hug each other like I

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Speaker 1: don't think we maybe kissed each other on the cheek

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Speaker 1: three times in my entire life. And all of a sudden,

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Speaker 1: my father was like hugging me and sort of putting

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Speaker 1: his hand on my shoulder, and um, and I struggled

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Speaker 1: with is this the real him? And all these years

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Speaker 1: he was just an asshole because of stress and career

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Speaker 1: in life and who knows or is it not the

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Speaker 1: real him? And it's just you know, brain damage. But

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Speaker 1: in a way I didn't care because I was getting this,

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Speaker 1: like this nurturing in these nice moments with him. And

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Speaker 1: when I would go to visit, I would make sure

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Speaker 1: that we always had his favorite playlists from the nineteen

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Speaker 1: fifties playing on Spotify, and I would want to make

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Speaker 1: sure to do things that he would enjoy, and I

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Speaker 1: would get annoyed that my mother seemed a little bit callous,

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Speaker 1: and she wanted to listen to NPR, but I could

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Speaker 1: see that it was confusing to him and jarring, and

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Speaker 1: he didn't it wasn't good for him, and I wanted

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Speaker 1: my mother to be more patient. So Sasha lets her

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Speaker 1: guard down. She enjoys her father and feels loved and

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Speaker 1: nurtured by him, admired by him, possibly for the first

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Speaker 1: time in her life. No matter how successful she is

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Speaker 1: as a television writer, she has longed for this kind

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Speaker 1: of connection with her dad. But then she gets a

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Speaker 1: call from her mother. Something huge has happened. So my

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Speaker 1: father and mother are walking. And one thing about my father,

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Speaker 1: um is he was always very jealous. He was very

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Speaker 1: conservative in certain ways. He didn't want to talk about sex,

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Speaker 1: he didn't want to know about sex. He thought pornography

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Speaker 1: was disgusting. Really sort of antiquated possessive behavior from my father.

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Speaker 1: So they were taking a walk in this little old

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Speaker 1: man on the side of the road says hi to

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Speaker 1: my mother, he's probably you know, ninety, and my mother

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Speaker 1: says hi back, and my mother sort of says, I think,

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Speaker 1: you know, I think Bob might have a little crush

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Speaker 1: on me, and all of a sudden, my father says, really, well,

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Speaker 1: then I'm going to get back together with Karen. Karen

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Speaker 1: was an friend of my mother's um, a friend of

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Speaker 1: the families for a long time, someone my father spent

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Speaker 1: a lot of time with. And my other whipped around

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Speaker 1: and said, what do you mean you're going to get

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Speaker 1: back together with Karen. You were with Karen? And my

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Speaker 1: father says, yes, I was with Karen for years. We were,

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Speaker 1: you know, madly in love or something like that, and

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Speaker 1: then it was gone. Whether it was gone because his brain,

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Speaker 1: you know, it falls through like Swiss cheese, which is

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Speaker 1: what happens when you have Alzheimer's, or he just pretended

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Speaker 1: in the moment because he didn't want to talk about it.

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Speaker 1: But my mother realized he had had an affair with

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Speaker 1: her friend. Your mother knew that this was I mean,

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Speaker 1: she knew in her bones that this was true, That

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Speaker 1: it wasn't yes, a fantasy that you know, some Alzheimer's

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Speaker 1: fueled fantasy that that actually Alzheimer's was opening the door

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Speaker 1: to a piece of truth. Yes, she knew it was true.

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Speaker 1: And we had always sort of joked to like, oh,

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Speaker 1: you know, my father's in Karen, what are they up to? Like?

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Speaker 1: But it was so my parents were so open about

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Speaker 1: their past that I didn't realize they had private lives

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Speaker 1: because they were so open about everything that I was

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Speaker 1: so shocked to find out that my father had this

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Speaker 1: private life, even from my mother. But once he said

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00:19:15,640 --> 00:19:18,440
Speaker 1: it out loud, it completely made sense to all of us.

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Speaker 1: Shortly after Sasha's father's bombshell about Karen, she's with her

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Speaker 1: mother and sister in Aspen at their parents summer home,

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Speaker 1: and there there is Sasha's father's laptop just sitting there,

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Speaker 1: begging to be accessed. He hasn't been able to use

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Speaker 1: it for a few years because he no longer understands computers.

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00:19:39,480 --> 00:19:42,720
Speaker 1: Sasha's sister goes into his laptop and searches for the

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Speaker 1: name Karen. What ended coming up was sort of a

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Speaker 1: lifetime of lies. He had kept a journal, and I

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00:19:52,760 --> 00:19:57,680
Speaker 1: definitely have mixed feelings because it's an invasion of privacy

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Speaker 1: that we read this, or I read part of it

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Speaker 1: and then decided I don't need to read anymore. He

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00:20:03,000 --> 00:20:06,440
Speaker 1: wrote in great detail about all of his sexual exploits,

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Speaker 1: and it was almost like a teenage boy was writing it.

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Speaker 1: It was really in his he's he's a wonderful writer, um.

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Speaker 1: But this this was almost like a different side of him,

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Speaker 1: of sort of a teenage boy bragging, um. And he

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00:20:23,880 --> 00:20:26,720
Speaker 1: went way back into his past, and it was sort

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00:20:26,720 --> 00:20:30,679
Speaker 1: of writing about all of his times he lied to

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Speaker 1: my mother and cheated on her and the friends of

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Speaker 1: hers that he had hit on, and that he had

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00:20:37,480 --> 00:20:39,840
Speaker 1: cheated on his first wife as well, and he had

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00:20:39,840 --> 00:20:43,600
Speaker 1: made up some business trips. He was a mountain climber,

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00:20:43,800 --> 00:20:47,720
Speaker 1: that was one of his hobbies, and he would talk

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Speaker 1: about mountain climbing so often that my mother used to joke,

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Speaker 1: I almost wish he was having an affair because then

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Speaker 1: I wouldn't have to hear about it. And he even

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00:20:57,320 --> 00:21:00,880
Speaker 1: referenced that joke while saying, ha ha, I am having

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Speaker 1: an affair right under her nose with her friend. And

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Speaker 1: there was a moment in his journal that he wrote

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Speaker 1: about having sex in my bed with this woman and

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Speaker 1: not changing the sheets. And that was when I decided

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Speaker 1: I didn't need to read anymore of his journal, because

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Speaker 1: I knew that I didn't know who he was ever,

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00:21:29,480 --> 00:21:32,680
Speaker 1: and um, that was enough information for me to know

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Speaker 1: that I needed to just now work on reframing my

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00:21:38,200 --> 00:21:42,200
Speaker 1: own childhood and looking back and figuring some things out

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00:21:42,200 --> 00:21:47,159
Speaker 1: for myself, but that this was a man who was

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00:21:47,280 --> 00:21:52,400
Speaker 1: beyond for me anything that I could even try and comprehend. Yeah,

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00:21:52,440 --> 00:21:57,080
Speaker 1: it's as if you it's almost like there's three acts

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Speaker 1: here in your relationship with your father, and it's the

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00:22:01,080 --> 00:22:06,840
Speaker 1: emulating him, wanting his approval, his his distance, and then

345
00:22:07,760 --> 00:22:12,760
Speaker 1: having this brief period of time of his becoming this

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00:22:12,800 --> 00:22:17,680
Speaker 1: other person, this loving, kind, thoughtful person who would hug

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Speaker 1: you and say I love you, and then losing that

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Speaker 1: person to what had been the truth all along. It's

349
00:22:25,320 --> 00:22:28,080
Speaker 1: like all of these layers, how do you? How do

350
00:22:28,119 --> 00:22:33,399
Speaker 1: you untangle that? One one of my first thoughts was, I, like,

351
00:22:33,560 --> 00:22:36,720
Speaker 1: I want my three years of compassion back. I was

352
00:22:36,840 --> 00:22:39,960
Speaker 1: loving and and kind to him, and yelled at my

353
00:22:40,000 --> 00:22:42,560
Speaker 1: mother for not, you know, turning off the NPR and

354
00:22:42,880 --> 00:22:47,159
Speaker 1: I should have. You know, I wanted my I wanted

355
00:22:47,200 --> 00:22:50,880
Speaker 1: my compassion back. And then I you know, worked through

356
00:22:50,880 --> 00:22:54,280
Speaker 1: that and realized it's always healthy and wonderful to be compassionate.

357
00:22:54,320 --> 00:22:56,720
Speaker 1: It's never going to hurt you to be compassionate, and

358
00:22:57,080 --> 00:23:01,600
Speaker 1: wanting that back isn't the way to go. Um. But

359
00:23:01,760 --> 00:23:06,440
Speaker 1: then I thought my instincts growing up were actually correct,

360
00:23:07,080 --> 00:23:12,399
Speaker 1: that he was unreachable, that he was guarded, and I

361
00:23:12,440 --> 00:23:19,320
Speaker 1: didn't really ever know him. A discovery and adulthood that

362
00:23:19,400 --> 00:23:21,960
Speaker 1: forces us to reckon with our childhood memories and re

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00:23:22,160 --> 00:23:25,240
Speaker 1: understand them is often one of the legacies of a

364
00:23:25,280 --> 00:23:30,000
Speaker 1: family secret. In Sasha's case, she looks back and certain

365
00:23:30,040 --> 00:23:35,320
Speaker 1: memories now means something altogether different. She recalled the time

366
00:23:35,359 --> 00:23:37,600
Speaker 1: in her childhood when she was seven or eight and

367
00:23:37,680 --> 00:23:40,240
Speaker 1: she was alone with her father. He woke her up

368
00:23:40,320 --> 00:23:42,040
Speaker 1: late at night to say that he had to leave.

369
00:23:42,400 --> 00:23:46,160
Speaker 1: He had food poisoning brought on from bad cevich, as

370
00:23:46,200 --> 00:23:49,840
Speaker 1: he put it, and was going to the hospital. And

371
00:23:49,880 --> 00:23:53,720
Speaker 1: I remember this so clearly because cevich was a word

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Speaker 1: that I had just learned, and it sounded really fancy

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Speaker 1: to me. And he said he had to go to

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00:23:59,080 --> 00:24:01,879
Speaker 1: the hospital because he had this food poisoning, but he

375
00:24:01,880 --> 00:24:03,920
Speaker 1: would be back in the morning and just to stay

376
00:24:03,920 --> 00:24:05,960
Speaker 1: inside and I'll be fine. And so he left me

377
00:24:06,000 --> 00:24:10,440
Speaker 1: home alone overnight. And now looking back on that, I'm

378
00:24:10,520 --> 00:24:13,880
Speaker 1: I'm he didn't have food poisoning. No grown man leaves

379
00:24:13,920 --> 00:24:15,600
Speaker 1: their child alone in the middle of the night because

380
00:24:15,600 --> 00:24:17,840
Speaker 1: they have food poisoning, they throw up, or they bring

381
00:24:17,880 --> 00:24:19,680
Speaker 1: their child to the to the e R with them

382
00:24:19,680 --> 00:24:22,120
Speaker 1: if there's really a problem. But he I'm sure went

383
00:24:22,160 --> 00:24:25,080
Speaker 1: off and met some woman or some hooker, God only

384
00:24:25,119 --> 00:24:28,919
Speaker 1: knows um and its memories like that that make a

385
00:24:28,960 --> 00:24:32,920
Speaker 1: lot more sense to me that he was an addict, Uh,

386
00:24:32,920 --> 00:24:34,840
Speaker 1: I mean, this is my like a sex addict, or

387
00:24:34,960 --> 00:24:38,399
Speaker 1: he lived this other life that sort of sort of

388
00:24:38,400 --> 00:24:44,159
Speaker 1: adds up and in a way that's helpful now for

389
00:24:44,200 --> 00:24:48,200
Speaker 1: me to sort of heal. That makes sense. I think

390
00:24:48,240 --> 00:24:50,280
Speaker 1: that there's something, you know, in all of this exploration

391
00:24:50,320 --> 00:24:53,720
Speaker 1: that I've been doing a family secrets, there's a kind

392
00:24:53,760 --> 00:25:02,480
Speaker 1: of liberation and finally understanding what was sort of hiding

393
00:25:02,480 --> 00:25:06,399
Speaker 1: in plain sight, that there was always something that didn't

394
00:25:06,440 --> 00:25:09,200
Speaker 1: add up. And then no matter how painful or awful

395
00:25:09,240 --> 00:25:12,639
Speaker 1: it is to find out what that thing is, there's

396
00:25:12,680 --> 00:25:16,520
Speaker 1: something that is also, ultimately I think, pretty grounding and

397
00:25:16,600 --> 00:25:21,200
Speaker 1: freeing about that. Yeah, and this idea that I wanted

398
00:25:21,240 --> 00:25:24,000
Speaker 1: to be just like him, and I realized in so

399
00:25:24,040 --> 00:25:27,600
Speaker 1: many ways I am such a better person than he is,

400
00:25:27,720 --> 00:25:30,879
Speaker 1: and I don't need to be like him, and I

401
00:25:30,920 --> 00:25:34,879
Speaker 1: don't want to be like him, And that's sort of

402
00:25:34,880 --> 00:25:38,719
Speaker 1: what I'm trying to take and move forward for my

403
00:25:38,760 --> 00:25:42,879
Speaker 1: own life. Are you glad? You know? I am glad

404
00:25:42,960 --> 00:25:47,960
Speaker 1: I know, mostly because I do think it has released

405
00:25:48,000 --> 00:25:51,959
Speaker 1: my mother from spending the rest of her days caring

406
00:25:52,000 --> 00:25:54,800
Speaker 1: for him, and she's now having some fun and she's

407
00:25:54,800 --> 00:25:57,360
Speaker 1: spending time with family and friends, and she's taking care

408
00:25:57,400 --> 00:26:00,800
Speaker 1: of herself and she's having adventures. And he is in

409
00:26:00,880 --> 00:26:03,879
Speaker 1: a really nice home where you know, we check on

410
00:26:04,000 --> 00:26:07,119
Speaker 1: him and he's being cared for. But I'm really glad

411
00:26:07,160 --> 00:26:13,399
Speaker 1: I know so she can have a nice life. And

412
00:26:13,440 --> 00:26:16,359
Speaker 1: I'm also glad I know because I it makes me

413
00:26:16,440 --> 00:26:20,320
Speaker 1: feel less crazy to know that he actually was so damaged.

414
00:26:21,400 --> 00:26:24,119
Speaker 1: It was not my fault that I couldn't find a

415
00:26:24,119 --> 00:26:28,040
Speaker 1: connection with him. So yes, I am glad, I know, right.

416
00:26:28,119 --> 00:26:30,800
Speaker 1: And I suppose there's a lesson in that too, in

417
00:26:30,880 --> 00:26:33,879
Speaker 1: that it is in the inner work, in in the

418
00:26:33,920 --> 00:26:36,720
Speaker 1: work that you're doing on yourself, that we all do

419
00:26:36,800 --> 00:26:40,439
Speaker 1: on ourselves where we where we do find that sense

420
00:26:40,480 --> 00:26:43,920
Speaker 1: of peace or of closure, as you say, or of freedom.

421
00:26:44,160 --> 00:26:47,399
Speaker 1: No one can give that to us. Yeah, do you

422
00:26:47,480 --> 00:26:50,760
Speaker 1: still feel that he helped to give you the gift

423
00:26:50,800 --> 00:26:53,919
Speaker 1: of writing? Is that like one gift that you still

424
00:26:53,960 --> 00:26:57,560
Speaker 1: feel connects to him, or does it all feel like

425
00:26:58,080 --> 00:27:01,919
Speaker 1: you've had to kind of unhook entirely. I do feel

426
00:27:02,400 --> 00:27:04,919
Speaker 1: that writing is the one gift he gave to me,

427
00:27:04,960 --> 00:27:08,120
Speaker 1: and I think that when he would write, UM, that

428
00:27:08,240 --> 00:27:12,120
Speaker 1: was him at his most authentic, and that is why

429
00:27:12,160 --> 00:27:16,040
Speaker 1: we could connect. I think the advice he gave me

430
00:27:16,080 --> 00:27:20,200
Speaker 1: about writing the hard stuff is the most honest thing

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Speaker 1: he's ever said to me, and I think it has

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Speaker 1: served me incredibly well. And I think the great irony

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Speaker 1: of the bigger picture is now I'm writing about him

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Speaker 1: and the things he's done, which I'm sure, if he understood,

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Speaker 1: would probably be very ashamed to know that everyone knew.

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Speaker 1: But on the other hand, maybe part of him would

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Speaker 1: be proud that I'm doing the exact thing he taught

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Speaker 1: me to do. So I'm not letting this turn of

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Speaker 1: events of his sort of double life effect my love

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Speaker 1: for writing, and have been able to separate that that

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Speaker 1: is the one amazing thing that he gave to me,

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Speaker 1: and he's my father. Half of me comes from him.

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Speaker 1: I'd like to thank Sasha Rothchild for sharing her story.

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Speaker 1: You can find Sasha at her Twitter handle Sasha Rothschild

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Speaker 1: and on Sasha Rothchild dot com. Family Secrets is an

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Speaker 1: I Heeart media production. Dylan Fagin is the supervising producer,

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00:28:30,359 --> 00:28:33,879
Speaker 1: Lowell Roulante is the audio engineer, and Julie Douglas is

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Speaker 1: the executive producer. If you have a family secret you'd

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00:28:37,680 --> 00:28:40,000
Speaker 1: like to share, you can get in touch with us

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00:28:40,120 --> 00:28:44,400
Speaker 1: at listener mail at Family Secrets podcast dot com, and

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00:28:44,440 --> 00:28:47,720
Speaker 1: you can also find us on Instagram at Danny Writer,

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Speaker 1: and Facebook at Family Secrets Pod and Twitter at fami

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Speaker 1: Secrets Pod. For more about my book Inheritance, visit Danny

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Speaker 1: Shapiro dot com. For more podcasts. For my heart Radio,

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00:29:31,560 --> 00:29:34,400
Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever

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Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows,