Speaker 1: Pushkin.
Speaker 2: Hi.
Speaker 1: You know, when you meditate, you're supposed to acknowledge the
Speaker 1: breath and put a name to it, like that was
Speaker 1: a small breath, that was a big breath. If I
Speaker 1: had to put a name to that, hello, I would
Speaker 1: say hesitantly, cheerful.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll take that.
Speaker 1: That's a part of my meditation, is naming your hellos.
Speaker 3: Kind of weird, but uh, all right, we're going to
Speaker 3: revisit another great episode today.
Speaker 4: Hit me.
Speaker 3: It's called Christina.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's truly one of my favorite episodes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a really good one.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I love it. I will say this and
Speaker 1: maybe you can confirm this fact check me on this.
Speaker 1: But this was an early season two episode, and up
Speaker 1: until this point, I had largely worked with people that
Speaker 1: I already knew, like friends and family, and this this
Speaker 1: was the first time that I was actually like traveling
Speaker 1: out in the world to meet someone.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that is true.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'll never forget. But when they met me
Speaker 1: at the airport, Christina and her husband LEVI, I just
Speaker 1: remember like seeing the look of hope and respect almost
Speaker 1: in their eyes. Yeah, and I just felt like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, these poor people, like I don't deserve that
Speaker 1: look at all. But I really better get it together.
Speaker 3: And then you've gotten it together for ten years now.
Speaker 1: You know what I do. I look at myself in
Speaker 1: the bathroom mirror and I slap myself in the face
Speaker 1: and I say, get it together.
Speaker 4: Buy.
Speaker 3: Well, it's working, so I guess keep doing that. Yeah, well,
Speaker 3: enjoyed the episode, and afterwards we're going to hear from
Speaker 3: Christina what she's up to now.
Speaker 1: Yes, we're gonna get a nice update about what Christina's
Speaker 1: life has been like and the impact that participating in
Speaker 1: the episode had on her. Oh but if we could
Speaker 1: reverse the process and eat our dessert before we move
Speaker 1: on to the main course, A word from our sponsors.
Speaker 2: Hello, Hey, do you have a copy of TV Guide?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 1: No, Why I can't find my copy? And I was
Speaker 1: wondering what was on TV? Don't you don't you remember?
Speaker 2: Don't you remember?
Speaker 3: Don't wait?
Speaker 1: Don't you remember calling people up on the phone?
Speaker 5: I do remember that, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Just to see what was on I remember calling on
Speaker 1: my Antille because I was too I was too lazy
Speaker 1: to get up off the couch to look for the
Speaker 1: TV Guide, so I just called her up. Woman could
Speaker 1: hardly walk and she had to search around for a
Speaker 1: TV guide from Gimblet Media. I'm Jonathan Goldstein and this
Speaker 1: is Heavyweight Today's episode. Christina, this is the best of
Speaker 1: all possible worlds. My father was fond of saying. The
Speaker 1: words were spoken contentedly, often while reclining in a barca
Speaker 1: lounger belt buckle undone after a large meal of baked
Speaker 1: beans and lamb chops. But what did my father know
Speaker 1: of other worlds? He'd held down the same job and
Speaker 1: was married to the same woman for decades plus. He
Speaker 1: hardly left the house. But what he did know was
Speaker 1: that this world had one thing over all of those
Speaker 1: other worlds. It existed from my father, that was enough
Speaker 1: to make it best. I, on the other hand, am
Speaker 1: not one over so easily.
Speaker 6: Sure.
Speaker 1: Existence is a nice quality, a fine quality, but going
Speaker 1: so far as to call a world that contains both
Speaker 1: soul patches and puddles the best possible anything seems a
Speaker 1: little extreme, and so imagining other worlds the same, only
Speaker 1: better is just too irresistible. In spite of the pain
Speaker 1: such thinking inevitably invites. Why don't we start from the beginning? Okay,
Speaker 1: this is Christina, and like me, she knows this world
Speaker 1: can use a few tweaks. Overall, she says her life
Speaker 1: hasn't been a bad one, it's just not the one
Speaker 1: she was meant to live. She's worked as a waitress,
Speaker 1: a receptionist, as a home care worker, the kinds of
Speaker 1: jobs you do, but not necessarily the kind you dream about. Lately,
Speaker 1: she's been helping run her husband's company.
Speaker 7: It's a a disc golfing backpack company.
Speaker 1: Say sorry, say that again. It's a what disc golf
Speaker 1: backpack is? What is disc golf?
Speaker 8: It's like ball golf, but instead of balls and clubs,
Speaker 8: you have frisbees.
Speaker 1: Oh, when you say ball golf, you're talking about golf golf.
Speaker 7: Like a regular golf.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, I've never heard it referred to distinguished as
Speaker 1: ball golf, but I.
Speaker 7: Will only disc golfers call it ball golf.
Speaker 1: So, but how do you how do you get a
Speaker 1: frisbee in a golf hole?
Speaker 7: No, it's actually not a hole, it's a basket.
Speaker 1: Oh, my goodness. Before she started pining after better worlds,
Speaker 1: Christina was focused on just one, the world of small
Speaker 1: town Western Canada.
Speaker 7: I lived with my mom. She was a single mom.
Speaker 8: My dad left when I was around one, and my
Speaker 8: mom was diagnosed with schizophrenia.
Speaker 1: Christina was just a kid, so a lot of it's
Speaker 1: now fuzzy, but she remembers bits of things, her mom
Speaker 1: going off her meds and beginning to hear voices, her
Speaker 1: mom waking her in the middle of the night and
Speaker 1: saying they had to leave right away. She remembers running
Speaker 1: with her mom down dark streets.
Speaker 8: She started becoming violent and she would just, you know,
Speaker 8: hit me with the phone handle, or this one time
Speaker 8: she came after me with a high heeled shoe. There's
Speaker 8: no food in the house. She wouldn't do laundry, like
Speaker 8: the dirty clothes would pile up in the living room,
Speaker 8: Like I remember this massive mound of dirty clothes, and
Speaker 8: I remember this kid made fun of me for having
Speaker 8: dirty pants, and so I started stealing clothes just so
Speaker 8: I could have clean clothes to go to school.
Speaker 1: When you were a kid trying to survive on your own,
Speaker 1: the unthinkable can start to seem normal. To escape her house,
Speaker 1: Christina took a job caring for two boys not much
Speaker 1: younger than herself. She became a twelve year old live
Speaker 1: in nanny.
Speaker 8: So I ended up moving in with this family and
Speaker 8: looking after the boys. They paid me a little bit
Speaker 8: and I quit school to be a nanny.
Speaker 1: When she stopped showing up at school, social services removed
Speaker 1: Christina from the nannying house, but instead of bringing her
Speaker 1: back to her mom, they took her to a foster home.
Speaker 1: She was sent to live with an older couple and
Speaker 1: their grandson. They lived on the fancier side of town
Speaker 1: in a house decorated with candleholders and decorative pistols. The
Speaker 1: foster mother was a woman named Isabelle. Her grandson, David,
Speaker 1: was the golden boy who could do no wrong. From
Speaker 1: day one, Christina struggled for Isabelle's approval.
Speaker 8: My foster mother and I kind of butted heads a
Speaker 8: little bit or a lot.
Speaker 1: Although Isabelle was only an inch taller, Christina was scared
Speaker 1: of her. Her foster mother communicated through rules and punishments.
Speaker 7: She was very strict.
Speaker 8: Fris five minutes late for curfew, I would be grounded
Speaker 8: for a month.
Speaker 7: It felt like I was always grounded.
Speaker 8: And afraid all the time, and kind of walking on eggshells,
Speaker 8: and yeah, just feeling always really intimidated and scared.
Speaker 1: I was always scared, and when she got scared, Christina
Speaker 1: would go silent. As a result, she never once stood
Speaker 1: up to Isabelle. It was while living in Isabelle's world
Speaker 1: that another better world presented itself to Christina. A world
Speaker 1: with rules that were easy to understand, a world where
Speaker 1: someone was always keeping score and keeping things fair. This
Speaker 1: was the eighty four x fifty foot world of a
Speaker 1: basketball court.
Speaker 8: I can't explain how much I was obsessed with basketball.
Speaker 7: I would practice at like six in the morning at
Speaker 7: the school.
Speaker 4: I would practice on weekends.
Speaker 8: I'd watch the NBA games with Clyde the Glide and
Speaker 8: Charles Barkley. Then my name was in the paper a
Speaker 8: few times. I think I have some paper clippings of
Speaker 8: like high scoring.
Speaker 7: I loved, loved, loved basketball.
Speaker 1: On the basketball court, Christina was never scared. It was
Speaker 1: a place where, for the first time in her life,
Speaker 1: she felt in control and confident. Her foster brother, David,
Speaker 1: a popular jock, spent hours helping her get better. She
Speaker 1: joined a team and quickly became a high scorer. Eventually
Speaker 1: she was made team captain.
Speaker 8: They would always put me inside, like I would always
Speaker 8: have to guard the post.
Speaker 1: When Christina talks about basketball, she lights up, and I
Speaker 1: want to encourage her to keep talking by asking questions.
Speaker 1: But my only real knowledge of basketball comes from watching
Speaker 1: the Harlem Globetrotters. I was in my thirties before I
Speaker 1: learned it was illegal to bring stilts onto the court,
Speaker 1: so my questions are limited.
Speaker 8: We tall no only five to six. But I guess
Speaker 8: I kind of had this unrealistic view of myself where
Speaker 8: I thought I was taller than I was because off court,
Speaker 8: I was like kind of meek, and I'd just follow
Speaker 8: the crowd and I wouldn't create any waves. I didn't
Speaker 8: really have an opinion, but on the court I was
Speaker 8: a force to be reckoned with. It was like the
Speaker 8: only time where I felt powerful.
Speaker 1: It was around this time that a plan began to
Speaker 1: take shape. If she kept practicing and kept winning, she'd
Speaker 1: get a basketball scholarship. Christina knew that was her only
Speaker 1: hope of getting into college.
Speaker 8: I wanted to get out of that circle of welfare
Speaker 8: and illness and living from paycheck to paycheck and just
Speaker 8: feeling just being poor.
Speaker 1: It sucked, which brings us to the moment that thirty
Speaker 1: years later, Christina still can't stop thinking about. She'd just
Speaker 1: come home from school when Isabelle called her into the kitchen,
Speaker 1: sat her down at the table, and presented her with
Speaker 1: an ultimatum.
Speaker 7: She said, you have to get your grades up.
Speaker 8: You have to work harder at school, and so in
Speaker 8: order for me to be able to play basketball the
Speaker 8: following year, which would have been eleventh grade, I had
Speaker 8: to have an average of a bee in every class.
Speaker 8: But I was really bad at math and chemistry, and
Speaker 8: I didn't make it. I wasn't allowed to play basketball.
Speaker 1: What she remembers most about that time was watching a
Speaker 1: lot of TV and overeating and the chores. After forcing
Speaker 1: Christina to quit the basketball team, Isabelle handed her chores
Speaker 1: that felt like ironic punishments from the Judy Bloom version
Speaker 1: of Dante's Inferno. She had to bake cookies for the family,
Speaker 1: but because of her weight gain, she wasn't allowed to
Speaker 1: eat any. And when she dusted the house, Isabelle instructed
Speaker 1: her to pick up David's basketball trophies, dust each one,
Speaker 1: and dust the shelf underneath. All the while, Christina felt
Speaker 1: her loss acutely of basketball and the better world had promised.
Speaker 8: She took something from me that I've not been able
Speaker 8: to get back.
Speaker 1: What is that thing?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 7: And I don't even know.
Speaker 3: I don't.
Speaker 8: When I say that out loud, it sounds ridiculous, but
Speaker 8: it feels like that passion for something it dashed this
Speaker 8: huge dream that I had for my life.
Speaker 1: Christina still wonders why why did Isabelle take away basketball?
Speaker 1: The only thing that really mattered to her, that would
Speaker 1: have given her a better life, But all these years
Speaker 1: she's been too afraid to ask.
Speaker 8: She's going to be ninety five in July. The thought
Speaker 8: of talking to her about it petrifies me a little bit,
Speaker 8: like there's still a part of me that is scared
Speaker 8: of her, which is ridiculous.
Speaker 1: And what do you want?
Speaker 8: I think, Yeah, I think I want to know, like
Speaker 8: why she made my life so difficult, if it was
Speaker 8: just to break me down, if she had some kind
Speaker 8: of thing against me.
Speaker 1: And what do you want to hear her say?
Speaker 8: I guess I want to just hear her say that
Speaker 8: she just genuinely wanted me to have better grades.
Speaker 7: But I know that that's just such bs.
Speaker 8: For whatever reason, I've let go of a lot of
Speaker 8: things that have happened, but for whatever reason, this one thing,
Speaker 8: the basketball thing, not letting me play basketball. I'm having
Speaker 8: such a hard time letting go of that and forgiving her.
Speaker 7: I want to let it go.
Speaker 1: So you want to go talk to her?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: You and you want me to come?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: I get really meely mouthed when I'm in the same
Speaker 1: room as like strong willed, scary older women. I'll tell
Speaker 1: you that right now, not going to be much help.
Speaker 7: So we're doing it.
Speaker 1: It sounds like we're doing it all right. We're gonna
Speaker 1: go talk to that scary lady after the break. How
Speaker 1: much mincing can a mealie mouth mince when a meei
Speaker 1: mouth meets a menacing miss who writes this stuff? I
Speaker 1: guess I do. Once I gave Christina my word that
Speaker 1: i'd help, I approached CEO and Gimblet founder Alex Bloomberg
Speaker 1: to ask if he could fly me to the British
Speaker 1: Columbian Interior to confront a ninety five year old woman
Speaker 1: about something she may or may not have said some
Speaker 1: thirty years ago, to which Alex asked, why are you
Speaker 1: always standing just outside the door whenever I get out
Speaker 1: of the bathroom, And I said it was a coincidence,
Speaker 1: although I might have pronounced it quinky dink to be playful,
Speaker 1: and he asked how long. This trip would take me
Speaker 1: out of the office, and I said a week, and
Speaker 1: he said to take longer if I needed it. So
Speaker 1: I was off to Canada. Tail denos a.
Speaker 6: Deploire you I speak you too.
Speaker 1: I meet Christina and her husband Levi at the Colonna
Speaker 1: Airport in British Columbia. They'd just flown in from Portland,
Speaker 1: and the look of trust on their faces is daunting.
Speaker 1: When meeting new people, especially people I'm about to help,
Speaker 1: I'm more comfortable with looks of skepticism or anticipatory disappointment.
Speaker 1: Trust was disconcerting.
Speaker 2: Yes, I have a reservation.
Speaker 1: It was an hour and a half drive to Isabelle's,
Speaker 1: so we made our way to the airport rental desk
Speaker 1: to get a car Goldstein g old.
Speaker 4: I just asked, who that is there?
Speaker 1: Oh, it's just a we're doing a radio story.
Speaker 4: So I'm just do you mind turning that.
Speaker 2: Off and putting away?
Speaker 1: If I couldn't even stand up to the car rental clerk,
Speaker 1: what hope did I have of helping Christina stand up
Speaker 1: to Isabelle.
Speaker 7: It's hot in here, I say.
Speaker 1: It's been well over two years since Christina's seen Isabelle.
Speaker 1: She's feeling anxious, so I try to keep the mood positive.
Speaker 2: I bet the.
Speaker 1: Thrift stores are really good around here. I point out
Speaker 1: foreign license plates, and because we're in a foreign country,
Speaker 1: there are many pretty Have you guys been watching this
Speaker 1: show called little Big Lies or big little lies or
Speaker 1: little big Lies?
Speaker 5: Well set?
Speaker 4: I think so.
Speaker 1: Isabelle lives on the ground floor of a squat apartment
Speaker 1: block mostly inhabited by seniors. We wait. When no one answers,
Speaker 1: we ring the bell. The door opens. I heard you
Speaker 1: the first time, Isabelle says. Christina smiles in spite of herself.
Speaker 1: She can't help but get a kick out of Isabelle.
Speaker 1: Isabelle peers up at us from behind her walker. Christina's husband,
Speaker 1: Levi makes introductions. Isabel Hi, how are you doing?
Speaker 4: Oh that?
Speaker 1: Oh? Is me reacting to Isabelle's handshake, a surprisingly powerful
Speaker 1: thing that yanks me through the doorframe. Although a diminutive
Speaker 1: woman with white, puffy hair and wire rim glasses, Isabelle's
Speaker 1: just established herself as the alpha. Nice to meet you.
Speaker 2: Okay, you seem to be doing great. I'm doing not
Speaker 2: bad for you, know my age.
Speaker 1: I guess Isabelle's apartment is tidy and dim, decorated with
Speaker 1: candles that haven't been lit in years. We slowly follow
Speaker 1: her down a narrow hallway to her living room, where
Speaker 1: she seats herself in a faded blue mechanized armchair. On
Speaker 1: the drive over, Christina mentioned that Isabelle is legally blind,
Speaker 1: but I misremember this as Isabelle being legally deaf, so
Speaker 1: I compliment her on how well she's following along. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm not talking very loud, and you you've been able
Speaker 1: to hear everything.
Speaker 2: So I did see there's nothing wrong with my ears right.
Speaker 1: And you did not. To recover from this faux pas,
Speaker 1: I offer Isabelle a chance to feel my face run
Speaker 1: her hands through my beard, which is something I think
Speaker 1: I saw done in The Miracle Worker. If ever, you
Speaker 1: want to feel my stubble or.
Speaker 2: I don't go running around feeling beards.
Speaker 1: I decide that now is as good a time as
Speaker 1: any to offer around the airport treats I bought during
Speaker 1: my layover. I brought some refreshments, since I don't want
Speaker 1: to put Isabelle out by asking for a party tray.
Speaker 1: I scoot my travel socks and underwear to the side
Speaker 1: of my backpack and proffer them straight from the bag,
Speaker 1: some chocolate covered nuts and such.
Speaker 2: Not right now, thank you?
Speaker 1: No, okay, I'll leave him in the bag. If I've
Speaker 1: learned anything from my work in the business of forcing
Speaker 1: people to ask terrifying questions, it was that it's always
Speaker 1: best to just get it over with. Ask the question,
Speaker 1: why did you ruin my life? Get the answer, and
Speaker 1: head back to the hotel bar to eat the juiciest,
Speaker 1: fattiest tea bone steak that Gimlet Media's fourteen dollars per
Speaker 1: diem allows. But staging is everything I need to be
Speaker 1: off hand, subtle. Do you, Christina, do you have anything
Speaker 1: that you you want to ask about? Or Christina looks
Speaker 1: down at her hands and tightens her lips. Of course
Speaker 1: I understand her hesitation. Isabelle is even more intimidating in
Speaker 1: person than Christina made her out, and nothing about being
Speaker 1: here can possibly feel much like coming home. The walls
Speaker 1: and shelves are loaded with photos of Isabelle's children, grandchildren,
Speaker 1: and great grandchildren, but there isn't a single photo anywhere
Speaker 1: of her only foster child, Christina. To break the silence,
Speaker 1: I asked Isabelle why she originally took Christina into her
Speaker 1: home in the first place.
Speaker 2: One of my children left a child for me to raise,
Speaker 2: my grandson. This was David. Yeah, so I thought life
Speaker 2: was just my husband and I. We were both older.
Speaker 2: It would be kind of very dull for him. So
Speaker 2: I thought that having someone else around the house would
Speaker 2: make it a little more homey for him. But I
Speaker 2: hadn't chosen Christina. Christina was brought to me, and we're
Speaker 2: just She was just there, this wild looking thing, seeing
Speaker 2: a little bit of training to live in a home.
Speaker 2: So obviously she hadn't been brought up with anything. I
Speaker 2: just thought any child living under my roof had to
Speaker 2: be taught.
Speaker 1: Something, meaning like what kind of things like you mean,
Speaker 1: normal like rules and.
Speaker 2: Well rules, yeah, the rule. I don't think that our
Speaker 2: rules were terribly strict.
Speaker 4: Really, I mean I felt like they were strict.
Speaker 2: Well maybe you thought so, that most kids do, but
Speaker 2: they were the same rules my kids had.
Speaker 1: Christina hesitates, you can see it's hard for her to
Speaker 1: talk back to Isabelle even now.
Speaker 2: But then she says, but David didn't have rules, No,
Speaker 2: he didn't need any. He is the most perfect person
Speaker 2: I've ever raised.
Speaker 1: Christina, another person she happened to have raised is seated
Speaker 1: a couple feet away from her. Christina stares ahead blankly,
Speaker 1: not saying anything. So I press Isabelle, well, you must
Speaker 1: have done something wrong. I mean, it's only.
Speaker 2: Very little, or you'd be surprised how perfect he was.
Speaker 1: Was that hard though, being like side by side with
Speaker 1: someone who.
Speaker 4: Is just no.
Speaker 2: I think it was good for her.
Speaker 1: Christina, that is that how you feel?
Speaker 7: It was hard? Yeah, it was really hard.
Speaker 1: Something else that's been hard is finding the courage to
Speaker 1: ask the question that brought her here, but Christina gives
Speaker 1: it a shot after the break. Something else that's been
Speaker 1: hard is finding the courage to ask the question that
Speaker 1: brought her here. Christina gives it a shot, but after
Speaker 1: some throat clearing again, she goes silent.
Speaker 2: Go ahead, ask.
Speaker 8: I think the one thing that I have kind of
Speaker 8: always wondered is do you remember I think it was
Speaker 8: in tenth grade and I had been playing basketball and
Speaker 8: you told me that I had to get my grades
Speaker 8: up where I couldn't play basketball anymore.
Speaker 7: Do you remember that?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 7: Okay, so I.
Speaker 8: Didn't get my grades up and I had to quit
Speaker 8: the team.
Speaker 2: I don't remember that at all. I don't know. I still.
Speaker 7: It was devastating for me.
Speaker 2: Why did you get your grades up there?
Speaker 8: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I asked Christina if she could explain to Isabelle why
Speaker 1: losing basketball hurt so much?
Speaker 3: No, without crying.
Speaker 7: I felt like.
Speaker 8: It was like the one thing that I was really
Speaker 8: good at.
Speaker 1: Are you surprised to hear Christina talk about how much
Speaker 1: she loved basketball?
Speaker 8: Like?
Speaker 1: Was that something that you knew back then?
Speaker 2: I didn't know.
Speaker 1: No, did Christina? Did you ever express it?
Speaker 2: I don't think she did. I don't think so. No,
Speaker 2: I don't think you did. I think the.
Speaker 8: Reason why, like it still affects me now, it is
Speaker 8: because I didn't fight for it, and.
Speaker 1: How could she have. She never felt like she had
Speaker 1: the right to stop her feet, to slam the bedroom door,
Speaker 1: in so many words, to act like someone's kid. I
Speaker 1: thought that maybe if I could get Isabelle to put
Speaker 1: herself in Christina's shoes, it might help her understand. Was
Speaker 1: there anything that you can think of that's comparable from
Speaker 1: your own life, Isabelle, Like something that you really felt
Speaker 1: very passionate about, like the thing that you really that
Speaker 1: was your great love?
Speaker 2: Not really. I always wanted to go to school more
Speaker 2: than I did. I really wanted a good education, which
Speaker 2: of the country you weren't able to get.
Speaker 1: Her father was a rancher, Isabelle says, and her mom
Speaker 1: died when she was little, so her dad raised the
Speaker 1: kids by himself, and Isabelle, being the eldest, had a
Speaker 1: lot of responsibility.
Speaker 2: I used to miss school every year when I got
Speaker 2: us to be a certain age and had to herd cattle.
Speaker 2: So I'd missed about two months or a month of
Speaker 2: school every year when I was old enough to do this.
Speaker 2: But I was first in my class from the day
Speaker 2: I started till the day I finished. I was never
Speaker 2: anything but first in my class.
Speaker 1: Was that typical that a lot of kids in the
Speaker 1: class have to miss?
Speaker 2: No, just me and well, we were brought up by
Speaker 2: our dad. Men bring up children differently than women.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and what ways? How do you mean?
Speaker 2: I mean? My dad didn't teach me to ride horseback.
Speaker 2: He just threw me on a horse and told me
Speaker 2: to go. You know, a woman wouldn't do that. I
Speaker 2: don't think, not likely. My father was quite fond of me.
Speaker 1: Actually, Yeah, how far did you go in school?
Speaker 2: Just? Grade nine? I took grade nine By correspondence.
Speaker 1: So you didn't you never ended up getting the high
Speaker 1: school degree.
Speaker 2: No. Yeah, school was an important thing to me because
Speaker 2: I felt that's how you'd make your living.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But I remember when I was through school, my stepmother
Speaker 2: looking in the paper and she found a dish washing
Speaker 2: job for me. She thought that I was capable of
Speaker 2: his washing dishes in some restaurant. I felt very insulted.
Speaker 2: It always surprised me when kids didn't want to get
Speaker 2: all the education they possibly could.
Speaker 1: Isabelle motions towards Christina.
Speaker 2: There's only so far you could go on basketball. I
Speaker 2: always felt your education was more important. But as a kid,
Speaker 2: sometimes you know, you don't see that. I knew. I
Speaker 2: tried to teach her to be self sufficient because I
Speaker 2: knew that she'd only have herself to depend upon.
Speaker 1: Isabelle wanted to give Christina something she never got herself,
Speaker 1: a good education, But by depriving Christina basketball, Isabelle took
Speaker 1: away just that. At the time, though she didn't know it.
Speaker 1: What Isabelle did know was that when Christina showed up
Speaker 1: at her door thirty years ago, she was already in
Speaker 1: her sixties. Isabelle was old, and if she were to die,
Speaker 1: Christina would be left all alone. She'd only become a
Speaker 1: foster child because no one in her extended family had
Speaker 1: stepped up to take her in. She had no one else.
Speaker 1: What did you know about Christina's childhood before she met you?
Speaker 2: Not much of anything that I can remember. Like, her
Speaker 2: mother was mentally ill. I guess he knows that. And
Speaker 2: I lost my mother when I was five, and my
Speaker 2: father eventually had a nervous breakdown, so I knew what
Speaker 2: it was like to live with a mentally challenged person.
Speaker 1: Oh what was it like?
Speaker 2: Terrible? It was horrible. You didn't know if someone was
Speaker 2: going to kill you today or tomorrow, or what the
Speaker 2: heck was going to happen.
Speaker 1: That's not an exaggeration. You're really were.
Speaker 2: No, it's not an exaggeration. I remember taking my little
Speaker 2: brother and sister outside and trying to hide them. He
Speaker 2: was left with five little children, Yeah, and he was
Speaker 2: terrified that they were going to take the kids away
Speaker 2: from him. I used to sit by his bed and
Speaker 2: hold his hand, and one day he said to me,
Speaker 2: isabel why do you keep holding my hand? And in
Speaker 2: my own way, I was trying to let him know
Speaker 2: that we all loved him.
Speaker 1: Isabelle eventually placed her father in a mental hospital.
Speaker 2: I admitted him.
Speaker 1: Wow, and you were how old at that time?
Speaker 2: I was about fourteen.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's a big burden.
Speaker 2: Yeah it was. And I thought, here, I am fourteen,
Speaker 2: What the hell am I doing here?
Speaker 1: All the while, as Isabelle talks, Christina, seated in an
Speaker 1: armchair beside her, listens quietly, her hands gripping the armrest.
Speaker 1: Without looking at Isabelle, she makes her presence known.
Speaker 8: I have many memories of visiting my mom in the
Speaker 8: mental hospital when I was young, like seven, eight nine,
Speaker 8: kind of age ten.
Speaker 10: It's weird.
Speaker 7: It's a really weird experience.
Speaker 8: To go knowing that the other people are mentally unstable.
Speaker 2: And you can't predict what they're going to do.
Speaker 8: Yeah, and my mom was, you know, kind of a
Speaker 8: zombie because of all the medication, and obviously it was
Speaker 8: like sad and upset that she had to be there
Speaker 8: and wasn't with me.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It was an awful place.
Speaker 8: It makes you grow up way too fast.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. I mean I was never a kid
Speaker 2: until I got married and had my own kids, and
Speaker 2: then I had a lot of fun raising my own children. Yeah.
Speaker 8: I think that's why I was a nanny because I
Speaker 8: could be around kids and have a childhood with all.
Speaker 2: These other children. Yeah, that's what I what I did.
Speaker 2: I grew up with my own children. That's what was
Speaker 2: my childhood. Yeah, you know, I play with my children
Speaker 2: just like I was one of them.
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, I did the same thing.
Speaker 2: One day, one of the neighbors looked at me, one
Speaker 2: of the little girls, and she's says, how old are you?
Speaker 1: These were stories that neither Christina nor Isabelle had ever
Speaker 1: told each other. Watching them connect like this, it feels
Speaker 1: like a good time to bring the subject back to basketball.
Speaker 1: How much over the past thirty years, Christina's fretted over
Speaker 1: Isabel's decision. Knowing this now, I ask Isabelle, would you
Speaker 1: have done things differently?
Speaker 2: Oh? I wished I had a known more about it
Speaker 2: at the time, But I mean, I still have no
Speaker 2: regrets about it.
Speaker 1: It's as though Isabelle just doesn't understand what the word
Speaker 1: regret means. So I offer a working definition. If we
Speaker 1: were to set off in a time machine where we
Speaker 1: could return to that time at Christina.
Speaker 2: Say, I know what you're saying, but frankly, I don't
Speaker 2: know what i'd do. You know. I really don't. It
Speaker 2: would depend on what kind of a mood I'm.
Speaker 1: In, if you're in the mood that you're in right now, I.
Speaker 2: Really have no idea. I could give you a lot
Speaker 2: of BS and tell you how good I would have been,
Speaker 2: but it wouldn't be the truth.
Speaker 1: I think like a lot of people would just give
Speaker 1: Christina the BS.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't do that. I usually tell the truth.
Speaker 1: Like most I can lie upwards of ten thousand times
Speaker 1: a day. It helps ease the friction of getting through life.
Speaker 1: People ask how I am, and I say fine, Does
Speaker 1: this jumpsuit make my ass look fat? And I say no?
Speaker 1: And so on, lying all the day long until bedtime,
Speaker 1: at which point I'm not sure the lying stops. I
Speaker 1: can probably lie in my dreams. In other words, I
Speaker 1: hold lying to be the greatest gift God gave to man.
Speaker 1: But even with all of our lies and best intentions,
Speaker 1: we still can't escape hurting one another. I don't think
Speaker 1: Isabelle is a cruel woman, but I do think she
Speaker 1: knows that hurting people and being hurt is the price
Speaker 1: one pays for being human.
Speaker 2: There is nothing out of the ordinary in our lives,
Speaker 2: but just you know, even ordinary lives are could upsetting.
Speaker 2: Sometimes it's a decision that was made when she was younger.
Speaker 2: It wasn't the right one, but how many wrong decisions
Speaker 2: are made as we go along. Regretting something is a
Speaker 2: waste of time. You move on, find something else to
Speaker 2: be passionate about.
Speaker 1: In spite of their similar childhoods, Isabelle and Christina see
Speaker 1: the world so differently. Christina is a dreamer, and for her,
Speaker 1: the best possible world is the one that's always just
Speaker 1: out of reach. But for Isabelle, it's not about pursuing
Speaker 1: the best possible world at all. It's about making the
Speaker 1: best of this world, the one you're stuck in, and
Speaker 1: evidently with the people you're stuck with.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't look after her, if you know. If I
Speaker 2: didn't care about it, it would have been different, I think,
Speaker 2: you know. But I was interested in what she did
Speaker 2: and how she progressed, and wanted her to do well
Speaker 2: at school and do well in everything, and I was
Speaker 2: very proud of her when she did. She was with
Speaker 2: us a long time. Couldn't get rid of her. Just kidding.
Speaker 1: Isabelle pauses, and then she says, appraisingly, she deserves a
Speaker 1: good life.
Speaker 2: I do have one good and I think it's better
Speaker 2: because she had some stability in it, which I feel
Speaker 2: she got in my own.
Speaker 1: I'll get on that side. We say our goodbyes and
Speaker 1: head to the car. Outside Isabelle's, the parking lot has
Speaker 1: grown dark. Thank you. Yeah. As we get into the
Speaker 1: rental car, Christina lets out a sigh. Well, so, how
Speaker 1: did how did you feel that about that?
Speaker 8: M hmm. It was just really intense and there's a
Speaker 8: lot of things that she said that were like that
Speaker 8: were very hurtful to me. It's like she affected me tonight,
Speaker 8: but not in the way that she used to. I
Speaker 8: didn't get I didn't get the fuzzy teddy bear cuddly.
Speaker 7: Thing, and that's okay that I didn't get that. But
Speaker 7: what I got was her and.
Speaker 8: It wasn't everything I needed.
Speaker 7: But I feel like.
Speaker 4: That's how she shows love.
Speaker 8: And it's not with hugs, and it's not with I
Speaker 8: love yous, and it's not with.
Speaker 3: Praise necessarily either.
Speaker 8: It's in a way that I understand now, whereas before
Speaker 8: I just felt like she just didn't even like me,
Speaker 8: But now I can see that she loves me in
Speaker 8: her way and in the best way that she knows how.
Speaker 1: In the end, it seems like this is why Christina
Speaker 1: came here, not to find out why Isabelle made her
Speaker 1: stop playing basketball, but to find out whether Isabelle loved her, And,
Speaker 1: in her tough, straight shooting, slightly scary way, it's pretty
Speaker 1: clear she does. Do you know why I want to
Speaker 1: go to Scotta Park? No, it's a surprise. Oh, it's
Speaker 1: not a big surprise. The next morning, before heading home,
Speaker 1: I take Christina and her husband Levi out to a
Speaker 1: nearby park. I have a paper bag I've been carrying
Speaker 1: with me since Brooklyn. It's a good thing you're wearing
Speaker 1: running shoes. When the anticipation reaches its zenith, I revealed
Speaker 1: to Christina and Levi what's in the bag of basketball,
Speaker 1: which I think they'd sort of guessed since we were
Speaker 1: now standing by a basketball court and I was dribbling
Speaker 1: a spherical paper bag. I turned to LEVI, have you
Speaker 1: ever seen seen to play basketball before?
Speaker 10: Maybe not?
Speaker 7: Yeah, I don't think we've ever played.
Speaker 1: Christina says she hasn't played in over ten years. She
Speaker 1: doesn't even watch basketball on TV anymore. I hold out
Speaker 1: the ball and Christina looks at it. Then She looks
Speaker 1: at Levi and then she takes it from my hands.
Speaker 4: Check check, Oh rusty.
Speaker 1: But when she gets going, it seems to come back
Speaker 1: to her.
Speaker 3: Oh, behind the back, behind the back, behind the back again.
Speaker 2: Oh, it goes.
Speaker 1: Trash talking, calling her own shots, driving hard to the basket.
Speaker 1: There was a different sign to Christina that was coming
Speaker 1: out on the court. It happened suddenly and easily.
Speaker 2: You're going to get that.
Speaker 3: I think it's too nothing at this point. I don't
Speaker 3: think I've scored it.
Speaker 4: Have I.
Speaker 1: The best basketball players are said to have an almost
Speaker 1: supernatural ability to see a little head, to anticipate what
Speaker 1: will happen next. But Christina and Levi aren't that good,
Speaker 1: and so they play like a couple of kids for
Speaker 1: whom the future doesn't matter or the past, And in
Speaker 1: that space between, it seems like a pretty good life.
Speaker 9: Okay, I love you.
Speaker 5: Now that the furniture's rich, I do it's goodwill home.
Speaker 5: Now that the last month's rent is scheming with the
Speaker 5: damage to poss take this moment to desd.
Speaker 2: If we met and we.
Speaker 5: Two, we felt around for far from things that accidentally.
Speaker 1: Hello, Christina, Hi, Hi, it's Jonathan, Hi.
Speaker 7: Jonathan How are you.
Speaker 1: I'm good, How are you good?
Speaker 2: Thanks?
Speaker 1: Where are you in bc oh?
Speaker 4: No, in Portland?
Speaker 1: In Portland? Right, Yes, after we met, I went to
Speaker 1: see I went to visit a cousin of mine who
Speaker 1: lives in BC oh.
Speaker 7: Nice.
Speaker 1: It's very generous of you to say that. So this
Speaker 1: story came out by god eight years.
Speaker 4: Ago, yeah, almost nine, I think.
Speaker 1: Does it feel that long ago?
Speaker 4: It feels simultaneously that long ago and maybe longer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this might be a big question. But what's changed
Speaker 1: for you since then?
Speaker 4: I mean outwardly, I think not a ton.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 4: I mean Isabelle died.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you would mention. I was sorry to hear that.
Speaker 1: But you had also said that you saw her again.
Speaker 2: I did.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I think my foster brother called and said that
Speaker 4: she was in the hospital and not doing well. And
Speaker 4: she I think was ninety five at this point, okay,
Speaker 4: And so it was kind of like, if you want
Speaker 4: to say goodbye, now is your time?
Speaker 1: Huh?
Speaker 2: And so I chose to go.
Speaker 4: And she was very kind and very grateful that I went.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Do you remember what you talked about with Isabelle
Speaker 1: on that last visit? Was it just small talk?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 7: It was pretty pretty surface.
Speaker 1: Level, so she was. There was no there was no
Speaker 1: like deathbed regret, not at all. I mean, it's not surprising.
Speaker 4: I was going to say, you can't be shocked at that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Have you re listened to the episode.
Speaker 4: A couple of times?
Speaker 1: Really? Yeah?
Speaker 4: And I think that listening back to it kind of
Speaker 4: helped me look at it from a different perspective. I
Speaker 4: think with Isabelle, I blamed her for ruining my life
Speaker 4: for a lot of years, and in order for me
Speaker 4: to move forward, I needed to let go of that
Speaker 4: you know, old kind of story.
Speaker 1: When you talk about like letting go of a particular story,
Speaker 1: was the story that that had you been able to
Speaker 1: continue with basketball, your life would have been different.
Speaker 4: I think. I think it's a really dangerous thing to
Speaker 4: to to guess what our life would have or could
Speaker 4: have been like had this thing happened or not happened,
Speaker 4: And that kind of steals the joy from the present moment.
Speaker 4: And I just made a decision that I was done
Speaker 4: letting my past define me or steal my joy essentially,
Speaker 4: And that sounds very like I don't know, wou.
Speaker 1: Wu or no. I mean it's not easy to do.
Speaker 1: Was there any moment of I don't know, maybe it's
Speaker 1: hard to think about it in this way, but was
Speaker 1: like there a moment of illumination where it just clicked.
Speaker 3: After that.
Speaker 4: Interview with her, I just was kind of like, Oh,
Speaker 4: I'm trying to get blood from a stone and that's
Speaker 4: just never going to happen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's well put. I wonder though, if if the
Speaker 1: something like that, you just needed to go through that
Speaker 1: to play it out, to see that, you know, and
Speaker 1: to have like to have witnesses.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think I think that was very powerful and
Speaker 4: very healing. One thing that was very interesting for me
Speaker 4: was after our interview Levi, I got really emotional and
Speaker 4: was like, I can't imagine, like how hard that was
Speaker 4: for you. And I think it just kind of gave
Speaker 4: him a little bit more of a perspective of what
Speaker 4: I went through and maybe a bit more compassion for
Speaker 4: how sometimes I can be a little emotional or overreact
Speaker 4: to certain things or be you know, overly sensitive.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and wait, there was another there was something else.
Speaker 1: So your last name is Whismer, and Levi's last name
Speaker 1: is Buckingham, and you've officially combined Portmanteaud your names into Whizzingham.
Speaker 1: So it's whizzing ham. It's like it's like it gives
Speaker 1: you the feeling of, if I may be so bold,
Speaker 1: like a pig that has attained like some kind of
Speaker 1: flight velocity. It's just whizzing by. I think you're ahead
Speaker 1: of the curve with this, just like you were with
Speaker 1: with disc golf.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think more couples are going to be doing this.
Speaker 4: Well. We actually have friends who did the same thing,
Speaker 4: and so I was the one that came up with
Speaker 4: their name.
Speaker 1: You're the guru of it. Yeah, Well, it was just
Speaker 1: nice to hear your voice and to catch up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you too, and give warm regards to Levi.
Speaker 4: I will thank you so much.
Speaker 10: Okay, take care, Christina.
Speaker 1: Thanks to everyone who originally put this episode together. We'll
Speaker 1: be back with another update in two weeks. And if
Speaker 1: you want no presh, you can sign up for our
Speaker 1: free newsletter. It's free at patreon dot com slash Heavyweight.
Speaker 1: Tell everybody how great it is. Go ahead, Stevie, Yeah,
Speaker 1: can you tell everybody about how wonderful this newsletter is.
Speaker 1: It's pretty wonderful, and boys, it's full of fun. We
Speaker 1: have photographs of Christina and her dogs. Recommendations for all
Speaker 1: kinds of things that myself and the staff are enjoying. Stevie,
Speaker 1: what's something that you're enjoying these days.
Speaker 4: I'm enjoying this.
Speaker 1: You know what, spoiler alert. You got to sign up
Speaker 1: for the newsletter to find out all kinds of cool stuff.
Speaker 1: Just sign up for the free newsletter. Thank you very much.
Speaker 8: They can do one thing, a thing to do