Speaker 1: Family Secrets is a production of I Heart Radio. Warning.
Speaker 1: This episode contains discussions of suicide. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 1: If you are a loved one is struggling with suicidal thoughts,
Speaker 1: please call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline. At I think
Speaker 1: I was old enough to think, not like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: she lied to me. I can't believe she did that.
Speaker 1: But I think I had the thought, well, there must
Speaker 1: be a reason she lied about it. There must be
Speaker 1: a reason she didn't want me to know. I think
Speaker 1: I was worried about like upsetting her, or I wouldn't
Speaker 1: say I was scared. I was more nervous to say anything.
Speaker 1: So I just that's kind of my m O, like nervous.
Speaker 1: Sometimes if I'm scared or nervous to do something, I
Speaker 1: just don't do it, or I put it off. I'd
Speaker 1: procrastinate it. That's Lindsay Romer. And this is a story
Speaker 1: of a layer to see grit, the kind that begins
Speaker 1: in childhood and moves through life in various ways, sometimes
Speaker 1: so subtle that we don't even know what's happening. We
Speaker 1: just have a faint whiff of something not quite adding up,
Speaker 1: not quite making sense. And as always when the secret
Speaker 1: is finally spoken, fully revealed, Finally, though it may be shocking,
Speaker 1: finally we understand. I'm Danny Shapiro, and this is family secrets,
Speaker 1: the secrets that are kept from us, the secrets we
Speaker 1: keep from others, and the secrets we keep from ourselves.
Speaker 1: I grew up in Baltimore County, Maryland, was born there,
Speaker 1: and I really have nothing but positive memories of my childhood,
Speaker 1: even with you know, my parents got divorced when I
Speaker 1: was I think, maybe like three, but I still everything.
Speaker 1: I think it's when you're a child, you kind of
Speaker 1: see everything with rose colored glasses. I guess that makes sense.
Speaker 1: It was just kind of normal. There were kids that
Speaker 1: I went to school with her that I knew that
Speaker 1: seemed to have a whole lot of things, things that
Speaker 1: they did in their lives, sometimes like more than I
Speaker 1: guess what I felt like I had. But I never
Speaker 1: felt like I was missing anything. My mom was always
Speaker 1: very loving and caring and a cute little house in
Speaker 1: Baltimore County, and it was me and my brother and
Speaker 1: your brother is he's three years younger than me. Do
Speaker 1: you have memories of that really early childhood time. I
Speaker 1: know your father died when you were five. Do you
Speaker 1: have memories of him? He was actually a magician. Um.
Speaker 1: He used to, you know, do shows all over the
Speaker 1: place and would always do my birthday parties. And I
Speaker 1: just remember him as like a happy, just kind of glowing,
Speaker 1: magical person. I don't ever remember him seeming or being
Speaker 1: sad or upset. Do you have any memories of his
Speaker 1: performing at your at your birthday parties? I do. There's
Speaker 1: one in particular. It's just kind of like a flash
Speaker 1: of a memory. Sitting in front of the bay window
Speaker 1: at our old house, and maybe it was probably a
Speaker 1: small party, maybe I had like seven or eight friends over,
Speaker 1: and he did you know, it, was doing some magic tricks.
Speaker 1: And it was this combination of so excited and happy
Speaker 1: that he was performing for us, and also like very proud,
Speaker 1: you know, thinking like, oh my god, my friends must
Speaker 1: think this is so cool. My dad's a magician. And
Speaker 1: maybe cool wasn't the word I used, but oh my god,
Speaker 1: my dad's a magician, Like this is kind of as
Speaker 1: good as it gets for a tiny kid. I remember
Speaker 1: being at one of his magic shows in the theater,
Speaker 1: and I was either in the front row or pretty
Speaker 1: close to the front row and I had I remember
Speaker 1: these sun kissed fruit snacks that my mom used to buy,
Speaker 1: and they were a little little like pellet shaped things,
Speaker 1: and I would wash them onto my fingernails and pretend
Speaker 1: that I had pretty fancy lady nails. And I remember
Speaker 1: watching one of his magic shows while sitting doing that
Speaker 1: with my nails in the audience. After my parents separated,
Speaker 1: he had um, you know, obviously his own place, and
Speaker 1: it was just decorated with so much magic stuff. I
Speaker 1: remember there was a slot machine that took dines, and
Speaker 1: he would just have this unlimited supply of dimes and
Speaker 1: would just let me play on that. Did your mom
Speaker 1: work as well? She did. She still has the same
Speaker 1: job she had. Um Out of school, she went to
Speaker 1: Micah and she's an interior designer. Tell me a little
Speaker 1: bit more about your mother. My mom, she's somebody I
Speaker 1: hold as you know, Like I said, my brother is
Speaker 1: one of my best friends, I hold my mom just
Speaker 1: as close. She's someone over the years that I have
Speaker 1: grown to develop just so much respect for and how
Speaker 1: much love. And I've always loved her. I've never there's
Speaker 1: never a point in my life and I was like,
Speaker 1: you know, my Mom's the meanest other than probably when
Speaker 1: I was going through puberty and she told me I
Speaker 1: couldn't go to the movies or something. But she is
Speaker 1: someone that I now have two step daughters that are
Speaker 1: nine and eleven, and there's so many times that I
Speaker 1: will call her a text her and be like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, one of them just did something to me
Speaker 1: that really upset me or hurt my feelings. And I
Speaker 1: know I did the same thing to you, and I'm
Speaker 1: so sorry, And you know, this gives me this whole
Speaker 1: new level of respect for her. I think is a parent.
Speaker 1: And one thing that always stuck out to me is
Speaker 1: when we were kids, you know, we weren't wealthy by
Speaker 1: any means, but she never, if you know, me and
Speaker 1: my brother would ask for a million things as kids do,
Speaker 1: whether we were at the grocery store, towards r US
Speaker 1: or wherever, and she would never say we can't afford that.
Speaker 1: She would just say we don't need that. And that
Speaker 1: was something that looking back as an adult, I think
Speaker 1: was just um a wise, I guess way of saying
Speaker 1: that to us and kind of helped me, I guess
Speaker 1: as I grew up as an adult valuate you know,
Speaker 1: do I need this? No, I don't need this. Maybe
Speaker 1: I just put it back on the shelf. I shouldn't
Speaker 1: get it today. Right, that's so interesting. So it wasn't
Speaker 1: coming from a place of scarcity, but from like a
Speaker 1: value judgment or weighing what's necessary or what we need
Speaker 1: and what we don't. M hm. So Lindsay's dad is
Speaker 1: a magician. Really, this has got to be like hitting
Speaker 1: the parental jackpot. Well, maybe astronaut or owner of a
Speaker 1: candy factory. It's been a couple of years since her
Speaker 1: parents marriage ended. Her parents now share custody, and Lindsay's
Speaker 1: father is supposed to be picking Lindsay and her brother
Speaker 1: up for their time with him. But on this particular night,
Speaker 1: he never shows. It was a Tuesday night and my
Speaker 1: mom was out of town and my grandmother was staying
Speaker 1: with us, and he just didn't show up. But I
Speaker 1: remember like looking out the window and it just got
Speaker 1: later and later and later, and he just never arrived.
Speaker 1: My grandmother and then she was like, you know, it's
Speaker 1: too late, you guys have to go to bed. Let's
Speaker 1: just go to bed. And the next day my mom
Speaker 1: came back from her trip early. I wasn't expecting her
Speaker 1: that early, and there were all these people in our
Speaker 1: house and I couldn't find my mom. They're just I
Speaker 1: kept being like, where's my mom, where's my mom? And
Speaker 1: I remember people being leave your mother alone. She'll she'll
Speaker 1: be down in a minute, and leave your mother alone.
Speaker 1: But I just had this very vivid memory of being
Speaker 1: in that house and just seeing, you know, as short
Speaker 1: as I was at five years old, just seeing all
Speaker 1: these legs everywhere. And then I finally went up and
Speaker 1: found her in her bedroom and she sat me down
Speaker 1: and was like, I have to tell you something. Daddy
Speaker 1: died in a car accident. And I don't think at
Speaker 1: that age I really quite understood what death was. We
Speaker 1: had had a dog that died, but I don't think
Speaker 1: that was ever. I knew the dog just wasn't coming back.
Speaker 1: She but just wasn't coming back anymore. But I don't
Speaker 1: think I quite understood. But I do remember sitting on
Speaker 1: her bed and crying because I think I knew death
Speaker 1: was like I knew she been net wasn't coming back
Speaker 1: so then, and my dad wasn't coming back. And I'm
Speaker 1: assuming your brother wasn't there for that conversation because he
Speaker 1: was too little. Oh yeah, he was so little. I
Speaker 1: mean he was I guess a little over too. I
Speaker 1: don't know what kind of conversation my mother had with him,
Speaker 1: or how she said it or what she said, but
Speaker 1: I'm sure something simple was communicated to him. So Lindsay
Speaker 1: grows up having been told that her dad died in
Speaker 1: a car accident. She was also told that the accident
Speaker 1: was due to carbon monoxide poisoning. As children, we tend
Speaker 1: to take what we're told at face value, and yet
Speaker 1: at the same time, if it doesn't make sense, we
Speaker 1: puzzle over it, or we get nervous about it. We
Speaker 1: can't quite let it go. We create our own narratives,
Speaker 1: as Lindsay does. Here, remember asking, and my mom said
Speaker 1: something along the lines of if he's stay in your
Speaker 1: car for too long with the windows rolled up, carbon
Speaker 1: monoxide can get in your car and it can kill you.
Speaker 1: So the way that was explained to me, I didn't
Speaker 1: quite get it. So, like when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: at red lights in the car, I would crack my
Speaker 1: window a little bit because I was afraid that would
Speaker 1: happen if we sat at a red light for too
Speaker 1: long with our windows rolled on. Does your mom me Mary?
Speaker 1: She did, Yeah, when I was about ten, How did
Speaker 1: you experience loss of your father, Like, how did you
Speaker 1: internalize it? And how did you think about him as
Speaker 1: you were growing up, as you got a little bit older,
Speaker 1: as your mom remarried, as you got to middle school,
Speaker 1: high school, how did that sit inside of you? First
Speaker 1: and foremost, I just I missed him, But I think
Speaker 1: I always felt like I didn't know anybody else to
Speaker 1: my age whose father had died, So I guess it
Speaker 1: made me feel really left out sometimes. Or if I
Speaker 1: would go to a friend's house and see them, like,
Speaker 1: you know, their father hug them, or their father be
Speaker 1: there at dinner, or their father take them somewhere or
Speaker 1: take us somewhere, that was always like a reminder I
Speaker 1: don't have that. I don't have a my biological dad
Speaker 1: here anymore. It wasn't something I think I thought about
Speaker 1: twenty four hours a day, but I would notice it
Speaker 1: in moments like that, and it just made me feel
Speaker 1: kind of left out or mothered, or it made me
Speaker 1: feel sad. How old are you when you learn that
Speaker 1: there's more to the story than carbon monoxide poisoning. As
Speaker 1: I grew up, I would see very sele sporadically, not often,
Speaker 1: but once in a while I would see somebody it
Speaker 1: portrayed in like a TV show or a movie where
Speaker 1: somebody would get in their car and attach to you know,
Speaker 1: regular car up so that that would happen, and I
Speaker 1: remember thinking, that's weird. And I remember hearing carbon monoxide
Speaker 1: said out loud in at least one or two of
Speaker 1: these shows or movies, and I was like, Oh, that's weird.
Speaker 1: That guy did it on purpose. I was told it
Speaker 1: was an accident of what happened to my dad, that
Speaker 1: it wasn't on purpose. And when I was in high school,
Speaker 1: my stepdad. My stepdad has two brothers. One it's awesome
Speaker 1: and we see him all the time at holidays and
Speaker 1: whenever our families get together. And the other one, I
Speaker 1: think has struggled with mental illness his whole life, and
Speaker 1: he would do odd things. And there was one time
Speaker 1: when I was in high school and he called our
Speaker 1: house and I answered that I happened to be the
Speaker 1: one to answer the phone, and you know, maybe we
Speaker 1: had call her. I d then, I don't know, it
Speaker 1: was like the house phone and I just said hello,
Speaker 1: and he said Lindsay why did your dad kill himself?
Speaker 1: And I was like, okay, Mom, Jack's on the phone, like,
Speaker 1: what what is this? You know? She took the phone
Speaker 1: and I guess they had their conversation, and then when
Speaker 1: she hung up, I told her what he said, and
Speaker 1: she said, oh, he's crazy. Don't listen to him. That's
Speaker 1: not true. I was like, Okay, he had done some
Speaker 1: had some kind of erratic and odd behavior in the past,
Speaker 1: so I didn't think to like question um what she said.
Speaker 1: And then when I was I was like twenty two
Speaker 1: or twenty three, I had gotten accepted into an AmeriCorps program.
Speaker 1: We're just kind of like Peace Corps, but in America,
Speaker 1: and I needed my birth certificate or a copy of
Speaker 1: my birth certificate for it. And I was always I'm
Speaker 1: embarrassed to admit that I was such a snoop when
Speaker 1: I was a kid. It's always like going through stuff
Speaker 1: in my house that was not mine. But this wasn't
Speaker 1: even like intentional snooping. I really I knew we had
Speaker 1: this file cabinet in the basement that had documents in it,
Speaker 1: and I don't know if my mom wasn't home or
Speaker 1: if I just didn't want to bother her and I
Speaker 1: went looking for my birth certificate and I found my
Speaker 1: dad's death certificate, and I remember it was a plain,
Speaker 1: simple piece of paper and there were different options like
Speaker 1: natural causes illness, a few other things in suicide, and
Speaker 1: I just remember there's a big typewriter looking X next
Speaker 1: to suicide, and I was like, whoa it. You know,
Speaker 1: was the first time I guess it was really confirmed
Speaker 1: for me. And I think in the back of my mind,
Speaker 1: I think I knew that's what it was, even though
Speaker 1: my mom told me it wasn't. It was based on
Speaker 1: those depictions that I had seen in TV shows and movies,
Speaker 1: and I think I just didn't want to really accept
Speaker 1: that as the truth. And then I didn't really have
Speaker 1: a choice but to accept it when I saw it
Speaker 1: on the paper. You know, it's so interesting when you
Speaker 1: when you bring up snooping, because that's such a theme,
Speaker 1: was people who have had secrets kept from them. I
Speaker 1: think we so often become these little slews or snoops,
Speaker 1: you know, without having any idea why, but it becomes
Speaker 1: this like little obsessive behavior. It was kind of it's
Speaker 1: funny that you said that it was sound was like
Speaker 1: a little private investigator. Yeah, I guess that now here
Speaker 1: you say that that makes a lot of sense to me.
Speaker 1: I don't think I could have put into words before.
Speaker 1: I think I think I was thought I was just
Speaker 1: like a rude little kid. It's like, I'm going to
Speaker 1: find some things out that I'm probably not sopposed too.
Speaker 1: If you can call it back to mind, what did
Speaker 1: it feel like that moment that you saw that X
Speaker 1: next to suicide. I think physically the feeling I felt
Speaker 1: was like my stomach dropped. But then in my mind
Speaker 1: I almost said to myself, Duck, you've known this. Jack
Speaker 1: said it, You've seen this in movies. You just weren't
Speaker 1: letting the puzzle pieces all get pushed together in the
Speaker 1: right arrangement. I think I kind of didn't want to
Speaker 1: believe it, so I didn't believe it, but then I
Speaker 1: had to when I found that paper. We'll be back
Speaker 1: in a moment with more family secrets now. Lindsay knows
Speaker 1: unequivocally that her mother has actively kept from her the
Speaker 1: fact of her other suicide. She had directly asked, and
Speaker 1: her mother had said, and I quote, no, no, that
Speaker 1: didn't happen. She sits on this information for a little
Speaker 1: while wrestling with it privately. She also doesn't want to
Speaker 1: cause her mother pain. Sometimes it's easier not to say
Speaker 1: anything at all. I think I was old enough to think,
Speaker 1: not like, oh my god, she lied to me. I
Speaker 1: can't believe she did that, But I think I had
Speaker 1: the thought, well, there must be a reason she lied
Speaker 1: about it. There must be a reason she didn't want
Speaker 1: me to know. I think I was worried about like
Speaker 1: upsetting her, or I wouldn't say I was scared. I
Speaker 1: was more nervous to say anything. So I just that's
Speaker 1: kind of my m O, like nervous. Sometimes if I'm
Speaker 1: scared or nervous to do something, I just don't do it,
Speaker 1: or I put it off, or I procrastinate it. So
Speaker 1: it wasn't until a couple of months later when I
Speaker 1: was actually away. I was in Denver, Colorado, at a
Speaker 1: training for my Americorp program, and one night, I'm really
Speaker 1: not sure what inspired me to do it, I just
Speaker 1: called her. I just was like, I'm going to do
Speaker 1: this now. And I called her and told her what
Speaker 1: I found. And I just remember hearing this, not an
Speaker 1: angry sigh, not a sad sigh, just a I don't
Speaker 1: know if it was relief or if it was worried
Speaker 1: or if I don't know what it was, but she
Speaker 1: just kind of sighed and said, yeah, yeah, that's what happened.
Speaker 1: And I remember asking her, like, you know, why didn't
Speaker 1: you tell me? And her response was just, you know,
Speaker 1: when should I have? There never was a right time.
Speaker 1: Just I didn't know how to tell a five year
Speaker 1: old little girl that, and when do I do it
Speaker 1: when you're ten, when you're fifteen, eighteen twenty one. There
Speaker 1: never was a right time, and I just never knew
Speaker 1: when to drop that bomb. And you know, I was like,
Speaker 1: I get that, that's kind of a nice kind of
Speaker 1: the way I operate. If I'm scared or I don't
Speaker 1: know how, I just don't do it. I think I
Speaker 1: remember being a little bit like you lied to me?
Speaker 1: Why you lied to me? And I think her response
Speaker 1: was just kind of I panicked. You know, I didn't
Speaker 1: expect Jack to call and say anything like that to you.
Speaker 1: That's not you know, if you ever were to know,
Speaker 1: that's not the way I wanted you didn't find out.
Speaker 1: I wasn't mad or anything, but I was grateful that
Speaker 1: we had that conversation and that she did open up
Speaker 1: about it, And did she give you any sense of
Speaker 1: the reason for or the motivation behind your father's suicide.
Speaker 1: Did she talk about his being in any way unstable
Speaker 1: or mentally ill or depressed? Not really. It was kind
Speaker 1: of like my whole life. She didn't speak highly of him,
Speaker 1: but she also didn't speak poorly of him. She just
Speaker 1: didn't really speak about him much at all. And I noticed,
Speaker 1: you know, throughout my life if I had a question
Speaker 1: about him, where I brought him up, it almost seemed
Speaker 1: like she kind of like winced or like her body
Speaker 1: tense stuff. And that communicated to me like maybe I
Speaker 1: shouldn't bring him up too often because it just seemed
Speaker 1: like uncomfortable or maybe painful for her. She just said,
Speaker 1: and that conversation when I was in Denver just that
Speaker 1: he was very he was very depressed. He was having
Speaker 1: on her time. But she really didn't give me any
Speaker 1: kind of details about anything, you know. It's it's also
Speaker 1: so interesting I think when as children or in families,
Speaker 1: when we sense that a subject is painful or off limits,
Speaker 1: or you know, you describe your mother as wincing, that
Speaker 1: serves to keep us quiet. It serves to you know, like,
Speaker 1: not want to cause pain, not want to rock the
Speaker 1: boat in any way. I think it too was like
Speaker 1: my mother. I've always just seen her as perfect and strong,
Speaker 1: and I didn't want to do anything to make her
Speaker 1: not feel like that or upset her, don't make her
Speaker 1: feel sad. Lindsey grows up to be a successful adult
Speaker 1: with a great job. She has the whole story. She
Speaker 1: knows all there is to know about how she lost
Speaker 1: her father. She's moved on. If you were to come
Speaker 1: across her Facebook page, you'd see whatever she had made
Speaker 1: public on social media, perhaps a few photos and posts,
Speaker 1: the information that you worked for a nonprofit and it
Speaker 1: graduated from Villanova. You know, so many family secret stories
Speaker 1: would not have come to light if not for social media,
Speaker 1: and what you're about to hear next is one of them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think with my early thirties, I've got the Facebook
Speaker 1: message from a man named Brian um Because, a very
Speaker 1: handsome older man with gray hair and like a gray goatee,
Speaker 1: And this message said I knew your dad and I
Speaker 1: knew your grandmother. We were friends. It looks like you
Speaker 1: live a really great life right now. I think your
Speaker 1: dad would be very happy to see that, and when
Speaker 1: I first read it, it caught me off guard because
Speaker 1: that my father just wasn't spoken of often really, even
Speaker 1: between my brother and I that much. UM and we
Speaker 1: didn't see my father there's side of the family very
Speaker 1: often either, So it just wasn't a topic that came
Speaker 1: up a lot. I thought about it a lot, but
Speaker 1: it wasn't something that was like spoken about a lot.
Speaker 1: So to have this, you know, essentially a stranger send
Speaker 1: me this message, you know, part of it was just
Speaker 1: it just really caught me off guard, and I didn't
Speaker 1: really know how to respond to it, so I didn't.
Speaker 1: And then I asked my mom about the name, and
Speaker 1: she said, yeah, you don't really have to respond to
Speaker 1: that person, like you didn't show any kind of emotion
Speaker 1: in her face, didn't just was like, ah, yeah, that
Speaker 1: might have been someone from your day's pass and now
Speaker 1: you don't have to respond to him. I was like,
Speaker 1: all right, So your mother says, no need to get
Speaker 1: back to him, so that door gets closed. And then
Speaker 1: what happens, Well, I guess fast forward maybe like five six,
Speaker 1: seven years, and generally the education and training programs that
Speaker 1: I do are around Baltimore City, UM in Baltimore County.
Speaker 1: But one of my co workers who lives on the
Speaker 1: eastern shore of Maryland and she you know, does education
Speaker 1: around there. She was out on medical weave and she
Speaker 1: had this class that she did at facility in Delaware
Speaker 1: that supports folks who are in recovery from drives and alcohol.
Speaker 1: And my supervisor was like, hey, listen, I know this
Speaker 1: is super far away. It's just once a month. Can
Speaker 1: you cover these until your coworkers out of medical agnostic? Sure,
Speaker 1: no problem. And I had just started to get into
Speaker 1: listening to podcasts, and I was like, amazing, I've got
Speaker 1: like a two plus hour drive, you know, five probably
Speaker 1: five hours round trip. I was in my car that
Speaker 1: day and I think that around the times when I
Speaker 1: stumbled on your podcast Family Secrets, and I found myself
Speaker 1: so immersed into the episodes and they made the drive
Speaker 1: feel like it was twenty minutes. And I remember pulling
Speaker 1: up to the facility on the first class that I
Speaker 1: did there, and I was like, I wish I wish
Speaker 1: the driver longer. Um, you know, totally enjoyed my class
Speaker 1: with them, and then I was really excited to get
Speaker 1: back in the car and listen to more and I
Speaker 1: found myself really eating with a lot of the guests
Speaker 1: that you had, and I thought to myself, Wow, we
Speaker 1: had a family secret, but I already figured mine out,
Speaker 1: you know, finding my father's death certificate. And it started
Speaker 1: to make me think, as I heard some of your
Speaker 1: guests say, sometimes when they found out the secret that
Speaker 1: was within their family, the secret keepers had had passed
Speaker 1: away and they were not able to ask the questions
Speaker 1: to those people that they wanted to ask. And I'm
Speaker 1: almost finished your book, Dannos, like six pages left. I
Speaker 1: was soping to have it's on before I got on
Speaker 1: the call with you today, but I noticed that it
Speaker 1: sounded like that was something for you too. I think
Speaker 1: that you wish you had been able to ask your
Speaker 1: parents about your family secret. So I thought to myself,
Speaker 1: you know, my mom doesn't love to talk about my
Speaker 1: father that much. So I really need to start reaching
Speaker 1: out to people that I know and find out some
Speaker 1: more stories, because if I don't find these out, they're
Speaker 1: gonna leave this earth with the people that know them.
Speaker 1: Lindsay is right. That was such a fear and preoccupation
Speaker 1: of mine as well. When I first discovered my family's secret.
Speaker 1: My parents were gone, and they had taken it to
Speaker 1: the grave with them, but there was a great sense
Speaker 1: of urgency to identify and find those who were still
Speaker 1: living and might still know something. Those people started to
Speaker 1: rise to the surface of my consciousness as if they
Speaker 1: had been there all along, just waiting in line for
Speaker 1: some reason. And this message from Brian, like, I never
Speaker 1: forgot about it, I never deleted it, but it came
Speaker 1: back to my mind once in a while, and it
Speaker 1: certainly came back to my mind in those spots, and
Speaker 1: I thought to myself, I should really respond to them.
Speaker 1: I wonder, you know, how he knew my dad or
Speaker 1: what kinds of stories he could tell. So I responded
Speaker 1: to him, and he wrote me back almost immediately, and
Speaker 1: I think accidentally tried to call me on Facebook audio
Speaker 1: and remember seeing my phone ring, and I was like,
Speaker 1: oh God, no, I should have done this. Look, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't know if I wanted. I'm not ready to
Speaker 1: speak at what's happening. I think the message I wrote
Speaker 1: him was something along those lines and not with much detail,
Speaker 1: but you know, I just wanted to reach out and
Speaker 1: see if you I'd be willing to speak with me
Speaker 1: on the phone. I would love to hear some stories
Speaker 1: about my father, and he was very willing to do that,
Speaker 1: and so we set up a date to talk. And
Speaker 1: it was a date. I think I did this on
Speaker 1: purpose because I was meeting some friends for brunch and
Speaker 1: the place where we meeting was about four minutes away
Speaker 1: from where I lived. So I made this date to
Speaker 1: call him on my way out there. And I don't
Speaker 1: want to say anxious was what I felt, but it
Speaker 1: was like when, oh my god, that's gonna happen. What
Speaker 1: it's going to be? And when I called him, he
Speaker 1: sounded kind of slightly out of breath a little bit,
Speaker 1: and I kind of gave him like the background that
Speaker 1: I just gave you, you know what prompted me to
Speaker 1: finally respond to the message. He's okay, and you know,
Speaker 1: asked me a few questions about, you know, what did
Speaker 1: you know about your mom and dad's relationship and what
Speaker 1: did you know about your dad? And I kind of
Speaker 1: was like, why is he asking you? I just wanted
Speaker 1: to hear some stories, and he, you know, said okay, okay,
Speaker 1: and he said, well, your dad was gay and he
Speaker 1: and I had an affair. And there it is the
Speaker 1: secret that had been lurking beneath the secret, the first
Speaker 1: secret suicide, the second secret, Lindsay's father's sexuality, and then
Speaker 1: there's more. And I said, what did you say? And
Speaker 1: he repeated himself and I was like wow, He goes,
Speaker 1: did you have any idea? And I said, nope, now
Speaker 1: I didn't. He went on to tell me all sorts
Speaker 1: of stories about how they met, and there were some
Speaker 1: things that were very heartwarming. There were some things that
Speaker 1: were also kind of upsetting and scary, and I think
Speaker 1: gave me a little bit more of you into my
Speaker 1: father's mental health. I would imagine that being five years
Speaker 1: old and losing your father, one has lost someone that
Speaker 1: one has never really gotten to know in a way
Speaker 1: except for these flashes and these childhood memories. And so
Speaker 1: now you're getting this avalanche of information, right, Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: agree way of saying it. It did feel kind of
Speaker 1: like an avalanche, and it wasn't an unwelcomed avalanche. It
Speaker 1: was like, I was kind of like, wow, Okay, this
Speaker 1: is giving me a much broader picture of who my
Speaker 1: dad was, and you know, what he felt like and
Speaker 1: what he went through. And after speaking with Brian and
Speaker 1: you know, I reached out to a few other people,
Speaker 1: and they all said similar things that he I don't
Speaker 1: know that he was ever diagnosed, but that he had
Speaker 1: bipolar disorder. I never saw the depressive states, I think.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I saw nannic states or if
Speaker 1: I saw, you know, what he wanted me to see
Speaker 1: or what I wanted to see maybe for that matter.
Speaker 1: But one of the first things he said was your
Speaker 1: father was the most charming and charismatic person I've ever met.
Speaker 1: And he said when they met, they had this just
Speaker 1: instant connection. You know, they met, sat in his car
Speaker 1: and talked for like three hours getting to know each other.
Speaker 1: And how did they meet. They met at a gym.
Speaker 1: I didn't ask too much too many details on like
Speaker 1: you know, how that interaction or who walked up to who,
Speaker 1: or how that went down, But I guess what I pictures.
Speaker 1: They saw each other and kind of their eyes locked
Speaker 1: and went towards each other and just started chatting. But
Speaker 1: of course, even as this beautiful love story is playing out,
Speaker 1: someone is suffering terribly because of it, Lindsay's mother. That's
Speaker 1: what I think was extremely hurtful for my mother is
Speaker 1: that she didn't know about his sexuality and he was
Speaker 1: cheating on my mom with this person. And I think
Speaker 1: after speaking to several family members and Brian and eventually
Speaker 1: my mother. You know, it was the eighties, and I
Speaker 1: think he was struggling with his sexuality and he was
Speaker 1: suppressing who he knew he was because I think he
Speaker 1: wanted to have this kind of stereotypical life of a
Speaker 1: wife and kids and you know, white picket fence. I
Speaker 1: don't think he necessarily felt that in his heart was
Speaker 1: a pent who he was, and that, combined with his
Speaker 1: mental illness, made his internal struggle really, really, really difficult.
Speaker 1: From off. I think it was hard for him to
Speaker 1: just come out and be out and be who he was,
Speaker 1: and this was what the world was extremely homophobic, I
Speaker 1: think back then compared to two thousand twenty, when I
Speaker 1: think folks are a lot more accepting than they were,
Speaker 1: you know, fourty years ago. Did his affair, your father's
Speaker 1: affair with Brian have something to do with your parents divorce?
Speaker 1: It did? Yeah, it was only a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 1: I finally talked to my mom about everything, and I
Speaker 1: think I was kind of trying to gather my facts
Speaker 1: and find my information before I talked to her. It
Speaker 1: was another thing. I was just nervous to talk to
Speaker 1: her about it. We'll be right back. A long time
Speaker 1: elapses between the time Lindsay reaches out to Brian and
Speaker 1: learns more of the truth about her father and when
Speaker 1: she decides to actually tell her mother what she's discovered.
Speaker 1: A phrase comes up. It was never the right time. This,
Speaker 1: you might remember, is what Lindsay's own mother had told
Speaker 1: Lindsay about why she never revealed her father's suicide. It
Speaker 1: was never the right time. This is true of so
Speaker 1: many families and so many secrets. We wait, We think
Speaker 1: that the stars will align, that there will be a
Speaker 1: perfect moment, but there never is. I'm embarrassed to say
Speaker 1: it's almost a year and not quite but almost a year,
Speaker 1: maybe about ten months. I guess I was nervous. I
Speaker 1: was afraid of upsetting her. I'm so close to her.
Speaker 1: I hold her as like one of my best friends.
Speaker 1: She's somebody I feel very lucky to have that relationship
Speaker 1: with her, and I can talk to her about just
Speaker 1: about anything. But I was really nervous to talk to
Speaker 1: to her about this. I think I was afraid of
Speaker 1: retraumatizing her and making her like rehash all this. The
Speaker 1: assumption that I made was that this must have been
Speaker 1: so difficult for her to deal with when she found
Speaker 1: out about his affair that she just kind of tucked
Speaker 1: it away in a little box and put it in
Speaker 1: a closet and was like, I'm never going back there again.
Speaker 1: So I was kind of afraid to reopen that box
Speaker 1: for her. And the timing was never right. It's like,
Speaker 1: if I tell her right away, I'm going to ruin that.
Speaker 1: That could ruin that vacation, and then all the holidays
Speaker 1: are coming up. It's going to ruin the holidays. And
Speaker 1: then we had a trip that we were my husband
Speaker 1: and I. My husband's family lived with parents I should
Speaker 1: say live in Florida, and he and I and my
Speaker 1: mom and stepdad were going down there for like a
Speaker 1: long weekend in February. And I was like, I was
Speaker 1: gonna ruin that trip. And I was St Patrick's weekend.
Speaker 1: My mom and I were supposed to go up to
Speaker 1: New York to stay with her sister for the weekend.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like a little tradition we started, I
Speaker 1: guess a year ago, and you know, to see a
Speaker 1: show and TUF dinner and do New Yorkie things, and
Speaker 1: we had to cancel the trip because of Corona, and
Speaker 1: my plan was to talk to her on the train
Speaker 1: ride home because I was like, oh, we'll have at
Speaker 1: least three hours alone together. That's going to be the
Speaker 1: time that I do it. And then we had to
Speaker 1: cancel the trip and I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: we're all quarantined. When am I going to have this conversation?
Speaker 1: Because it was really important to me to do it
Speaker 1: in person. I just felt like it would be unkind
Speaker 1: or rude or or mean even to just do it
Speaker 1: over the phone. Um. I really wanted to be able
Speaker 1: to do it in person. And then I think when
Speaker 1: I finally got the email from your producer to set
Speaker 1: up a date for this call, well, now, my my taker,
Speaker 1: my time is counting down. I have to do this
Speaker 1: before I have this call. Nothing like a deadline, right right,
Speaker 1: Because I really didn't feel comfortable recording this episode without
Speaker 1: like speaking to her first and making sure that she
Speaker 1: was okay with it, because I guess I kind of
Speaker 1: that it is this is not just my story, this
Speaker 1: is her story. This didn't happen to me, This happened
Speaker 1: to her, or you know, happened to us. One of
Speaker 1: the hot topics that I teach and train about his
Speaker 1: consent and I wanted to make sure that I had
Speaker 1: her consent before I did this. And how did she respond?
Speaker 1: She was very surprised. The only time I've been out
Speaker 1: to a restaurant during all of the social distancing and
Speaker 1: its outdoor seating, we were the only people there, so
Speaker 1: it's very safe. We went to Lebanese to vernon, which
Speaker 1: is delicious. And she had I think, like a chicken swarm,
Speaker 1: a wrap in one hand and her fork in the
Speaker 1: other hand. And I said, I need to talk to
Speaker 1: you about something. And I saw her face kind of drop,
Speaker 1: as I'm sure any mother would when their daughter says that.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh my gosh, what's going to come out
Speaker 1: of my child's face right now? And I gave all
Speaker 1: these qualifiers, like I was nervous to bring this up,
Speaker 1: and I wasn't sure how to do it. I don't
Speaker 1: want to upset you. I'm afraid Joe be mad at me.
Speaker 1: And I talked to a man named Brian. She dropped
Speaker 1: her wrap and she dropped her fork and went, oh really,
Speaker 1: I would both had sunglasses on, but she almost looked
Speaker 1: like scared, and that made me feel awful because I didn't,
Speaker 1: you know, I didn't want upset or I didn't want
Speaker 1: to make her mad. Kind of jumped in and said,
Speaker 1: I can't imagine what that must have been like for you.
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry that happened to you. You didn't deserve it.
Speaker 1: And I was just wondering if we could talk about it,
Speaker 1: and she kind of like I could see her relaxed slightly,
Speaker 1: and then she kind of dropped her guard and really
Speaker 1: just kind of shared everything. It sounded like with me
Speaker 1: with what happened. Do you think maybe after holding that
Speaker 1: for so many years that there was some relief? Well,
Speaker 1: I asked her that, I mean it turned into a
Speaker 1: three hour lunch and I said, towards the end, how
Speaker 1: are you feeling? How do you feel? Do you feel relieved?
Speaker 1: And she said kind of, I feel like I should
Speaker 1: feel relieved, but I don't fully feel that. And I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, no, maybe I shouldn't have done this,
Speaker 1: and she went on to say, I don't know if
Speaker 1: I feel relieved because I don't really think about this
Speaker 1: much anymore. She said, I've done a lot of work
Speaker 1: on myself, and I think I've moved past it to
Speaker 1: the point where I don't really think about it much anymore.
Speaker 1: What happened with Brian, You've had a you know, an
Speaker 1: ongoing connection with him. I think he in fact, I
Speaker 1: was able to share some stories and give some insight
Speaker 1: onto who my father was and what he was like
Speaker 1: that I don't know that I would have found out otherwise.
Speaker 1: After I had that initial conversation with him, I then
Speaker 1: was like, you know, immediately reached out to my brother
Speaker 1: and he was just kind of what what our father
Speaker 1: to my brother was kind of almost like this phantom
Speaker 1: person that he doesn't really remember. And after I spoke
Speaker 1: with him, I reached out to my dad's sister and
Speaker 1: we set up a time to speak. And I really
Speaker 1: wish that some of these conversations I had had in person,
Speaker 1: because I kind of wanted to see their facial expressions.
Speaker 1: But I was so nervous for all these different conversations
Speaker 1: with people, and come to find out, they were expecting
Speaker 1: me to ask this. So I called my dad's sister,
Speaker 1: you know, so such this time to speak, and I
Speaker 1: again because I was nervous, you know, gave all this beginning.
Speaker 1: So I had a minute, you know, kind of doing
Speaker 1: some finding some stories and I told her what I
Speaker 1: found out and she said, Lindsay, I've been waiting over
Speaker 1: thirty years for you to ask me about this, and she,
Speaker 1: you know, shared a whole lot. And then I called
Speaker 1: my godfather, who was good friends with my father, and
Speaker 1: he said something similar. And I told my brother about
Speaker 1: all this, and he said, do you think we're the
Speaker 1: only people in the family that I don't know? And
Speaker 1: I was like, Wow, that hadn't occurred to me, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I think you might be right. And my brother was
Speaker 1: working for about six weeks in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and
Speaker 1: Brian lives in Florida, not far from where MITI was working.
Speaker 1: And I'm not sure which one of them got in
Speaker 1: touch with each other first, but and I'm not sure
Speaker 1: who proposed the idea, but they decided to meet up
Speaker 1: in person. And MITCHI called me and told me that,
Speaker 1: and I said, do you want me to book a
Speaker 1: ticket and come with you? And he was, this is
Speaker 1: a really big deal. I said, I know, Do you
Speaker 1: want me to book a ticket and come down? And
Speaker 1: he goes, this is a really big deal and he said, okay,
Speaker 1: I'll book you think getting come down so his wife
Speaker 1: and I flew down and we met up with Brian
Speaker 1: for lunch the next day. And you know, I shared
Speaker 1: all of this with my mom. I told her everything
Speaker 1: at the lunch that we had, and I think it
Speaker 1: was hurtful for her to hear that. Mitchell and I
Speaker 1: went and met this man that our father had an
Speaker 1: affair on her with. But he was so open and
Speaker 1: so honest and shared so many stories. But you know,
Speaker 1: good and bad. Remember, Lindsay's father was a magician, and
Speaker 1: as a magician, he had certain tools of his trade,
Speaker 1: white doves and a white rabbit he used in his shows.
Speaker 1: Ryan tells Lindsay a story that must have been terribly
Speaker 1: hard to hear about an argument that two of them
Speaker 1: had at one point, one that illustrates just how much
Speaker 1: mental anguish Lindsay's dad must have been dealing with. He
Speaker 1: was so angry that he picked up his rabbit and
Speaker 1: he threw it against the wall and killed it. I
Speaker 1: don't say that to speak poorly at my father, to
Speaker 1: make him sound like a scary monster person, but that
Speaker 1: was his mental illness acting out and making him make
Speaker 1: that choice. So Brian shared things like that with us,
Speaker 1: but he also shared, you know, like your father was
Speaker 1: so charismatic and everyone loved him. And Brian even went
Speaker 1: on to tell us that he was actually in a
Speaker 1: relationship with somebody with a man when he met our father,
Speaker 1: and you know, it was also having kind of an
Speaker 1: affair of his own. But Brian said, if this speaks
Speaker 1: anything to the charisma that your father had, said, my
Speaker 1: partner even got to be friends with your dad, like
Speaker 1: your dad even won him over, And I was like, wow,
Speaker 1: and it's just kind of surreal. It was a meeting
Speaker 1: that was a story I never thought I would hear.
Speaker 1: I feel guilty saying this because I know my mom
Speaker 1: would not like to hear me say this, but I'm
Speaker 1: grateful for the experience and it was just, I guess,
Speaker 1: kind of a beautiful thing to meet somebody who knew
Speaker 1: our dad on such a deep level. How do you
Speaker 1: think that knowing all this now impact too? Are you glad?
Speaker 1: You know? I am glad. I know I think all
Speaker 1: of the processing and talked to some of my friends
Speaker 1: about the story and my husband, my brother. I'm glad
Speaker 1: that I know. And several people have said to me like,
Speaker 1: are you mad at your mom for not telling you?
Speaker 1: And I said, I'm not mad at her at all.
Speaker 1: I have nothing but admiration, if not, you know, more
Speaker 1: than I had before that she went through this, and
Speaker 1: she gave me her version of things. She had no
Speaker 1: idea that anything like this was going on. My dad
Speaker 1: often would say he was working late and then would
Speaker 1: moment like three o'clock in the morning, or you know,
Speaker 1: he wouldn't come home at all. She would call a
Speaker 1: hospitals and I seem an accident like what happened. She said.
Speaker 1: He took her to see a play and the plot
Speaker 1: of the play was about a man and a woman
Speaker 1: that were married, and the man was gay and cheating
Speaker 1: on her with other men. And she said it was
Speaker 1: at that play that she was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: oh my god, oh my god, this is what's happening
Speaker 1: in my marriage. And she maybe this is where I
Speaker 1: got my private investigation skills from. But she she did
Speaker 1: some snooping up her own and found some some things
Speaker 1: that confirmed us for her, and confronted him and said,
Speaker 1: I want to divorce. I know what's going on. This
Speaker 1: is this relationship will go no further. And I think
Speaker 1: just the way that she raised us, she didn't she
Speaker 1: could have just bashed him every day to us. If
Speaker 1: she wanted to, she could have put awful visions of
Speaker 1: our father in our heads. And she didn't. You know,
Speaker 1: she just didn't speak about it much at all. And
Speaker 1: she picked herself up and she kept going, which I
Speaker 1: think must have been so to be hard to have
Speaker 1: two tiny children and then have your husband cheating on you,
Speaker 1: and you know, I have no idea what's going on,
Speaker 1: and then it's I just I can't imagine what that
Speaker 1: must have been like for her, and to have to
Speaker 1: make that choice of no, we're done, we will be
Speaker 1: no longer. But she just kept going. And I told
Speaker 1: her when we had lunch, I said, I have so
Speaker 1: much admiration for you. You're so strong. You could have
Speaker 1: started drinking, you could have started doing drugs, you could
Speaker 1: have done a million things to cope with this. But
Speaker 1: you just got up every day. You got us up,
Speaker 1: every day, you took care of us, you went to work.
Speaker 1: I had no idea that my mom ever went through
Speaker 1: anything like this. There were no clues, there were no
Speaker 1: mutterings or utterings of anything along these lines. So I
Speaker 1: said that to her, and she said, well, what else
Speaker 1: was I going to do? I had two kids. I
Speaker 1: needed to focus on the good and I needed to
Speaker 1: move forward and make sure you guys were taken care
Speaker 1: of and and raise well. The homophobia of the era
Speaker 1: also played a significant part in Lindsay's mom's decision not
Speaker 1: to tell her kids the truth, and Lindsay's understanding of
Speaker 1: the choices her mother made and her reasons for them
Speaker 1: have brought the two of them even closer together. So ultimately,
Speaker 1: this is a story that contains tragedy, sorrow, secrecy, and loss,
Speaker 1: but also a deepening love between a mother and a daughter.
Speaker 1: I said to her, why didn't you tell us? And
Speaker 1: I was kind of expecting the same answer, as you know,
Speaker 1: there never was a right time, and that's part of
Speaker 1: what she said. But she also said she was worried
Speaker 1: about telling us the whole truth because she was afraid
Speaker 1: that we would get bullied because people were not accepting
Speaker 1: of folks in the LGBTQ community then. And I was like, wow,
Speaker 1: that never occurred to me as as a reason for
Speaker 1: why she wouldn't have told us. And then I think
Speaker 1: as time moved forward, it was kind of again like
Speaker 1: when's the right time? How do I share this with them?
Speaker 1: And if she had told us when we were kids,
Speaker 1: we probably would have just accosted her every day with
Speaker 1: like a million and one questions, kind of making her
Speaker 1: relive all of this over and over and over again.
Speaker 1: So I think it was a combination of trying to
Speaker 1: protect us and also trying to protect yourself. That makes
Speaker 1: me think of another kind of thematic family secrets thing
Speaker 1: that runs through a lot of stories, which is that
Speaker 1: what we find out and when we find it out,
Speaker 1: I have a lot to do with how we're going
Speaker 1: to be able to process or how a family is
Speaker 1: able to process a secret having been kept, and that
Speaker 1: this is a secret that came out in the fullness
Speaker 1: of time, kind of when everybody could handle everything about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's definitely how I've looked at it, Like I'm grateful
Speaker 1: to to have found out when I did, because I
Speaker 1: think I'm enough of an adult to be able to
Speaker 1: process that in a healthy and normal way. I don't
Speaker 1: know how I would have processed that if I found
Speaker 1: it when I was five, when I was ten, when
Speaker 1: I was fifteen, you know, I don't know how my
Speaker 1: brain would have handled that. The one other thing that
Speaker 1: occurs to me is, as you're talking about your mother
Speaker 1: is that this is actually I mean your your love
Speaker 1: for her mother is so clear, and your respect for her.
Speaker 1: This is a way of actually knowing her better and
Speaker 1: having even more dimensionality to her for you. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think knowing all this and also finally hearing her version
Speaker 1: of everything, it just makes me want to cuddle her
Speaker 1: up and hug her forever. You know, when you think
Speaker 1: you can't love a person more and then you find
Speaker 1: you do. I guess that's kind of my reaction to it.
Speaker 1: And I know it's weird for me to say I'm
Speaker 1: proud of her, but I am proud of her. I
Speaker 1: think for like I said earlier, getting up every day
Speaker 1: and keeping a routine and raising her kids with love
Speaker 1: and kindness and moving forward in her life. Everybody has
Speaker 1: their own different version of the story and different kind
Speaker 1: of interactions with each other. But yeah, I think it
Speaker 1: gave us kind of a new maybe moved us to
Speaker 1: like a new level in our relationship where we can
Speaker 1: talk to each other about this. And it really felt
Speaker 1: like it almost felt like when she when we were
Speaker 1: at lunch and she was telling me everything. We were
Speaker 1: friends like. It wasn't a daughter mother dynamic. It was
Speaker 1: if we were friends, and feeling that didn't make me
Speaker 1: feel nervous or panic to kind of made me feel
Speaker 1: even closer to her that we have not only a
Speaker 1: mother daughter relationship, but also a really strong foundation of friendship.
Speaker 1: Family Secrets is an i Heeart Media production. Dylan Fagan
Speaker 1: is the supervising producer and Bethan Mcaluso is the executive producer.
Speaker 1: We'd also like to give a special thanks to Tyler
Speaker 1: Klang and Tristan McNeil. If you have a family secret
Speaker 1: you'd like to share, leave us a voicemail and your
Speaker 1: story could appear on an upcoming episode. Our number is
Speaker 1: one eight eight secret zero. That's secret and then the
Speaker 1: number zero. You can also find us on Instagram at
Speaker 1: Danny Ryder and face book at facebook dot com slash
Speaker 1: Family Secrets Pot, and Twitter at fami secrets Pot. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts for My Heart Radio, visit the i Heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows.