WEBVTT - The Lobster Shift 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:13.520 Family Secrets is a production of I Heart Radio Icarus. Sons. 0:00:14.600 --> 0:00:19.599 Sons are roped to fathers. Fathers. Well, are we sure 0:00:19.600 --> 0:00:27.120 they're tied to sons? Sons need fathers fathers. Sons take 0:00:27.240 --> 0:00:32.760 years from fathers. Honest fathers. Know this picture an hourglass, 0:00:33.240 --> 0:00:38.000 two globes, one filled, the other empty. Now in your mind, 0:00:38.080 --> 0:00:40.880 turn it over. The top of the globe, the father, 0:00:41.479 --> 0:00:45.640 the grains of sand, his years. The bottom of the globe. 0:00:46.200 --> 0:00:49.720 That's the son. See the years slipping away from the father, 0:00:50.600 --> 0:00:56.960 filling up the son. Father's flow into sons. Think of Icarus. 0:00:57.720 --> 0:01:01.480 Father and son exist on an isle. At some point. 0:01:01.800 --> 0:01:05.759 The father longs to escape and the son he doesn't 0:01:05.760 --> 0:01:10.920 want to be left behind, abandoned. And fathers they always 0:01:10.920 --> 0:01:14.560 have plans. What sons should remember that the plans of 0:01:14.600 --> 0:01:19.080 their fathers often have holes. A father is no shield 0:01:19.160 --> 0:01:26.960 for a son. That's Michael Haney reading a passage from 0:01:27.000 --> 0:01:32.560 his Beautiful book after visiting Friends. A Son's story. What 0:01:32.800 --> 0:01:35.760 happens when a boy loses his father at a tender age, 0:01:36.280 --> 0:01:40.080 an age so young that he hardly remembers him, and 0:01:40.200 --> 0:01:43.640 that boy grows up to become a journalist digging for 0:01:43.720 --> 0:01:47.200 answers to questions he's always had about the nature of 0:01:47.240 --> 0:01:51.680 his father's death, questions that have formed him, questions that 0:01:51.840 --> 0:02:09.639 beg for answers. I'm Danny Shapiro, and this is family secrets, 0:02:10.360 --> 0:02:12.920 the secrets that are kept from us, the secrets we 0:02:13.040 --> 0:02:16.919 keep from others, and the secrets we keep from ourselves. 0:02:23.480 --> 0:02:28.839 I feel like I remember nothing before a and that 0:02:29.040 --> 0:02:32.240 was the morning, shortly after I turned six years old, 0:02:32.919 --> 0:02:37.640 that I learned my father was dead, and h up 0:02:37.720 --> 0:02:40.400 until then, I think. I mean as I say, I 0:02:40.400 --> 0:02:42.919 don't remember much, but I don't have reason to remember 0:02:43.360 --> 0:02:46.680 anything bad. It was a pretty pleasant childhood, I think 0:02:46.800 --> 0:02:49.200 I was. I just turned six. I have had an 0:02:49.240 --> 0:02:53.480 older brother, Chris, who was eight. My mother was thirty 0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:56.760 three at the time, my father was thirty five, and 0:02:56.760 --> 0:03:01.040 we were living in a suburb of Chicago, right on 0:03:01.080 --> 0:03:04.359 the border of Chicago, out near the Airport O'Hare. And 0:03:05.120 --> 0:03:10.200 it was I think, probably pleasant by all accounts and um, 0:03:10.320 --> 0:03:14.360 but you know, it was that formative moment which I 0:03:14.400 --> 0:03:17.400 think has defined my life, when that was my father's death. 0:03:18.800 --> 0:03:22.400 When you say that you have no memories before that moment, 0:03:23.520 --> 0:03:26.000 do you really mean no memories like I would say, 0:03:26.200 --> 0:03:29.200 in the excavation and looking back over my life, I 0:03:29.240 --> 0:03:31.240 would see when I was when I was working on 0:03:32.120 --> 0:03:35.880 searching for this story. I would remember moments where I 0:03:35.880 --> 0:03:40.320 would be sort of flipping through photo album from you 0:03:40.320 --> 0:03:43.160 know that my mother had kept and I could remember, Oh, 0:03:43.240 --> 0:03:46.080 that was Christmas when I was four, or that I 0:03:46.120 --> 0:03:48.920 think I remember taking that trip. But you know, I 0:03:48.960 --> 0:03:52.320 think also developmentally from what I've known in my time 0:03:52.360 --> 0:03:55.560 spending a lot of time on the couch, is children 0:03:55.600 --> 0:03:59.840 often don't remember much until age five. Really there's a reason, 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:02.640 and they sort of developed and sort of that's when 0:04:02.760 --> 0:04:05.160 kindergarten begins, and that's when one sort of memory sort 0:04:05.160 --> 0:04:08.520 of locks in. And so um, I shouldn't certainly don't 0:04:08.560 --> 0:04:10.960 mean to be dramatic and say I don't remember much, 0:04:10.960 --> 0:04:14.200 but I really it's was as though that was when, 0:04:15.200 --> 0:04:17.880 you know, the curtain went up on my life. So 0:04:19.000 --> 0:04:22.760 tell me about that moment, what you remember. My brother 0:04:22.800 --> 0:04:25.480 and I shared a small bedroom in a small house 0:04:26.480 --> 0:04:30.839 sort of row house townhouse, and my father was a 0:04:30.880 --> 0:04:33.480 newspaper editor. He worked what was called the lobster shift, 0:04:34.200 --> 0:04:38.280 which meant you worked from six pm until three am 0:04:38.279 --> 0:04:42.240 closing the morning edition. And my brother and I shared 0:04:42.279 --> 0:04:44.520 this room, and I was in kindergarten and my brother 0:04:44.600 --> 0:04:47.400 was in second grade. So it was very common that 0:04:47.440 --> 0:04:51.279 we would wake up and come downstairs for breakfast, and 0:04:51.320 --> 0:04:54.719 my father would be there already, having just come home, 0:04:55.200 --> 0:04:56.880 and he would wait up for us at breakfast and 0:04:56.920 --> 0:04:59.840 then usually sort of go to sleep. But it was 0:04:59.880 --> 0:05:03.400 a beautiful sunny morning. I remember it because the sun 0:05:03.600 --> 0:05:06.640 was kind of searing the edges of the shade that 0:05:06.760 --> 0:05:09.320 was drawn in our bedroom. And our mother came in 0:05:09.360 --> 0:05:12.120 to wake us up, and I always remember she was 0:05:12.160 --> 0:05:16.320 just very happy. And as she was waking us up, 0:05:17.120 --> 0:05:19.680 we slept in these twin beds side by side. The 0:05:19.720 --> 0:05:23.440 doorbell rang, which was unusual. My mother went to the 0:05:23.480 --> 0:05:25.880 shade and in our bedroom and she raised the shade, 0:05:25.880 --> 0:05:31.320 and she remember standing on my brother's bed with him 0:05:31.360 --> 0:05:34.760 with my mother and looking down and seeing my grandparents, 0:05:34.800 --> 0:05:39.000 my mother's parents, and my father's brother on the back porch. 0:05:39.800 --> 0:05:43.280 And the next thing I remember is my mother had 0:05:43.320 --> 0:05:46.320 gone downstairs, and my brother and I standing on the 0:05:46.360 --> 0:05:48.960 top of the staircase and we could hear her crying, 0:05:49.800 --> 0:05:52.720 and my brother and I went downstairs, stood on the 0:05:52.839 --> 0:05:55.279 edge of the kitchen and I and my uncle turning 0:05:55.320 --> 0:05:57.760 to my mother, who was sitting on the chair and saying, 0:05:57.760 --> 0:06:00.960 the boys are here. And at that point she pulled 0:06:01.040 --> 0:06:04.039 us together and said, your father's dead. And that was 0:06:04.920 --> 0:06:11.960 the morning. Describe your father for me. Describe him as 0:06:11.960 --> 0:06:15.479 you remember him in you know, in the brief time 0:06:15.560 --> 0:06:18.119 that you had with him. I don't think you answer 0:06:18.160 --> 0:06:21.960 for asked me that question. I have two memories. One 0:06:22.120 --> 0:06:28.200 is I remember he loved to wrestle with my brother 0:06:28.240 --> 0:06:30.400 and me, And by that I mean I can remember 0:06:31.000 --> 0:06:34.800 after dinner on the living room floor just doing what 0:06:34.880 --> 0:06:38.160 a father does, who's letting two boys sort of crawl 0:06:38.240 --> 0:06:41.440 over him and, you know, sort of test your strength 0:06:41.760 --> 0:06:47.040 against him. And I also remember, you know, after dinner, 0:06:47.080 --> 0:06:51.440 he would be at the table and he'd usually often 0:06:51.560 --> 0:06:54.960 have happen some of him holding up a palm for 0:06:55.000 --> 0:06:58.159 each of us, my brother and myself, sitting in his 0:06:58.320 --> 0:07:02.520 kitchen chair. Yeah, and one poem in front of my brother, 0:07:02.560 --> 0:07:05.280 one palm in front of me, and each of us 0:07:05.360 --> 0:07:09.760 making little fists and sort of punching at his open palm, 0:07:09.880 --> 0:07:13.320 and him sort of exaggerated like, oh, it's so strong, 0:07:13.360 --> 0:07:17.040 you guys are so strong. I also remember him teaching 0:07:17.040 --> 0:07:20.200 me to write a two wheel blake. So I remember 0:07:20.240 --> 0:07:24.160 those things, small moments like that, vivid, you know, concrete, 0:07:24.680 --> 0:07:27.000 But I don't remember any words. And how about your 0:07:27.080 --> 0:07:31.320 mother from that time? I mean with your mother, you 0:07:31.320 --> 0:07:33.960 have a before and you haven't after your father, you 0:07:34.000 --> 0:07:37.160 only have a before. Two memories, I'd say have ur 0:07:37.640 --> 0:07:40.240 I was. I was also a boy who seems to 0:07:40.320 --> 0:07:45.680 have gotten into a number of scrapes. By that, I 0:07:45.680 --> 0:07:48.640 mean I once knocks to teeth out. They had to 0:07:48.640 --> 0:07:51.760 take me to a hospital for stitches. I once fell 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:55.200 and sort of cut my head open. And it seems 0:07:55.200 --> 0:07:57.400 like my my memories of my mother were always kind 0:07:57.400 --> 0:08:00.000 of scooping me up and take me to the hospital 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:03.119 for stitches and um. But I again, I don't really 0:08:03.600 --> 0:08:07.680 I don't remember words. I couldn't tell you anything that 0:08:07.720 --> 0:08:11.480 they ever really said to me until that morning. And 0:08:11.560 --> 0:08:14.440 you do remember the words from that morning. But it's 0:08:14.480 --> 0:08:17.360 interesting too that what have you remember the weather? Because 0:08:18.240 --> 0:08:23.040 I have this theory about trauma and the weather and memory, 0:08:23.520 --> 0:08:27.040 and there's just something about or even I mean for me, 0:08:27.560 --> 0:08:29.960 like what I was wearing in woman's like that, or 0:08:30.520 --> 0:08:34.160 everything becomes very very vivid in a in a kind 0:08:34.160 --> 0:08:37.800 of sensory way and just becomes sort of imprinted. You're 0:08:37.840 --> 0:08:43.840 exactly right, and and forever I've not like the Spring 0:08:44.400 --> 0:08:47.840 and which is married now, but when I used to date, 0:08:47.880 --> 0:08:50.040 and I'll be like, oh my god, Spring, it's so fun. 0:08:50.120 --> 0:08:54.400 It's as I could never pinpoint why I would sink 0:08:54.440 --> 0:08:58.359 into some kind of depression worse than usual in springtime. 0:08:58.400 --> 0:09:07.559 And I think it's some deep vibration that it's just there. 0:09:07.600 --> 0:09:09.959 You then you and your brother and your mother go 0:09:09.960 --> 0:09:12.120 on with your lives and she's now a single mom, 0:09:12.240 --> 0:09:14.680 and you and your brother are growing up without a dad. 0:09:15.559 --> 0:09:20.079 What did you as you were growing up understand about 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:26.520 your father's death? We were told that he had been 0:09:26.559 --> 0:09:30.360 working late, as he always does, and that he when 0:09:30.360 --> 0:09:35.079 he had left the office of the newspaper was walking 0:09:35.160 --> 0:09:40.199 to his car and had a heart attack and died 0:09:40.240 --> 0:09:43.640 on the street and some police found him, and that's 0:09:43.679 --> 0:09:47.520 what happened to him. And in those years of your 0:09:47.600 --> 0:09:51.280 childhood and being a teenager, how did that sit with you? 0:09:51.400 --> 0:09:54.320 Did you question that story at all? All the time? 0:09:55.600 --> 0:09:59.880 And I think this is what if you've had traum, 0:10:00.240 --> 0:10:02.720 you will understand it. If and if you haven't, maybe 0:10:02.720 --> 0:10:06.000 you will too. But seven, eight nine years old idea 0:10:06.160 --> 0:10:09.000 and I just you know, you will tell me again, mom, 0:10:09.040 --> 0:10:12.559 what happened? Right? And I think this is even informed 0:10:12.559 --> 0:10:16.600 by the basic watching TV shows when you're a kid 0:10:16.640 --> 0:10:20.040 and you see how the police work, and beginning with 0:10:20.120 --> 0:10:22.640 i'd say, but I don't understand why did Uncle Dick 0:10:22.840 --> 0:10:25.000 come and tell us? Why didn't the police come and 0:10:25.000 --> 0:10:27.360 tell us? Because that's what happens in the TV shows. 0:10:28.080 --> 0:10:30.080 My mom would say, Oh, I don't know, that's just 0:10:30.120 --> 0:10:31.720 the way it was. I mean, I you know, she 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:35.160 was not I think, actively deceiving me. It's just like, well, 0:10:35.480 --> 0:10:38.160 that's just she didn't think either, But it was it 0:10:38.320 --> 0:10:41.800 just I think part of it was I would hear like, well, 0:10:41.840 --> 0:10:44.360 he died on the street, and I would just, being 0:10:44.480 --> 0:10:46.280 like I said, eight nine, ten years old, I would 0:10:46.320 --> 0:10:48.720 just lay in bed a night and picture him dead 0:10:48.760 --> 0:10:50.960 on a street in Chicago and the police finding him, 0:10:51.000 --> 0:10:54.439 and then okay, so then why do they call Uncle Dick? 0:10:54.480 --> 0:10:58.640 Why wouldn't they call the house? And beginning at that age, 0:10:58.640 --> 0:11:02.360 it's just then square with me. I think about it 0:11:02.400 --> 0:11:05.080 all the time, and yet my house was a house 0:11:05.120 --> 0:11:10.920 of enormous silence, and so I never really asked my 0:11:11.000 --> 0:11:13.880 mother that much whim. Every so often I'd find the 0:11:14.040 --> 0:11:16.640 courage to ask her, why do you think? Or why 0:11:17.200 --> 0:11:20.520 what about this? But I lived in such through the 0:11:20.600 --> 0:11:25.480 mind of a child I see now who suffered trauma. 0:11:25.559 --> 0:11:30.600 I lived with great fear that if I upset her, 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:33.360 I could lose her too. I would believe it. So 0:11:34.040 --> 0:11:38.520 I kept a lot of these questions to myself, and 0:11:38.559 --> 0:11:40.560 I would just work them over in my own mind, 0:11:41.520 --> 0:11:44.839 even though I was desperate to ask her. Someone what 0:11:44.920 --> 0:11:48.680 they might know what I never did. We'll be right back. 0:11:58.280 --> 0:12:02.520 In that enormous silence that so often surrounds trauma, a 0:12:02.640 --> 0:12:06.600 child's mind plays tricks. I think this happens to all 0:12:06.640 --> 0:12:10.600 of us who have experienced a cleaving loss, but particularly 0:12:10.640 --> 0:12:13.840 a young child who has no tools, no way to deal. 0:12:14.720 --> 0:12:19.280 And so Michael is ever vigilant. His magical thinking tells 0:12:19.400 --> 0:12:25.080 him that loss begets loss, tragedy, tragedy. He can control 0:12:25.120 --> 0:12:28.480 the world and keep his mother, his brother, and himself 0:12:28.679 --> 0:12:34.520 safe if he stays watchful but silent. You grow up 0:12:34.960 --> 0:12:40.240 and become a journalist. In a way, even the questions 0:12:40.280 --> 0:12:43.640 the wise that you were asking as a child were 0:12:43.760 --> 0:12:46.760 the questions of someone who might grow up and become 0:12:46.760 --> 0:12:49.880 a journalist. Need to drill down, need to know, need 0:12:49.920 --> 0:12:52.640 to get to the bottom of the story. I know 0:12:53.559 --> 0:12:57.880 there's a part of me that made the decision to 0:12:58.880 --> 0:13:02.199 live out his life. Because what you have to understand 0:13:02.679 --> 0:13:07.080 is my father kept these meticulous scrap books from the 0:13:07.120 --> 0:13:12.160 time he was probably in kindergarten, and they go from 0:13:12.240 --> 0:13:17.480 kindergarten through college through grad school. And they were really 0:13:17.480 --> 0:13:20.640 all I had of him. And they were kept in 0:13:20.760 --> 0:13:25.440 the bottom of this bookcase. And I discovered them when 0:13:25.480 --> 0:13:28.240 I was a boy, and I would always wait until 0:13:28.280 --> 0:13:29.840 my mother was out of the house and then I 0:13:29.840 --> 0:13:32.520 would go to them, and to me, they were this 0:13:32.720 --> 0:13:35.360 almost like I hope I'm using this story away with 0:13:35.400 --> 0:13:40.440 like this talmudic kind of documented to all these evidence 0:13:40.800 --> 0:13:44.760 to piece together a life. I would see this boy 0:13:44.800 --> 0:13:48.920 growing up, everything from report cards to mother's day cards 0:13:48.960 --> 0:13:50.599 he made for his mother when he was eight, to 0:13:51.840 --> 0:13:54.880 seeing him writing stories for the high school newspaper and 0:13:54.920 --> 0:13:57.600 reading them. And I thought, and so when you ask 0:13:57.679 --> 0:14:00.679 earlier about what was his voice, I don't. I never 0:14:01.320 --> 0:14:04.720 heard his voice, but I could see this voice being 0:14:04.760 --> 0:14:09.439 made manifest and watching and grow. In Grimar school, I 0:14:09.480 --> 0:14:14.200 had teachers who recognized my ability to write, so you know, 0:14:14.240 --> 0:14:16.840 as I got older and well, I know how to write. 0:14:16.920 --> 0:14:20.920 And so I think it's sort of my sense of 0:14:21.040 --> 0:14:25.800 self was meeting this what I thought was an unrealized 0:14:25.840 --> 0:14:28.640 self of his life, and I thought, well, maybe I 0:14:28.680 --> 0:14:36.040 can remember thinking I'm going to fulfill his unfulfilled life 0:14:36.720 --> 0:14:40.880 and I'm going to make myself known as the son 0:14:40.920 --> 0:14:44.160 of Bob Hainey. So there's a large part of that 0:14:44.160 --> 0:14:47.600 that I see. But I also wonder maybe I was 0:14:47.600 --> 0:14:51.240 supposed to do something else. Well, I was shaped by 0:14:52.600 --> 0:14:56.920 our experiences. I mean, that's and we're shaped by our losses. 0:14:57.320 --> 0:15:00.320 And you know, I often say, you know, you change 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:04.120 one thing, then everything changes. It's so unusual that he 0:15:04.280 --> 0:15:07.480 kept these scrap books for a man, first of all, 0:15:08.200 --> 0:15:10.920 and he strikes me as something much more common that 0:15:11.040 --> 0:15:14.040 girls would do. Then boys are also the parents would 0:15:14.040 --> 0:15:19.400 do for their children, as opposed to actually documenting his life, 0:15:19.800 --> 0:15:23.840 you know, piecing that together. I mean, it's it's sentimental 0:15:23.960 --> 0:15:27.600 to say as if he almost knew that, you know, 0:15:27.640 --> 0:15:29.800 that he was leaving something behind so that you could 0:15:29.880 --> 0:15:33.320 understand or track him through his own life up until 0:15:33.360 --> 0:15:35.680 that point. What did it look like? What did the 0:15:35.760 --> 0:15:38.360 what did the scrap books look like? They're you know, 0:15:38.800 --> 0:15:43.040 Depression era and sort of big portfolios with string holding 0:15:43.080 --> 0:15:46.800 them together. And the pages are that thick rough almost 0:15:46.880 --> 0:15:50.520 like now it's all faded rough paper and hoot of 0:15:50.520 --> 0:15:53.360 glue down. And you know, you can see them being 0:15:53.400 --> 0:15:57.040 bought at the five and dime store and um out 0:15:57.040 --> 0:16:00.160 in Nebraska where he grew up. And and you know, 0:16:00.360 --> 0:16:03.200 I wonder what he was thinking, this, this desire to 0:16:03.320 --> 0:16:08.920 document his life, you know, to preserve his life. One 0:16:08.960 --> 0:16:13.000 thing that's really interesting is there are some letters that 0:16:13.440 --> 0:16:18.560 he wrote two girl friends or a girl, a girl 0:16:18.680 --> 0:16:21.160 or two that he had a crush on in high school. 0:16:22.600 --> 0:16:25.320 And I don't know why I have had them, but 0:16:26.040 --> 0:16:29.320 I remember reading them, and I remember they were filled 0:16:29.320 --> 0:16:34.600 with such yearning and also such vulnerability and even self doubt. 0:16:34.760 --> 0:16:38.040 And I'm just thinking that when you're ask again about voice, 0:16:38.040 --> 0:16:41.480 I remember his voice. No, but I remember that voice, 0:16:41.520 --> 0:16:45.800 and that voice voice, remember imitating it. I'm imitating it 0:16:45.840 --> 0:16:50.120 with when I started to be fifteen sixteen, and he 0:16:50.160 --> 0:16:54.240 was very vulnerable and kind and very like me. He 0:16:54.320 --> 0:16:57.040 was over sensitive. And you know this one someone told 0:16:57.040 --> 0:17:00.440 me when I was reporting the story, is he was 0:17:00.480 --> 0:17:05.080 so hard on himself and but wait a minute, that's me, 0:17:05.280 --> 0:17:09.480 you know, And again is it did I have that 0:17:09.720 --> 0:17:11.679 in me? Or did I see his voice and start 0:17:11.720 --> 0:17:14.520 to then invalidate it. I don't know, but he was. 0:17:14.960 --> 0:17:20.679 He was a very vulnerable boy, teenager and yet very smart. 0:17:20.720 --> 0:17:24.359 But I think, very hard on himself. Interesting because you 0:17:24.359 --> 0:17:27.160 you spent your life, most of your life not knowing him, 0:17:27.240 --> 0:17:29.639 and yet what you're describing as something that many people 0:17:29.720 --> 0:17:35.359 never know about their parents. So how old were you 0:17:35.400 --> 0:17:40.840 when you've found the obituaries of your father. I was 0:17:41.680 --> 0:17:44.960 seventeen eighteen in high school and I had to write 0:17:44.960 --> 0:17:50.120 a term paper and I was doing research on microfilm, 0:17:51.000 --> 0:17:53.280 and I just had the thought that, you know, he 0:17:53.359 --> 0:17:58.199 was a journalist and he was prominent. I wonder what 0:17:58.320 --> 0:18:00.640 the newspapers wrote about him, what the open where he said. 0:18:01.160 --> 0:18:04.880 There were four newspapers that wrote up the obituary about him. 0:18:05.080 --> 0:18:09.320 Two had just a story that he, you know, had 0:18:09.359 --> 0:18:11.760 died and there was but then two of them had 0:18:11.800 --> 0:18:14.399 this detail in them and said he had died after 0:18:14.520 --> 0:18:18.560 visiting friends on the thirty block of North Pine Grove 0:18:18.600 --> 0:18:22.600 in Chicago. And I can remember sitting there reading, well, 0:18:22.640 --> 0:18:27.200 that's weird. Number one, come if I he has friends 0:18:27.280 --> 0:18:29.800 up there there and he was visiting them. That none 0:18:29.800 --> 0:18:32.000 of these friends ever said to me, G Mike, I 0:18:32.040 --> 0:18:34.399 saw your dad just before he died. I want you 0:18:34.440 --> 0:18:37.680 to know he said this about you, or like there 0:18:37.720 --> 0:18:41.080 was never any friends who raised their hand for that night. 0:18:41.520 --> 0:18:43.560 Number Two, that we knew, no one as far as 0:18:43.600 --> 0:18:46.400 I knew, who lived in that area of Chicago. Number three, 0:18:46.760 --> 0:18:50.520 that area Chicago is nowhere even remotely island the way home, 0:18:50.760 --> 0:18:54.640 that he wouldn't have him taken. But this sugar went 0:18:54.680 --> 0:18:58.720 down my spine that I had found something forbidden that 0:18:58.880 --> 0:19:02.800 I probably should not be reading. And though I wanted 0:19:02.840 --> 0:19:05.920 to ask my mother and show her what I just found, 0:19:06.600 --> 0:19:11.160 I made copies of the micro film and I took 0:19:11.240 --> 0:19:13.720 him home and I just hid them in a box 0:19:13.840 --> 0:19:16.840 under my bed. And that was when I was seventeen 0:19:16.880 --> 0:19:20.800 eighteen and kind of moved on. But still there was 0:19:20.840 --> 0:19:24.200 that knock on the door all the time when you're 0:19:24.880 --> 0:19:28.439 sitting there thinking, and that knoxing you really should be 0:19:28.440 --> 0:19:32.239 looking at me, Yeah, I mean it's for forbidden, and 0:19:32.320 --> 0:19:37.960 also confirming of something, yeah, and confirming ten twelve years 0:19:38.000 --> 0:19:42.679 of suspicion. So then you go off to college and 0:19:42.760 --> 0:19:46.760 you start living your life, and at what point does 0:19:46.880 --> 0:19:51.760 that knocking get louder? The knocking gets louder. Just about 0:19:51.800 --> 0:19:54.879 the time I was thirty three thirty four, starting to 0:19:54.960 --> 0:19:58.480 crest towards the age my father was when he died, 0:19:59.280 --> 0:20:04.280 and I had again. It might not sound believable to 0:20:04.359 --> 0:20:06.960 some people, but if you've had trauma, you would understand. 0:20:07.600 --> 0:20:09.960 From the time I was seven eight nine, I really 0:20:10.880 --> 0:20:15.760 was confirmed in my belief that I would not outlive him, 0:20:15.800 --> 0:20:19.360 and that it was even a reason why I did 0:20:19.400 --> 0:20:22.920 not I want to get married, and if I did 0:20:22.960 --> 0:20:24.800 get married, I was not going to have children because 0:20:24.800 --> 0:20:26.439 I did not want to die on them, and what 0:20:26.560 --> 0:20:30.240 was the point. So really, as I m started to 0:20:30.320 --> 0:20:35.040 cress towards the age he died, which was thirty five, 0:20:35.760 --> 0:20:40.440 I sort of really went into a an emotional crisis. 0:20:40.720 --> 0:20:45.080 And I was seeing a doctor, you know, intensive kind 0:20:45.119 --> 0:20:49.159 of analysis. And when I sort of started seeing I 0:20:49.160 --> 0:20:53.639 mean she said, well, you're basically having a functioning breakdown. 0:20:54.640 --> 0:20:58.360 I was able to go on with things Monday through Friday, 0:20:58.359 --> 0:21:01.480 but you know, and at nights and then at home. 0:21:01.520 --> 0:21:04.560 I sort of really that that year, So leading up 0:21:04.560 --> 0:21:08.359 to it was really very difficult, and I think what 0:21:08.960 --> 0:21:11.240 made me think is I just have to find this answer, 0:21:11.760 --> 0:21:14.800 and that's what really traveled me toward it. It should 0:21:14.840 --> 0:21:19.000 be said too, that you were a very successful working 0:21:19.000 --> 0:21:22.880 writer and journalist during this time that you were functioning 0:21:23.440 --> 0:21:26.160 in that, you know, nine to five during the week way, 0:21:26.760 --> 0:21:30.520 which I think that really bears saying and also talking 0:21:30.560 --> 0:21:32.600 about a little bit, because I think it's true of 0:21:32.680 --> 0:21:36.439 so many people, um that there is a way in 0:21:36.480 --> 0:21:40.720 which you can kind of have a place in the 0:21:40.760 --> 0:21:43.479 world in which, you know, for many people into their 0:21:43.480 --> 0:21:47.480 work lives where outwardly everything seems perfectly fine. I would 0:21:47.520 --> 0:21:49.840 imagine that your colleagues and the people that you were 0:21:49.880 --> 0:21:52.399 working with had no idea that you were having this 0:21:52.520 --> 0:21:55.840 kind of functioning breakdown. Yeah, and I think you know, 0:21:55.960 --> 0:21:58.320 from what we know about trauma, I mean that people 0:21:58.400 --> 0:22:02.080 survived trauma and you have no idea whether it's something 0:22:02.840 --> 0:22:07.080 some PTSD in combat or you know, we've read about 0:22:07.880 --> 0:22:12.119 people who survived Nazi camps, or you know, people who 0:22:12.160 --> 0:22:15.920 survived horrible sexual trauma. You know, you you you learn 0:22:16.000 --> 0:22:19.600 to compartmentalize, right, You learned to get on with your 0:22:19.640 --> 0:22:21.800 life and you you want you that is all part 0:22:21.800 --> 0:22:25.200 of the moving forward or not letting this thing define 0:22:25.280 --> 0:22:29.160 you or destroy you. However, it's going to always keep 0:22:29.840 --> 0:22:34.280 knocking on that door unless one sits down with it 0:22:34.359 --> 0:22:37.600 and really answers to it and ask it asked for answers. 0:22:37.840 --> 0:22:41.800 So I think it did. As I've said. It's I've 0:22:41.840 --> 0:22:45.800 been not confronting those suspicions and going in search of 0:22:46.640 --> 0:22:49.560 the answers that I needed to at least make a 0:22:49.640 --> 0:22:53.399 run for if I was going to be complete. I 0:22:53.520 --> 0:22:58.119 was incomplete. So Michael commences the search he's been putting 0:22:58.160 --> 0:23:02.040 off in some ways all his life. He begins with 0:23:02.080 --> 0:23:05.520 his mother. He tells her he wants to write about 0:23:05.560 --> 0:23:08.080 his dad and get in touch with the old circle 0:23:08.119 --> 0:23:10.720 of newspaper guys who would have known him and worked 0:23:10.760 --> 0:23:14.240 with him. It wasn't only about getting to the bottom 0:23:14.280 --> 0:23:17.440 of what had happened on that April night in nineteen seventy. 0:23:18.240 --> 0:23:21.040 He wanted to know the man he had lost. He 0:23:21.080 --> 0:23:24.480 wanted to learn more about Bob Hainey's boyhood and how 0:23:24.480 --> 0:23:27.159 he left the small dustbowl town in Nebraska where he 0:23:27.200 --> 0:23:30.320 had been raised and found the means and ambition to 0:23:30.359 --> 0:23:34.840 get himself to Chicago. Fundamentally, Michael was asking the questions 0:23:34.880 --> 0:23:37.560 that lead to the answer of how he came to be. 0:23:38.840 --> 0:23:42.720 Imagine a world of older, perhaps now retired, newspaper men. 0:23:43.480 --> 0:23:46.560 A tough breed, these men, and they were mostly men 0:23:47.160 --> 0:23:50.320 who reported on the streets of Chicago then drank away 0:23:50.359 --> 0:23:53.600 their cares at the local watering hole. There's a tight 0:23:53.720 --> 0:23:56.359 bond among journalists who work shoulder to shoulder at the 0:23:56.400 --> 0:24:00.000 same paper. They stick together, look out for one another 0:24:00.000 --> 0:24:04.960 her So when Michael begins to report the story, he's 0:24:05.000 --> 0:24:09.280 met with a range of reactions. Mostly he's being stonewalled. 0:24:10.119 --> 0:24:12.040 Some of these guys are willing to meet up with him, 0:24:12.359 --> 0:24:14.560 talk with him, but when it comes to the night 0:24:14.600 --> 0:24:20.280 of his father's death, he gets nothing. And remember Michael 0:24:20.400 --> 0:24:24.000 is a seasoned reporter himself, one of the best. He 0:24:24.080 --> 0:24:27.840 has all these skills, this background as a journalist, but 0:24:27.920 --> 0:24:31.359 he's not getting answers. This goes on for a good 0:24:31.520 --> 0:24:35.439 solid year, but eventually he gets a couple of breaks 0:24:35.640 --> 0:24:40.440 he never could have imagined. In the essential basic reporting 0:24:40.480 --> 0:24:43.520 of what I was doing, I was led to two 0:24:43.520 --> 0:24:47.879 women who changed my life and change the trajectory of 0:24:47.920 --> 0:24:51.840 my life and made my story possible. One was a 0:24:51.840 --> 0:24:56.280 woman named jan who worked at the Morgue in Chicago, 0:24:57.119 --> 0:25:00.240 and another was Lynn, who worked at the hospital my 0:25:00.280 --> 0:25:04.840 father was body was taken after he died, and they 0:25:04.840 --> 0:25:08.000 were both working at two of the grimmest places you 0:25:08.040 --> 0:25:12.840 might imagine. Jan in the Morgue. Literally, like when I 0:25:12.880 --> 0:25:15.200 first met her, I always say, like, there she was 0:25:15.560 --> 0:25:20.120 in this sort of behind this plexiglass window where she's 0:25:20.160 --> 0:25:24.040 got her whole job is to encounter people who were 0:25:24.080 --> 0:25:28.040 coming to claim bodies of loved ones. That was her 0:25:28.560 --> 0:25:31.199 eight hour day job. And I walked up to her 0:25:31.240 --> 0:25:33.840 and talked through a little hole and looked down, and 0:25:33.880 --> 0:25:37.560 she's got two bibles open, side by side, And I said, 0:25:38.560 --> 0:25:40.679 the journalist to me, I said, that's interesting. Why do 0:25:40.720 --> 0:25:44.760 you have two bibles? And she said, Old Testament, New Testament. 0:25:44.880 --> 0:25:47.800 You've got to know what was fore told and what 0:25:47.920 --> 0:25:52.280 was delivered. And she was, as I said, worked in 0:25:52.320 --> 0:25:55.760 one of the grimmest places in the world, but filled 0:25:55.800 --> 0:25:59.919