Speaker 1: Family Secrets is a production of I Heart Radio. Brooklyn
Speaker 1: Heights was an enchanting place to grow up, but as
Speaker 1: far as I could see, it was also a world
Speaker 1: that tended towards stiff lips and alcohol over transparency and
Speaker 1: self reflection. A world a time too perhaps, that championed
Speaker 1: achievement and less so emotional truth. Nothing was named in
Speaker 1: this beautiful world. We were what we put on every day.
Speaker 1: We were the stories we told. We were the food,
Speaker 1: the wine, the linen. There's a strength to this approach,
Speaker 1: a relentlessness of survival and success. And I learned early
Speaker 1: that this works for some, that this for some will
Speaker 1: always be enough. For others would be more than enough
Speaker 1: and more than they had. I also learned that this
Speaker 1: was not what I needed. That there was a danger.
Speaker 1: Even when the choreography of life depends upon the denial
Speaker 1: of so much of the rest, of all that is
Speaker 1: messy and undeniable, of all that is human. Success even
Speaker 1: becomes a wicked word when your own definition of it
Speaker 1: is different from that of the ones hoping for you
Speaker 1: to succeed. When it becomes clear that it's you who
Speaker 1: is different. That's Chloe Shaw, author of the luminous memoir,
Speaker 1: What Is a Dog? Chloe's story is tender and beautiful,
Speaker 1: and at its center is about the secrets we hold
Speaker 1: in our innermost selves, the ones that don't allow others
Speaker 1: to know us and rob us of our voice. It's
Speaker 1: also about the saving graces all around us, if only
Speaker 1: we know where to look. I'm Danny Shapiro, and this
Speaker 1: is family secrets, secrets that are kept from us, the
Speaker 1: secrets we keep from others, and the secrets we keep
Speaker 1: from ourselves. I'm an only child. We ended up when
Speaker 1: I was about eighteen months old in Brooklyn Heights, New York,
Speaker 1: due to my father's job as an architect. And you know,
Speaker 1: I grew up in this pretty dazzling historic section of
Speaker 1: New York City, a very tight knit community in many ways.
Speaker 1: The first house we moved into, you know, I barely remember.
Speaker 1: But the real big memory from that house is the
Speaker 1: death of our first dog. It's easy. Who was my
Speaker 1: parents first baby. I just remember her collapsing on the
Speaker 1: kitchen floor and then I never saw her again, and
Speaker 1: you were held. I was probably four. The first house
Speaker 1: Chloe does remember well is on pure Pont Street, also
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn Heights. She and her parents moved into the
Speaker 1: three floor brownstone shortly after Easy has died. The house
Speaker 1: is in a massive state of renovation when they move in.
Speaker 1: Her father is an architect after all, but eventually the
Speaker 1: work is finished and the house becomes a home. He
Speaker 1: would walk up the front stoop and come into the vestibule,
Speaker 1: and there was a big grandfather clock, a beautiful clock
Speaker 1: that has been in my family for many, many years.
Speaker 1: And you'd go up to the first floor, and that's
Speaker 1: where the living room and the dining room in the
Speaker 1: kitchen were. I feel like kitchens there where people collect.
Speaker 1: So much happens there. So we spent a ton of
Speaker 1: time in this tiny, tiny kitchen, where my mom um
Speaker 1: had a catering business from for a bunch of years
Speaker 1: of my childhood. And then upstairs on the second floor
Speaker 1: were the bedrooms. We all had our spots in the house,
Speaker 1: probably being an only child, but also just all of
Speaker 1: us being the people we are and were. It wasn't
Speaker 1: the kind of situation where we'd often be all hanging
Speaker 1: around together in the living room playing a board game
Speaker 1: or you know, unless there was a specific meal or
Speaker 1: an event or friends over. What were your three spots
Speaker 1: they were the kitchen usually for my mom. My dad
Speaker 1: was in his study, so that was also actually on
Speaker 1: the on the first floor, and I was in my
Speaker 1: bedroom with my dog Agatha. Agatha, when I was six,
Speaker 1: was a puppy. E is funny. In my mind, I
Speaker 1: thought we had her for a few months at least,
Speaker 1: but I talked it over with my mom. I think
Speaker 1: it was just like a few days. It's amazing what
Speaker 1: childhood is sort of, you know what trauma and and
Speaker 1: and memory can do. So and Agatha was what kind
Speaker 1: of job washing? So she was a Scottish terrier and
Speaker 1: my dad had gotten her for me for Christmas and
Speaker 1: she had parvo, so before we even got her, she
Speaker 1: was gravely Oh and I actually just found this little
Speaker 1: book that I wrote. It's just my scribble, and it
Speaker 1: says we got a dog and I liked her, but
Speaker 1: she died and I cried. Sorry, I mean to laugh.
Speaker 1: It's an entire no I know. When I found this,
Speaker 1: I thought, wait, I already wrote this book, because then
Speaker 1: it says before we took her to the vet she
Speaker 1: got very sick. I loved my dog, and I still cried.
Speaker 1: And their pictures of me through out with this little
Speaker 1: sad puppy, um who Yeah, it was never well and
Speaker 1: she died and that was a really I mean, like
Speaker 1: I said, I remember Easy dying. I remember watching her
Speaker 1: collapse in our kitchen, Um, and the disappearance of her,
Speaker 1: I guess is what really stays with me. He was
Speaker 1: an Afghan hound and that's a big dog, and she
Speaker 1: was just gone. I'm sure my parents did say something
Speaker 1: about you know, I knew she had died, but I don't.
Speaker 1: I didn't know what death was then. You know, that
Speaker 1: was death. That was my first experience. And then after
Speaker 1: as the one, your mom took her to the vet. Right,
Speaker 1: and another dog in your life and another being that
Speaker 1: you love vanishes, that's right. As a child, what was
Speaker 1: your relationship with your mother and with your father? Like
Speaker 1: it's hard to talk about just one of them at
Speaker 1: a time, which is kind of interesting to me as
Speaker 1: I'm realizing that it feels sort of like my only child, miss,
Speaker 1: where I kind of had one at a time. So
Speaker 1: whatever was happening, often it was just my dad and me,
Speaker 1: or my mom and me. Um, even if it was
Speaker 1: like a conversation or you know, an event that was
Speaker 1: happening when we were a threeso amount in the world.
Speaker 1: It actually felt the strangest to me. Um, I think
Speaker 1: I think it felt confusing, because I think I always
Speaker 1: felt like I was a little bit like either on
Speaker 1: my mom's side of whatever was happening or on my
Speaker 1: dad's side. So to know me as myself was kind
Speaker 1: of scary in a way. About six months after Chloe
Speaker 1: loses her puppy Agatha to parvo, her family gets another dog.
Speaker 1: They name her Agatha too. Agatha Too would be my
Speaker 1: beloved until I was eighteen years old. I mean, she
Speaker 1: was my whole childhood. Thing that I processed kind of
Speaker 1: in retrospect was that my mom I found out only
Speaker 1: in my thirties that she had had a miscarriage in
Speaker 1: our old apartment was Easy, so when we moved, you know,
Speaker 1: they lost their first baby easy and then their actual
Speaker 1: second baby. So this would have been a younger sibling
Speaker 1: for you, a younger sibling exactly. I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: know how far along she was, but I know they
Speaker 1: were kind of trying to figure out there that at
Speaker 1: that point, their small little Brooklyn apartment and um, who
Speaker 1: would sleep were kind of thing. But as we all know,
Speaker 1: that grief was just carried along into the new house.
Speaker 1: I always think about that and how much I knew
Speaker 1: about that or didn't know, you know, and then to
Speaker 1: have our puppy die so quickly, that's really interesting. So
Speaker 1: you're saying you were in your thirties before you ever
Speaker 1: knew that. I suppose miscarriages are often things that parents
Speaker 1: don't talk about. Do you feel like it was um
Speaker 1: somehow there in some way, shape or form, despite not
Speaker 1: being talked about the way I think probably most things
Speaker 1: that aren't talked about are yes, absolutely, And you know,
Speaker 1: my family does tend in that direction completely, you know,
Speaker 1: to just try to keep a stiff upper lip and
Speaker 1: you know, carry on. So, you know, even the death
Speaker 1: of Agatha one was so striking to me because that
Speaker 1: was the little puppy who had par vot and it
Speaker 1: was the first time I remember seeing my mom cry,
Speaker 1: and one of the only times I feel like in
Speaker 1: my life I've seen her cry. She came around the
Speaker 1: corner to tell me that our puppy had died, and
Speaker 1: my reaction to her crying was to laugh, and I
Speaker 1: just I started laughing hysterically and like within a snap,
Speaker 1: started sobbing because I realized what the reality was, but
Speaker 1: the emotion there was so uncomfortable to me. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: I think all those emotions that aren't shared are really
Speaker 1: are really difficult and mirror everywhere. I mean, they kind
Speaker 1: of just find places to sneak in Agatha two, let's
Speaker 1: just call her Agatha from here on In is a
Speaker 1: container for Chloe's secrets. Into this wee dog, Chloe pours
Speaker 1: her whole self. She shares with her everything, as she
Speaker 1: writes Squibbled inside the bright red cabin of her heart.
Speaker 1: I would always just find her. I mean, my room
Speaker 1: was a really special place to me. It felt like
Speaker 1: a completely safe place that I made my own. But
Speaker 1: almost even more than that was Agatha. So wherever she was,
Speaker 1: I felt alive and I felt safe, and I felt
Speaker 1: just adored and adoring. So we would have little event
Speaker 1: just even in the house. You know, I would, I
Speaker 1: mean the way I still do. Honestly. I lie kind
Speaker 1: of nose to nose with her. I would kind of
Speaker 1: breathe in her breath, and I just felt like I
Speaker 1: felt more known by her, which is kind of a
Speaker 1: strange thing to say, I guess, But she just was
Speaker 1: calm and quiet and funny and just accepted me. However
Speaker 1: I was I think, you know, in the bigger world
Speaker 1: I grew up in, I felt a little bit more
Speaker 1: like I was supposed to be the good girl all
Speaker 1: the time, and I was supposed to, you know, look
Speaker 1: presentable and hold myself together. And of course I didn't
Speaker 1: always feel that way, but I don't remember feeling in
Speaker 1: a way that I couldn't do that, except when I
Speaker 1: would cry in front of Agatha. So she was my
Speaker 1: little witness. My parents put on these incredible dinner parties
Speaker 1: and just beautiful surroundings, beautiful people, and I was kind
Speaker 1: of expected to show up and be present, and they've
Speaker 1: always been much more social um and out in the
Speaker 1: world in those beautiful ways, and where I've wanted to
Speaker 1: kind of prolonge with the piano with my dog quite happily.
Speaker 1: So you know, I found my favorite people. I made
Speaker 1: it work, but it just was never I don't know,
Speaker 1: it never felt natural to me, and I think partly
Speaker 1: it was because I didn't feel seen or known in
Speaker 1: those spaces. I felt a bit more like I was performing.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back. This need to show up to
Speaker 1: perform leaves Chloe feeling anxious. She has recurring fears and
Speaker 1: an active imagination that tends to run away with itself.
Speaker 1: She retreats into her room more and more, but her
Speaker 1: fears find her there too. My room was kind of
Speaker 1: my safe place, and I felt very known there, and
Speaker 1: I felt like when I would get into my bed
Speaker 1: at night, even when I did have this habit of
Speaker 1: seeing sharks went through my room. I guess I was
Speaker 1: always on my bed with me, so that made me
Speaker 1: feel Okay, I can't describe them any better than they
Speaker 1: are in my mind, but I saw these big sharks,
Speaker 1: and I was terrified of sharks, and they would come
Speaker 1: through my room. I was scared of wolves coming into
Speaker 1: our Brooklyn apartment, and I guess I lived with this
Speaker 1: controlled response, like I wanted to control all of that
Speaker 1: as much as I could, um the same way I
Speaker 1: wanted to control the world around me. I mean, making
Speaker 1: someone upset or disappointed or like, whether it was a
Speaker 1: friend or my parents or whoever, there could be nothing worse.
Speaker 1: So I was. I was also just a constant peacemaker,
Speaker 1: but at the great expense of I think who I
Speaker 1: felt like I really was often and I think in
Speaker 1: the world of dogs, you know, that's not that's not
Speaker 1: a known thing, so it felt more comfortable. Did you
Speaker 1: ever tell anyone at that time about the sharks and
Speaker 1: the wolves? My parents knew that I was scared. I
Speaker 1: was scared of the dark, so as long as I
Speaker 1: was in my bed, I was okay. You know. I
Speaker 1: didn't know how to communicate it in a helpful way, um,
Speaker 1: and they didn't probably know how to hear it in
Speaker 1: a helpful way. I think they loved me. They were loving,
Speaker 1: but it was also just a very uncomfortable situation to
Speaker 1: have come up for them, you know, to know how
Speaker 1: to handle it, to be someone who's not okay. They
Speaker 1: are both very loving people, but I think they've sort
Speaker 1: of done the best job they could do with how
Speaker 1: they were parented as well. You know, emotional honesty was
Speaker 1: not a huge theme in their households either. As Chloe
Speaker 1: continues to see sharks and wolves around her, she develops
Speaker 1: obsessive behaviors as a way to exert control over the
Speaker 1: otherwise uncontrollable world. She begins to bite her fingernails. She
Speaker 1: begins to walk differently, like a horse galloping. She begins
Speaker 1: to rip strands of hair from her head and tie
Speaker 1: them to door knobs of the places she and her
Speaker 1: family visit a way of whispering. Chloe was here. Thinking
Speaker 1: back over that behavior, I almost see it as kind
Speaker 1: of letting the world know I was there, you know,
Speaker 1: because I often the most present feeling for me has
Speaker 1: been wanting to disappear, to want to just not be seen,
Speaker 1: even though that was probably what I most wanted, because
Speaker 1: that's what I wasn't feeling was really known or seen,
Speaker 1: you know, being visible. I was visible but not known.
Speaker 1: So one of the things you write is these feelings
Speaker 1: I was trying not to feel. We're starting to take
Speaker 1: a toll. Yes, I think so often I was hiding,
Speaker 1: not wanting to be found or not thinking I should
Speaker 1: be found. But it does feel like there was a
Speaker 1: message that I was kind of born into, of not
Speaker 1: not actually being known for who I am specifically. But
Speaker 1: Chloe doesn't always know who she is specifically either. She
Speaker 1: grows increasingly confused about where and if she belongs. In
Speaker 1: addition to hiding her feelings, she starts to physically hide
Speaker 1: herself too. Under the piano at her parents parties was
Speaker 1: Agatha at her side. She starts to dissociate, to just
Speaker 1: kind of float away, even when she has her first kiss,
Speaker 1: she's not exactly there. For Thomas a very nice kid,
Speaker 1: but I didn't want to kiss them, and so, you know,
Speaker 1: I agreed to because I thought that's what I should do.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I just went off and I found his
Speaker 1: dog in the other room and kind of just said,
Speaker 1: all right, I get this done and went off somewhere.
Speaker 1: So I do think that it was it was mainly
Speaker 1: a feeling of not wanting to be where I was
Speaker 1: and to be who I was Whenever there was a
Speaker 1: big emotion, and it could be a really wonderful emotion
Speaker 1: or it could be a really terrifying emotion. Both were
Speaker 1: uncomfortable for me. I would kind of float off into
Speaker 1: some other world, you know that I had. It could
Speaker 1: be with my dog, and it could be walking like
Speaker 1: a horse, which it was also a little bit obsessive,
Speaker 1: but it could be just really becoming a horse. A
Speaker 1: couple of years later, Chloe and her classmates are watching
Speaker 1: the Space Shuttle Challenger launch, and with so many others
Speaker 1: around the world, they witness its devastating explosion. This haunts Chloe.
Speaker 1: It's an awful thing to witness, proof that life is
Speaker 1: terrifying and tragedy is everywhere, and it's real, reaching far
Speaker 1: beyond the sharks and wolves in her bedroom. But even
Speaker 1: though so much of the world is grieving and scared,
Speaker 1: Chloe still hesitates to feel her deep feelings. The world
Speaker 1: she's going up in doesn't seem to tolerate such a
Speaker 1: depth of emotion. I did feel deeply, and I found
Speaker 1: outlets for those feelings in certain ways, and then when
Speaker 1: I wasn't able to share them because they didn't feel accepted,
Speaker 1: I do feel like they bottled up, and you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes it would just they just happened, you know. The
Speaker 1: Challenger was a big one for me and my mom.
Speaker 1: She was it was almost like she didn't quite know
Speaker 1: what to do. So she told me to write to
Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan and I did and I got a letter
Speaker 1: back from him, which was exciting, just to get a
Speaker 1: letter from the president. But she could have had these ways,
Speaker 1: and my parents had ways of orienting me a little bit.
Speaker 1: When I think they didn't quite know what to do,
Speaker 1: I think crying, you know, crying. It was a thing
Speaker 1: in my childhood where it was very distressing to my
Speaker 1: parents when I would cry, so I tried not to.
Speaker 1: I think, don't cry was kind of a refrain in
Speaker 1: my house. How would they respond if if you started
Speaker 1: to cheer up about something, my mom would ask, you know,
Speaker 1: why are you crying? Don't cry? You know, that would
Speaker 1: be kind of a response, which she and I've talked
Speaker 1: about as as I've been an adult, and you know,
Speaker 1: she's always saying how she didn't want me to feel
Speaker 1: the pain. But I was also trying to say it.
Speaker 1: But that's real, and I think the refrain was similar
Speaker 1: in her house. It wasn't emotionally open, like crying is
Speaker 1: fine or saying I love you, you know. I Mike
Speaker 1: er Biglia, who is one of my favorite comedians, He
Speaker 1: always talked about how his parents say I love you
Speaker 1: by saying take care, and I just think that's the
Speaker 1: funniest thing ever. You know, that's not the similar in
Speaker 1: my house. I know I'm loved, but it also means
Speaker 1: something to say certain words and also just be seen
Speaker 1: for who you are and for what your emotions are
Speaker 1: at any moment. Crying is a release, and if we're
Speaker 1: told not to cry, all that sadness has no place
Speaker 1: to go. It's a little like keeping a secret. Keeping
Speaker 1: a secret doesn't mean it vanishes. It just means it
Speaker 1: gets stored somewhere not very comfortable, and one way or
Speaker 1: another it finds expression, usually in a distorted, toxic way.
Speaker 1: It's the same with Chloe's pent up tears. They just
Speaker 1: have to go somewhere else, somewhere hidden. I think the
Speaker 1: three of us, my parents, and I have spent multiple
Speaker 1: occasions all being terribly sad or stressed out, and the
Speaker 1: main work that's happening is to not cry. We'll be
Speaker 1: back in a moment with more family secrets. When Chloe's
Speaker 1: in the eighth grade, she's walking home from school one
Speaker 1: afternoon and that feeling of wanting to disappear overtakes her.
Speaker 1: There's a group of boys trailing behind. Some are her friends,
Speaker 1: but she'd rather just keep moving, not say hello. But
Speaker 1: then one boy catches up to her and gropes her.
Speaker 1: This is horrifying enough, but the other boys in her
Speaker 1: group her friends, just stand there and laugh. They don't
Speaker 1: help her. A herd mentality kicks in and for a
Speaker 1: few painfully long minutes, it's Chloe versus them. Chloe eventually
Speaker 1: gets herself out of the herd and heads home to safety.
Speaker 1: She does not tell her parents or even her closest friend.
Speaker 1: Just like the trying, I held it somewhere in my body,
Speaker 1: but I didn't feel it. I was already pretty scared
Speaker 1: of the kid who actually growed me, and I just
Speaker 1: kept a distance from him and the sad necessor the
Speaker 1: tears or you know, any emotions. I kind of shoved
Speaker 1: it somewhere, and my parents didn't know about that until
Speaker 1: I wrote an essay about it, maybe seven years ago.
Speaker 1: Six years ago. It's an interesting sort of statement about
Speaker 1: communication with them. Definitely. Yeah. The following year, when Chloe
Speaker 1: is a freshman in high school, she meets Josh, who's
Speaker 1: a senior. They start dating and they stay together when
Speaker 1: he goes off to college at Princeton, which is not
Speaker 1: too far. They fall in love. He really sees Chloe
Speaker 1: and knows Chloe something she's not used to. So I
Speaker 1: definitely allowed him access to myself. You know. I think
Speaker 1: we experienced so many first together, and I really really
Speaker 1: loved his mother and his father and his family in general.
Speaker 1: I think that household offered me a place of greater
Speaker 1: emotional support. And just you know, they would yell at
Speaker 1: each other, they would It was just really something I
Speaker 1: had not quite seen before because I thought you had
Speaker 1: one argument, well, there goes that relationship. So was there
Speaker 1: this sense of almost break ability in the house that
Speaker 1: you grew up in, Like there was a need to
Speaker 1: be careful with each other, like somehow like the messiness
Speaker 1: of life, the flaws, the messy feelings were threatening or dangerous.
Speaker 1: Definitely in my house, my parents when they had to
Speaker 1: have some intense conversation or if emotions ran high, they
Speaker 1: would usually close themselves behind the door or you know,
Speaker 1: and I understand as the parents, there are times and
Speaker 1: that's appropriate, but there were also just things that involved
Speaker 1: me and in Josh's family, when you would be there,
Speaker 1: what was the contrast? What was that like? They overwhelmed me?
Speaker 1: To be honest, um, at first, I mean they were.
Speaker 1: They were only nice to me, but they were overwhelming.
Speaker 1: All their emotions seemed on the surface, so if someone
Speaker 1: was in a bad mood or if someone was really excited,
Speaker 1: it all was right there, whereas you know, with my family,
Speaker 1: it was just a much more guarded situation where you
Speaker 1: could just feel that, or at least I could, and
Speaker 1: it felt terrible, you know, to not know how everyone
Speaker 1: was feeling in the room, and even if it was
Speaker 1: something that you weren't feeling. Can't we talk about that?
Speaker 1: I think I felt so much inside that couldn't be seen,
Speaker 1: and I feel like Dasha's family both saw it um
Speaker 1: but also just made a space for all of that
Speaker 1: to be acceptable. Finally, with Josh's family, Chloe is surrounded
Speaker 1: by people who aren't afraid to own their feelings. Just
Speaker 1: when Chloe thinks she might be able to sustain this,
Speaker 1: to own her feelings, Josh's mom becomes sick with cancer
Speaker 1: and Agatha is also sick. Chloe starts to dissociate again,
Speaker 1: and she does what she's done before. She floats outside herself, numb, unfeeling.
Speaker 1: It really felt like that time in my life that
Speaker 1: I couldn't show up. I mean, I think, you know,
Speaker 1: Josh and I had this lovely, beautiful relationship and between
Speaker 1: our families as well, But when it came to something
Speaker 1: as real as his mother, you know, potentially dying, I
Speaker 1: didn't face it the way I wished I had. I
Speaker 1: kind of left college and abandoned everything behind and broke
Speaker 1: up with him. Yes, yes, that's right. It's like the
Speaker 1: way you describe your parents leaving the first department in Brooklyn,
Speaker 1: you know where all that all that hard stuff happened,
Speaker 1: your mother's miscarriage and easy dying, and just this feeling
Speaker 1: of wanting to get away from all that loss, and
Speaker 1: all of the feeling that would went along with all
Speaker 1: that loss for the possibility of loss. Yeah, Josh's mom
Speaker 1: ultimately does die, so does Agatha. Loss upon loss, sharks,
Speaker 1: and wolves. Chloe weathers these storms, stabilized by her life
Speaker 1: at Williams College. She finds important mentors and begins to
Speaker 1: reinvent and discover herself there. She graduates and moves back
Speaker 1: to New York City. For the first time in her life.
Speaker 1: She is dogless. She does, however, have two cats, good company,
Speaker 1: but not quite the same. The sensation of floating stays
Speaker 1: with her throughout her twenties. She tries to write to
Speaker 1: build a life. Her parents are still living in Brooklyn,
Speaker 1: so they meet up occasionally, but often Chloe doesn't want to.
Speaker 1: They feel disappointed, she feels guilty, and this dance goes
Speaker 1: on for some years. She has a boyfriend and a breakup.
Speaker 1: She floats, But when Chloe is thirty two, her friend
Speaker 1: Sid convinces her to meet a guy named Matt. Matt
Speaker 1: has a dog, a dog named Booker. There was really
Speaker 1: him an instant love I think for all three of us.
Speaker 1: He was standing by a big boulder near a trail
Speaker 1: in Brantford, Connecticut, and Sid drove me and her dog
Speaker 1: j J out to meet them, and we went for
Speaker 1: this beautiful hike through the woods and we just kept
Speaker 1: looking over said at each other and all talking the
Speaker 1: whole time. And Booker, a fairly large dog, was a
Speaker 1: big leaner, so he would he would just press his
Speaker 1: body up against your legs. Matt set up the time
Speaker 1: you're part of the pack, and uh, we started emailing,
Speaker 1: and I think it was two weeks later we started
Speaker 1: going back and forth from Brooklyn to Connecticut. We I
Speaker 1: don't think spent a weekend apart for like a year
Speaker 1: and a half. And then I moved in with them,
Speaker 1: and Booker became an incredibly important dog to you. He
Speaker 1: really did. Yeah, yeah, I mean it really was, apart
Speaker 1: from what an exceptional dog he was. And I it's
Speaker 1: it's interesting to think of him kind of based on
Speaker 1: his death, but I have to say it really was.
Speaker 1: I feel like taking care of him all those years
Speaker 1: as his kind of you know, home dog parents, and
Speaker 1: then really planning his whole death. I think I put
Speaker 1: almost every loss I've ever felt into that. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: I think I was finally ready to be so present.
Speaker 1: I mean, my I lost my really beloved grandfather who
Speaker 1: I called Seaweed before that, but I it was too
Speaker 1: hard for me to even I went to his memorial service,
Speaker 1: but it was actually quite hard for me to even
Speaker 1: go visit him in the last year of his life.
Speaker 1: He just had all these symptoms and was getting a
Speaker 1: little paranoid, and it really, I don't know, I couldn't.
Speaker 1: My mom would go religiously, which I really respect, but
Speaker 1: it was it was too hard for me. And I
Speaker 1: think Booker kind of broke something open in me that
Speaker 1: allowed me to just finally feel all those things and
Speaker 1: actually not care who thought, what about whatever where I
Speaker 1: was feeling. And we sobbed and sobbed, you know, and
Speaker 1: buried him and he's in our backyard and it really
Speaker 1: was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen,
Speaker 1: brutal but beautiful. By the time of Booker's brutal, beautiful burial,
Speaker 1: Matt and Chloe have started their own family. They have
Speaker 1: a son, a daughter, and another dog, Safari. So as
Speaker 1: heartbreaking as Booker's death is Chloe is far from alone.
Speaker 1: The heartbreak is shared and collective, as is the healing.
Speaker 1: Even as a parent and having to deal. You know,
Speaker 1: it actually gave me, given my background, it gave me
Speaker 1: some pretty tremendous anxiety two shepherd my own kids through
Speaker 1: big emotions, because I feel like another big challenge I
Speaker 1: came up against was when I had not one kid,
Speaker 1: but two kids and had to mother siblings and all
Speaker 1: their real, very very surface emotions, and it was more
Speaker 1: than I could manage. At times, I just thought, this
Speaker 1: is when you don't ever talk to each other again.
Speaker 1: But that wasn't true. They would, you know, they could
Speaker 1: be mad at each other, but just like friends that
Speaker 1: I had as a kid who had siblings, they just
Speaker 1: kind of learned from each other too. But I had
Speaker 1: to kind of shepherd them through this loss, this tremendous
Speaker 1: loss um. And my daughter was only two and my
Speaker 1: son was five, and they had completely different responses. Ray
Speaker 1: who's too. She she kind of said how sad it was,
Speaker 1: but she didn't know how to, you know, she wasn't
Speaker 1: gonna cry necessarily about that. But this giant dog, I mean,
Speaker 1: he was huge and he occupied a lot of her
Speaker 1: life was gone. So we painted rocks and took them
Speaker 1: down to his grave, and Jackson, my son, who was five,
Speaker 1: you know, he just kind of he said, oh, I'm fine,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not sad, And then that night just
Speaker 1: had a huge, huge melt down and finally let me
Speaker 1: hug him till he sobbed and sobbed, and it was
Speaker 1: so relieving to me. It was so relieving to me
Speaker 1: to have him be able to do that well. And
Speaker 1: he was able to do that because you made the
Speaker 1: space for it. Yeah, And I think that's what it
Speaker 1: felt like for me too. After Booker's death, Chloe is
Speaker 1: in therapy and finds that now, unlike her child's self,
Speaker 1: she cannot stop crying. Her floodgates have opened, and her
Speaker 1: secretive way of processing the world, her silence, is no
Speaker 1: longer possible. She writes, I was still in the process
Speaker 1: of breaking down, of breaking systems down, systems that had
Speaker 1: formed me, Systems I had relied on since before I
Speaker 1: knew the word system. Systems that might have helped in childhood,
Speaker 1: but we're failing me as an adult. So when I
Speaker 1: was a child and I relied on dogs so heavily,
Speaker 1: I think that was my coping mechanism for a lot
Speaker 1: of difficult situations, just being under the piano with Agatha.
Speaker 1: When I met Booker, you know, honestly just lying with him,
Speaker 1: walking him, getting to know him, and then wanting this
Speaker 1: other dogs safari in our life. But as I I
Speaker 1: got I had been married to Matt and then had
Speaker 1: my kids, I was also starting to realize, even though
Speaker 1: there are parts of me that probably will always be
Speaker 1: a little bit more solitary, and maybe that's just my nature.
Speaker 1: I also, like I used the phrase being the dog
Speaker 1: a lot in the book, being the dog started to
Speaker 1: become something that felt avoid in my family life, my
Speaker 1: own family life, so with my kids and my husband.
Speaker 1: So I think that's where it just suddenly felt like
Speaker 1: in therapy talking about it, processing all of my childhood
Speaker 1: and then coming to this place where I could actually
Speaker 1: make limitations. You know, I could say no, I could
Speaker 1: say what I felt and it would be okay, whether
Speaker 1: I was with a dog or a human, or it
Speaker 1: would just become a conversation you know that had to
Speaker 1: be worked out, whether with my husband or my kids.
Speaker 1: I just could let go a little bit more of
Speaker 1: that constant need to perfect something, or just be so
Speaker 1: reliable to control everything, you know. I feel like I
Speaker 1: was able to start being able to be the human
Speaker 1: but still loved docs. Chloe also finds therapy in being
Speaker 1: physically active. She enrolls in a class called Tough that's
Speaker 1: t u f F Girl Fitness, Tough Girl Fitness. She
Speaker 1: feels at home the instant she walks through the doors.
Speaker 1: This class is fun and well tough, but that's not all.
Speaker 1: It's the antidote to floating away. To use the words
Speaker 1: strong to describe myself in any way I wouldn't have
Speaker 1: felt appropriate before I started going there. And yes, I
Speaker 1: became more physically strong, but I have to say it
Speaker 1: led into a greater understanding and appreciation for just choices
Speaker 1: I've made. And you know, like we all of us
Speaker 1: getting through our childhoods, it can be a lot to
Speaker 1: then become a full grown person, you know, whether that's
Speaker 1: someone who sort of follows the path that you were,
Speaker 1: the way you were raised, or if you choose something
Speaker 1: completely different. And I think I've always felt a little different,
Speaker 1: not just a little, I think a lot different. And
Speaker 1: I think that place allowed me to lift a really
Speaker 1: heavy kettle bell and scream and sweat and have people
Speaker 1: cheer for me. I mean, I I've never done that before,
Speaker 1: and it really did kind of lend such a huge
Speaker 1: helping hand to the to the rest of my growth.
Speaker 1: I have to say, just emotionally, yeah, I love that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: to be seen, to be seen, and you know, I
Speaker 1: just I just had this image of you lifting a
Speaker 1: kettle ball and screaming, and you know, imagining anything like
Speaker 1: that remotely happening in the in the home of your childhood. Oh,
Speaker 1: I'd never screamed. I'd never screamed before. This wonderful woman
Speaker 1: who goes there. She's a photographer, and she did these
Speaker 1: photography sessions where she would photograph whatever you wanted, you know,
Speaker 1: at the gym, and I was like, yeah, I'm doing that.
Speaker 1: And so during ours we were talking and I was
Speaker 1: starting to talk about my family and my emotional history
Speaker 1: and all that, and she she just looked right at me,
Speaker 1: like after five minutes and said, have you ever screamed before?
Speaker 1: And I said no, I would never scream And she said,
Speaker 1: do you want to? And so she took this picture
Speaker 1: of me screaming at the top of my lungs and
Speaker 1: she said, I'll do it with you, and so she
Speaker 1: took a picture as she screamed at the top of
Speaker 1: her lungs, and we both started sobbing. It was really
Speaker 1: really beautiful. Yeah. Family Secrets is a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Molly Zachor is the story editor and Dylan
Speaker 1: Fagan is the executive producer. If you have a family
Speaker 1: secret you'd like to share, please leave us a voicemail
Speaker 1: and your story could appear on an upcoming episode. Our
Speaker 1: number is one eight Secret zero. That's the number zero.
Speaker 1: You can also find me on Instagram at Danny writer.
Speaker 1: And if you'd like to know more about the story
Speaker 1: that inspired this podcast, check out my memoir Inheritance. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the I Heart
Speaker 1: Read Adeo app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.