Speaker 1: So kayleie, Yeah, we have a heavyweight short for the
Speaker 1: people this week, a short that you produced. How do
Speaker 1: I best describe what a heavyweight short is?
Speaker 2: I think you should just do like a heavyweight short,
Speaker 2: you say all the things you love about heavyweight, but
Speaker 2: just in a shorter, more digestible format for this fast
Speaker 2: paced world.
Speaker 1: Guess what what you just introduced our heavyweight short.
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 1: Okay, Today's heavyweight short Cody. Right after the break, Cody
Speaker 1: describes his mom, Paula as Cudley. Some of his earliest
Speaker 1: memories are of the two of them just snuggling, just.
Speaker 3: Like her laying on the couch and me being small
Speaker 3: enough at the time where she had her like her
Speaker 3: legs crolled, you know, and you could almost hide behind
Speaker 3: her legs in the couch and make a little ford.
Speaker 1: Paula provided Cody with comfort even when she wasn't around.
Speaker 1: When he was five, she sewed him a blanket stitched
Speaker 1: with cartoon bunnies, which Cody took everywhere, and when he
Speaker 1: grew too old for carrying around a blanket, he still
Speaker 1: slept with it at night. In the summer before Cody's
Speaker 1: freshman year, Paula went in for knee surgery. She suffered
Speaker 1: from arthritis, and over the years the pain had only
Speaker 1: grown worse. Cody's understanding was that the operation was all
Speaker 1: very routine, but on the morning of the surgery, Cody
Speaker 1: remembers being asleep under the bunny blanket when he was
Speaker 1: awoken by his sister. We need to go to the
Speaker 1: hospital right away, she said. It seems that post surgery,
Speaker 1: a blood clot had moved up to Paula's lung. While
Speaker 1: walking down the hospital hallway, she suddenly collapsed.
Speaker 3: We drove to the hospital and you know, like when
Speaker 3: we were able to just walk in the room and
Speaker 3: my sister and you could just tell from just how
Speaker 3: everybody was positioned, just she's dead. And then I just
Speaker 3: sat down next to my grandpa. I don't think it
Speaker 3: fully hit me. I just remember just just staring and
Speaker 3: just sitting and not knowing what to feel.
Speaker 1: Her death was so sudden that nobody in the family
Speaker 1: knew what to feel. At the funeral home, Cody placed
Speaker 1: the bunny blanket in Paula's coffin. The person who had
Speaker 1: always been there to hold Cody and provide him with
Speaker 1: solace during hard times was the person who is now gone.
Speaker 1: As for the rest of the family, rather than joining together,
Speaker 1: they withdrew from one another. His two older sisters and
Speaker 1: his brothers spent most of their time alone in their rooms,
Speaker 1: and their father, who'd been in poor health for years,
Speaker 1: no longer had Paula to look after him. He had
Speaker 1: to be moved into a nursing home. The family was
Speaker 1: falling apart.
Speaker 3: My mom was the glue. It's like when she died,
Speaker 3: it just we always just kind of drifted in our
Speaker 3: own directions. Yeah, we just didn't know how to talk
Speaker 3: to each other. So I kind of just receded into
Speaker 3: my own little my own little room, and did my own,
Speaker 3: my own thing. Just wanted to just be left alone.
Speaker 1: Paula was buried in the cemetery across the street from
Speaker 1: Cody's house. The grave became the place where Cody went
Speaker 1: when he needed to unburden himself. Saying things in his
Speaker 1: head wasn't as good as talking out loud, but talking
Speaker 1: out loud in his bedroom and the rest of the
Speaker 1: family could hear, so he'd walk across the street and
Speaker 1: talk to a tombstone. Although still in a state of grief,
Speaker 1: Cody tried to return to normal life. This meant pre
Speaker 1: season football practice, running drills, doing laps, and lifting weights.
Speaker 1: It was while training in the high school's Dingy weight
Speaker 1: room one day that his new coach, Coach Walling, has
Speaker 1: to see him. Coach Walling was like a coach out
Speaker 1: of Central Casting, tall and athletic. He always wore shorts,
Speaker 1: even in the dead of winter. It was Cody's first
Speaker 1: year on the team and he hadn't interacted with Coach
Speaker 1: Walling much at all, so when he asked Cody to
Speaker 1: step out into the hall, Cody's first thought was that
Speaker 1: he was somehow in trouble.
Speaker 3: And I remember walking out and I don't know if
Speaker 3: he had said anything or there was a lead in.
Speaker 3: I don't think there was. But the thing that I
Speaker 3: remember was just him reaching out and just hugging me
Speaker 3: so just so tightly. You know how when you go
Speaker 3: for a hug you can do the up dat like
Speaker 3: one arm up, one lower. I didn't have that chance,
Speaker 3: like he just hugged me.
Speaker 1: Since his mother's death, no one had done just that.
Speaker 1: Cody's family and friends weren't really the hugging type. There
Speaker 1: might have been a couple of polite hugs, some perfunctory hugs,
Speaker 1: but Coach Walling, basically a stranger, was hugging Cody with
Speaker 1: what felt like all his heart.
Speaker 3: He held me for a few moments. I remember it
Speaker 3: so strongly. I get kind of teary eyed just thinking
Speaker 3: about it, just because it was just something I just
Speaker 3: I really needed without knowing it, and I just it
Speaker 3: was just something that I needed. It felt caring.
Speaker 1: Shortly after the day of the hug, Coach Walling took
Speaker 1: a job at another school and Cody never saw him again,
Speaker 1: but the moment remained with Cody. From then on, Cody
Speaker 1: started hugging all the time. He became the guy who'd
Speaker 1: hugs friends when they were having a bad day.
Speaker 3: And like even now with my wife, I just want
Speaker 3: hugs more than anything from her. Like I came home,
Speaker 3: I want to hug before I go to bed, I
Speaker 3: want to hug. And she didn't understand it, and so
Speaker 3: actually I had told her this story, and she's like,
Speaker 3: that makes sense. Why you want to hug all the time,
Speaker 3: Like there's a you know, there's always a few things
Speaker 3: you always remember in your life. You know, your your
Speaker 3: your kid being born, your marriage, and then for me,
Speaker 3: it's that hug. He's going to be included Holy how God.
Speaker 3: I wish I could find him and just thank him,
Speaker 3: let him know that it mattered.
Speaker 1: After doing some digging, I found out that coach Walling
Speaker 1: is John Walling. He recently retired after thirty six years
Speaker 1: of coaching. I tell Cody I was able to track
Speaker 1: him down. Oh okay, I have his phone number and
Speaker 1: we can give him a call right now.
Speaker 3: Would it be okay if we rescheduled for that. I
Speaker 3: actually have to be in bed and a half hour
Speaker 3: so I can make my time tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Cody's a truck driver and a shift begins at two
Speaker 1: thirty am. I understand why he would want to call
Speaker 1: it a night, but as we continue to talk, it
Speaker 1: feels like something else is at play.
Speaker 3: No, im not like I do, I really do, but no,
Speaker 3: that's amazing, Like I'm that give me just one second.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, of course, of course, take what you need?
Speaker 3: Thank you? H Okay, yeah, I don't I don't know it,
Speaker 3: Like what do you say? I don't know. It's just
Speaker 3: I'm really nervous now, but but yeah, we can. We
Speaker 3: can do it.
Speaker 1: You want to do it? Yeah, okay, let's do it.
Speaker 3: It's uh, it's John. Right before I don't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's yeah, it's John. It's John Walling. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I guess I'll say hi first.
Speaker 3: Okay, Hello, this is John.
Speaker 1: Hi John, This is Jonathan Goldstein.
Speaker 3: Oh, Hello, how are you.
Speaker 1: I'd let John know I'd be phoning with a student
Speaker 1: of his name, Cody from sixteen years ago. Oh, but
Speaker 1: hadn't said much more than that. I have someone here
Speaker 1: who is wanting to talk to you.
Speaker 3: Hi, Hi, John, Hey, what's going on? Hey? Been been
Speaker 3: a crazy life. Have a little farm that we live on.
Speaker 3: We're up in Marshalltown.
Speaker 4: My dad lived in Marshalltown. His claim to fame is
Speaker 4: that he was the longest baby born in Marshalltown.
Speaker 1: With the pleasantries and the my dad was a longer
Speaker 1: baby than your dad, macho male bonding out of the way.
Speaker 1: I asked John if he remembers Cody.
Speaker 3: I do, I do. So. Do you remember that that
Speaker 3: summer in the in the weight room, my uh my
Speaker 3: mom had passed away, and I remember you reaching out
Speaker 3: and just and just give me the this biggest, this
Speaker 3: long heartfelt hug, and it meant It's just been following
Speaker 3: me for years and years and years now, and I've
Speaker 3: been wanting to thank you for it for the longest time,
Speaker 3: because it just meant so much to me.
Speaker 1: When two people overlap in time and space, there's never
Speaker 1: any guarantee that what one person experienced as a special
Speaker 1: moment isn't for the other person just to BLib something
Speaker 1: they sort of remember or want to remember out of
Speaker 1: politeness or kindness. But today this isn't the case.
Speaker 3: I do remember that, and I'm sorry.
Speaker 4: I remember that very, very vividly what I had lost
Speaker 4: my mom in nineteen ninety seven, and so it was
Speaker 4: those emotions were still raw and real, and I'm not
Speaker 4: sure they ever heal.
Speaker 1: So when coach Walling heard about the boy on the
Speaker 1: football team whose mom also died, he felt compelled to
Speaker 1: say or do something. He just didn't know exactly what
Speaker 1: were you intending to hug him? Or was it something
Speaker 1: that just happened. Yeah, I didn't know, not at all.
Speaker 4: I mean that it kind of came out of left field.
Speaker 4: I felt such a pain of losing my mama that
Speaker 4: it just felt that that reaction just seemed natural as
Speaker 4: a response to the pain.
Speaker 1: Where were you would you describe yourself as a as
Speaker 1: a hugger before that? Before that day, no no, no.
Speaker 1: For Coach Walling, not only had the hug with Cody
Speaker 1: been a moment, it was the moment.
Speaker 4: From that moment on, it became easier and easier and
Speaker 4: more okay and more okay.
Speaker 3: For me to hug guys, and and you.
Speaker 4: Know, to show that as a raw emotion. And so Cody,
Speaker 4: I I'm I'm very grateful and honored that it helped you,
Speaker 4: but I wanted you to know that you helped me
Speaker 4: as well.
Speaker 1: John says that just like Cody, he didn't have a
Speaker 1: lot of huggers in his life. His dad was definitely
Speaker 1: not a hugger.
Speaker 3: He was a World War two and Korea veteran.
Speaker 4: Who I mean, I saw him cry when my mama died,
Speaker 4: and that was it. He was an old rugged warrior
Speaker 4: that you know that wasn't yet that was not what
Speaker 4: you did.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and and and and with you Like with my dad,
Speaker 3: like he's in he's in a home now, I like
Speaker 3: to I like to tease him a little bit. So
Speaker 3: when I when I visit him and in the home,
Speaker 3: I'll be like, all right, Dad, here's your hug, you know,
Speaker 3: and I go in. When when I first started doing it,
Speaker 3: he would you know, shake his head and go no, no, no,
Speaker 3: no no, and and light me pat me back. But
Speaker 3: now I think I think I've whotled him down enough.
Speaker 3: He's like, Okay, your your point, John, about how after
Speaker 3: that you just it felt better or okay for for
Speaker 3: guys to hug, and it just it became a thing.
Speaker 3: It did for me too. I think just seeing a
Speaker 3: strong male figure like that, just just showing compassion, it
Speaker 3: strayed to slowly realize to me just how much hugs
Speaker 3: can mean, you know.
Speaker 4: And I know, and honestly it sounds kind of silly
Speaker 4: to say that until you need it, you know. I'm
Speaker 4: I'm not ashamed to say I'm a hugger and I
Speaker 4: and I feel like I feel I feel like I
Speaker 4: have a fuller life because of it. I should tell
Speaker 4: everybody I love them too, And I don't if that
Speaker 4: sounds strange, fantastic.
Speaker 3: John, John, I do the same thing. And I don't
Speaker 3: think that would have happened if it wasn't for you.
Speaker 4: Well, I can't thank you enough for for you know,
Speaker 4: I'm the most blessed guy you're ever going to get
Speaker 4: on the phone. I feel so very blessed that you
Speaker 4: took the time and effort to try to find me.
Speaker 4: I appreciate that, and I love you.
Speaker 3: I love you too, Jean.
Speaker 1: Well, you know there's only one thing left to do.
Speaker 3: Oh, I don't I don't know, I don't know what.
Speaker 1: Virtual hugs, virtual.
Speaker 3: Okay, you have a good you have a good night.
Speaker 1: You too, take it easy, and I guess I love you.
Speaker 1: I love you too, man.
Speaker 5: Thanks John, Bye, bye bye.
Speaker 1: This Heavyweight short was produced by senior producer Khalila Holt
Speaker 1: Hello and Me Jonathan Goldstein, along with Moheeney Mictgawker. Our
Speaker 1: supervising producer is Stevie Lane. Production help from Damiano Marquetti.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Emily Condon, Aaron Randall, and Hannah Chan.
Speaker 1: Bobby Lord mixed the episode with original music by Christine Fellows,
Speaker 1: John K. Sampson, Blue Dot Sessions, and Bobby Lord. Follow
Speaker 1: us on Twitter at Heavyweight or email us at Heavyweight
Speaker 1: at Gimletmedia dot com. We'll be back with a new
Speaker 1: episode in two weeks.