WEBVTT - The Blue Chair 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:12.000 Family Secrets is a production of I Heart Radio. I'm 0:00:12.080 --> 0:00:16.000 Danny Shapiro, and this is family Secrets, the secrets that 0:00:16.040 --> 0:00:18.599 are kept from us, the secrets we keep from others, 0:00:18.960 --> 0:00:24.520 and the secrets we keep from ourselves. My guest today 0:00:24.560 --> 0:00:29.120 is writer Nadia Awusu, whose debut memoir After Shocks was 0:00:29.160 --> 0:00:35.800 recently published. Nadia's story is about secrets and that very 0:00:35.880 --> 0:00:42.040 close first cousin to secrets, lies or potential lies. I 0:00:42.080 --> 0:00:44.400 think it's safe to say that where there are secrets, 0:00:44.720 --> 0:00:48.480 there are almost inevitably lies, lies, either told to cover 0:00:48.600 --> 0:00:52.800 up or to protect, or to defend, or sometimes to 0:00:53.000 --> 0:00:57.400 exact revenge. Nadia's story is also about learning to live 0:00:57.400 --> 0:01:00.800 with the fact that we might just never the whole truth, 0:01:01.840 --> 0:01:10.840 and maybe that's okay. So, Nadia, I always begin by 0:01:10.880 --> 0:01:13.959 asking my guest this question, but in your case, it's 0:01:14.000 --> 0:01:18.039 actually an even more interesting question than usual, which is, 0:01:18.800 --> 0:01:22.440 tell me about the landscape of your childhood. So I 0:01:22.480 --> 0:01:25.959 was born in Dar Sala, Tanzania, and I was born 0:01:26.000 --> 0:01:29.679 there because my father worked for you an agency. My 0:01:29.840 --> 0:01:33.160 father was from Ghana and my mother is Armenian American, 0:01:33.520 --> 0:01:36.600 and they met in Massachusetts, where my mother grew up 0:01:36.640 --> 0:01:39.440 and my father was there for graduate school, so right 0:01:39.480 --> 0:01:41.440 from the very beginning I had a very sort of 0:01:41.560 --> 0:01:46.720 international upbringing. UM. My mother left when I was two 0:01:46.800 --> 0:01:49.440 years old. She left Tanzania and moved back to the 0:01:49.520 --> 0:01:52.920 United States, where she very quickly remarried and had two 0:01:52.920 --> 0:01:56.200 other children. So I was largely raised by my father 0:01:56.800 --> 0:01:59.880 versus a single parent. My sister and I were sent 0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:02.960 to live with my aunt Harriet for a little while 0:02:03.000 --> 0:02:06.040 while he sort of got his life together to parent 0:02:06.160 --> 0:02:08.680 two girls on his own. My sister is a year 0:02:08.720 --> 0:02:13.400 younger than me, and then my father remarried Uh and 0:02:13.480 --> 0:02:17.400 we all moved together to Rome, Italy, where the headquarters 0:02:17.440 --> 0:02:20.880 of the agency he worked for was. And so I 0:02:20.919 --> 0:02:25.079 spent my childhood moving back and forth between Italy and 0:02:25.480 --> 0:02:30.520 largely East Africa. I lived in Ethiopia, Uganda, UM, Tanzania, 0:02:31.000 --> 0:02:34.200 spent a lot of time in Ghana with my father's family, 0:02:34.280 --> 0:02:37.160 and in the UK, where my father's sisters, UM and 0:02:37.200 --> 0:02:40.000 all my cousins lived, and had a really sort of 0:02:40.200 --> 0:02:45.679 hop scotched upbringing, always sort of straddling cultures and languages. 0:02:46.120 --> 0:02:49.120 And you know, just as we settled into a new home, 0:02:49.720 --> 0:02:52.120 my father would tell us that it was time to 0:02:52.200 --> 0:02:54.480 leave again, and we pack up and move on to 0:02:54.560 --> 0:02:56.960 the next place. And in some ways, this is a 0:02:56.960 --> 0:03:00.240 really wonderful way to grow up because I grew up 0:03:00.280 --> 0:03:04.040 among so many people, um, so many different kinds of people, 0:03:04.080 --> 0:03:07.440 so many different cultures, and got to see so much 0:03:07.440 --> 0:03:09.880 of the world from a very young age, and especially 0:03:09.919 --> 0:03:12.520 because of who my father was, he was always deeply 0:03:12.560 --> 0:03:15.400 engaged in what was going on in the world around him. 0:03:15.440 --> 0:03:17.600 I got to learn a lot about the world and 0:03:17.639 --> 0:03:20.720 about people and places. But on the other hand, there 0:03:20.800 --> 0:03:24.000 was always sort of this sense of longing to really 0:03:24.040 --> 0:03:26.919 belong to a place in a in a clearer way, 0:03:27.520 --> 0:03:31.400 and sort of a anxiety about, you know what else 0:03:31.440 --> 0:03:35.680 I might lose, having lost my mother so young and 0:03:36.440 --> 0:03:40.640 her absence was very palpable in my life, and then 0:03:40.720 --> 0:03:45.400 when I was thirteen my father passed away. I'm always curious, 0:03:45.560 --> 0:03:48.840 um because I grew up in one home, in one 0:03:48.880 --> 0:03:52.040 neighborhood and really basically never left until I went to 0:03:52.080 --> 0:03:54.960 college and then didn't go far and never had that 0:03:55.040 --> 0:03:59.200 experience of being the new kid again and again and again. 0:03:59.800 --> 0:04:02.920 And I always I wonder about like what that does, 0:04:03.000 --> 0:04:05.800 like both what muscles it builds, and also as you 0:04:05.960 --> 0:04:07.960 as you describe kind of that, you know, the longing 0:04:08.000 --> 0:04:12.120 that it can also produce. You know, there are many 0:04:12.200 --> 0:04:14.760 of us around the world who live this kind of childhood, 0:04:14.760 --> 0:04:17.839 and in fact, were often called third culture kids, you know, 0:04:17.920 --> 0:04:21.200 kids who grew up kind of in between their parents 0:04:21.320 --> 0:04:24.960 cultures and sort of straddling borders and boundaries. And I 0:04:25.000 --> 0:04:28.640 think because I went to international schools my whole life 0:04:29.080 --> 0:04:32.920 largely with kids like me who were moving around a lot. 0:04:33.400 --> 0:04:36.360 Their parents worked for you and agencies or for embassies, 0:04:36.360 --> 0:04:39.240 and so all of us lived this very transient life, 0:04:39.480 --> 0:04:41.680 which I think sort of made it more normal than 0:04:41.720 --> 0:04:44.240 if you're moving into a community that you know is 0:04:44.279 --> 0:04:48.520 already established. But at the same time, I think that 0:04:49.040 --> 0:04:53.240 because we were moving to different countries and having to 0:04:53.400 --> 0:04:57.240 sort of adapt to you know, even though our international 0:04:57.320 --> 0:05:00.440 school international schools are pretty consistent where where you are, 0:05:00.839 --> 0:05:04.800 but everything around us changed, including sort of the language 0:05:04.800 --> 0:05:07.520 that we communicated in. It was always really important to 0:05:07.520 --> 0:05:09.839 my father that we learned the language, and so I 0:05:09.880 --> 0:05:12.760 guess that's one of the sort of muscles that we 0:05:12.920 --> 0:05:15.840 sort of flexed as I was growing up. Um And 0:05:16.040 --> 0:05:18.240 I think that you get to know people differently when 0:05:18.240 --> 0:05:21.320 you're speaking their language, so and I think languages come 0:05:21.360 --> 0:05:24.640 easier to children at a young age. And so I 0:05:24.720 --> 0:05:27.520 was able to move pretty easily, you know, in and 0:05:27.560 --> 0:05:30.680 out of different worlds, and also to discern sort of 0:05:30.720 --> 0:05:34.040 what was expected of me in different environments. I was 0:05:34.080 --> 0:05:36.240 a very observant child, and I think a lot of 0:05:36.320 --> 0:05:38.200 kids who go up the way that I did are 0:05:38.279 --> 0:05:41.440 as well. And we're very adaptable in a lot of ways. 0:05:41.560 --> 0:05:45.080 But we also, um, I think from talking to other, 0:05:45.520 --> 0:05:48.719 you know, people who are third culture kids, many of 0:05:48.839 --> 0:05:52.279 us have this sense of anxiety about sort of doing 0:05:52.360 --> 0:05:56.880 something wrong or making a misstep or um sort of 0:05:56.920 --> 0:06:01.120 being judged for not clearly but longing to a place, 0:06:01.360 --> 0:06:05.120 um or having sort of a stable identity. Our identities 0:06:05.160 --> 0:06:07.240 tend to be pretty fluid, and we moved in and 0:06:07.240 --> 0:06:10.400 out of them, and in some ways that's a wonderful 0:06:10.440 --> 0:06:13.960 thing because it's sort of a celebration of multiplicity. But 0:06:14.040 --> 0:06:16.880 on the other hand, we can sometimes be seen as 0:06:16.920 --> 0:06:20.520 sort of not trustworthy or sort of have this fear 0:06:20.800 --> 0:06:23.560 that people are going to sort of accuse us of 0:06:24.040 --> 0:06:27.240 sort of faking a sense of self in some ways, 0:06:27.800 --> 0:06:30.440 and there's you know, there's often a demand on all 0:06:30.480 --> 0:06:33.080 of us that we should choose, you know, or that 0:06:33.120 --> 0:06:35.560 we should see our identities as fixed. And I think 0:06:35.600 --> 0:06:38.279 for kids who grew up like I did, that's really 0:06:38.320 --> 0:06:42.160 difficult to do because, you know, in my case, for example, 0:06:42.200 --> 0:06:45.440 I didn't speak my father's language tree, and so although 0:06:45.480 --> 0:06:47.920 I was raised to sort of when people asked me 0:06:48.040 --> 0:06:49.919 to say that I was gunn in, and I was 0:06:50.000 --> 0:06:52.960 raised among the gunny inside of my family, I didn't 0:06:52.960 --> 0:06:55.680 feel like I could claim that in an uncomplicated way. 0:06:55.680 --> 0:06:57.480 And even when I met a gunny and they would 0:06:57.480 --> 0:07:00.520 sort of question because my mother's why and because of 0:07:00.560 --> 0:07:02.920 my appearance, because I don't speak the language, they would 0:07:02.960 --> 0:07:07.479 sort of question my gunnyan nous. And you know, I 0:07:07.600 --> 0:07:10.280 felt that about sort of all of the identities that 0:07:10.520 --> 0:07:14.080 I have inhabited and tried to sort of own and 0:07:14.160 --> 0:07:17.760 belong to. And I have come to a place where 0:07:17.800 --> 0:07:20.080 I claim, you know, a lot of the places and 0:07:20.160 --> 0:07:23.160 people that I've lived among and loved and tried to 0:07:23.200 --> 0:07:26.280 belong to. But it has never been simple. It's always 0:07:26.280 --> 0:07:31.560 been very complicated. So your your mother left when you 0:07:31.600 --> 0:07:36.320 were two, Yes, and there was a real a bright 0:07:36.360 --> 0:07:38.720 line around her leaving. It wasn't she didn't she didn't 0:07:38.760 --> 0:07:42.800 move around the corner. She left and started another family. 0:07:43.560 --> 0:07:47.560 Do you have memories of her from pre her leaving? 0:07:48.520 --> 0:07:51.760 You know, I feel as though I do, Like I 0:07:51.800 --> 0:07:56.080 feel like I can remember these images or you know, 0:07:56.320 --> 0:07:59.360 her smell. There's this sense that I have of her 0:07:59.400 --> 0:08:02.120 being there. I've had that sense in these sort of 0:08:02.160 --> 0:08:04.280 images in my mind for a long time. But of 0:08:04.320 --> 0:08:07.280 course I was so young, and it's difficult to sort 0:08:07.280 --> 0:08:10.560 of tell to what extent those memories are real and 0:08:10.640 --> 0:08:14.240 to what extent they're sort of constructed memories from the 0:08:14.280 --> 0:08:17.000 photographs that we had in our house, or you know, 0:08:17.080 --> 0:08:19.800 from later memories. Um. I did spend a lot of 0:08:19.840 --> 0:08:22.760 time thinking about her and sort of gazing at photographs 0:08:22.760 --> 0:08:25.200 of her, So it's really hard for me to to 0:08:25.360 --> 0:08:29.040 know to what extent I can trust my memories of 0:08:29.120 --> 0:08:35.160 her before she left. So often we searched photographs for clues, 0:08:35.880 --> 0:08:39.240 especially when we can't remember, and we read into those 0:08:39.240 --> 0:08:42.520 photographs for meaning when the memory of the people in 0:08:42.520 --> 0:08:45.679 the photograph carries with it a whiff of trauma. This 0:08:45.760 --> 0:08:49.840 is even more true when Nadia is seven, she's living 0:08:49.840 --> 0:08:52.880 in Rome with her father and stepmother, and out of 0:08:52.920 --> 0:08:57.520 seemingly nowhere, her mother pays a surprise visit. Her father 0:08:57.600 --> 0:08:59.920 hadn't wanted to tell Nadia that her mother was coming 0:09:00.480 --> 0:09:03.000 because he didn't know if she would actually show up. 0:09:05.440 --> 0:09:07.960 The day kind of started like a normal day. I 0:09:08.040 --> 0:09:10.679 came down. It was a weekend. I came down for breakfast, 0:09:10.800 --> 0:09:14.440 and I was sitting at the kitchen table with my father. 0:09:15.080 --> 0:09:17.480 My father always made pancakes on the weekend, and so 0:09:17.480 --> 0:09:19.800 we were eating pancakes, and my father was listening to 0:09:19.840 --> 0:09:23.360 the radio, and I have a very clear memory of, 0:09:23.559 --> 0:09:26.280 you know, the my father listened to the BBC World Service, 0:09:26.320 --> 0:09:29.080 and I have a really clear memory of the broadcaster 0:09:29.840 --> 0:09:33.840 talking about the possibility of aftershocks and about this earthquake 0:09:33.960 --> 0:09:37.480 that had destroyed a city in Armenia. And you know, 0:09:37.520 --> 0:09:41.360 my mother being Armenian American, I kind of and my 0:09:41.480 --> 0:09:44.720 father didn't really like to talk about my mother very much. 0:09:44.760 --> 0:09:46.640 I always got the sense that it sort of made 0:09:46.720 --> 0:09:50.000 him uncomfortable and sad, and yet I was always really 0:09:50.040 --> 0:09:53.079 curious about her. And so since this you know, person 0:09:53.160 --> 0:09:55.840 on the radio had said that there was an earthquake 0:09:55.840 --> 0:09:58.680 in Armenia, I sort of grasped onto the opportunity to 0:09:58.720 --> 0:10:02.800 ask my father about my mother's family, and I asked him, 0:10:02.800 --> 0:10:05.840 you know she had family in Armenia, because I knew 0:10:05.840 --> 0:10:07.960 that she had grown up in the in the United States, 0:10:07.960 --> 0:10:11.160 and my father said, no, her family are mostly in 0:10:11.200 --> 0:10:15.360 the United States now summer in Argentina. They moved all 0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:18.760 over the world, and I kind of vaguely knew that 0:10:18.800 --> 0:10:21.959 my mother's family had left what was then the Ottoman 0:10:22.000 --> 0:10:24.960 Empire because of a genocide. I didn't fully understand what 0:10:25.000 --> 0:10:26.840 that meant, but I knew that there was some violent 0:10:27.520 --> 0:10:30.360 history that had sort of sent them to America and 0:10:30.400 --> 0:10:32.760 to other parts of the world. But you know, we 0:10:32.880 --> 0:10:35.320 sort of left it at that. And then there was 0:10:35.360 --> 0:10:38.360 this knock on the door and there was my mother 0:10:38.640 --> 0:10:42.800 with these red balloons in her hand. Um, and my 0:10:42.920 --> 0:10:45.600 father came to the door and said, you know, your 0:10:45.640 --> 0:10:48.480 mother is going to take you to lunch. And so 0:10:48.679 --> 0:10:51.360 my sister and I went to lunch with my mother. 0:10:51.440 --> 0:10:55.280 She was in Italy on vacation with her husband, her 0:10:55.320 --> 0:10:59.480 then husband, and so he drove us to Piazza and Avona, 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:02.720 and the three of us got out and walked around, 0:11:02.920 --> 0:11:05.640 and you know, my mother took us to a restaurant. 0:11:06.559 --> 0:11:10.240 She talked about my half sisters you know, back in 0:11:10.280 --> 0:11:13.280 the States, and how she would bring them next time, 0:11:13.480 --> 0:11:16.600 and she asked us about school. But it wasn't, you know, 0:11:16.679 --> 0:11:21.120 this deep, meaningful conversation at all. But I remember feeling 0:11:21.120 --> 0:11:24.480 this this sense that I wanted to say something important 0:11:24.520 --> 0:11:26.800 to her that she would remember or that would make 0:11:26.840 --> 0:11:29.760 her come back. Um, even though she was mostly a 0:11:29.760 --> 0:11:32.960 stranger and I was like both nervous around her because 0:11:32.960 --> 0:11:35.200 I was always shy around strangers, and I had this 0:11:35.320 --> 0:11:37.720 sort of big idea of what it was to have 0:11:37.800 --> 0:11:41.079 a mother, because everyone, all of the other children I knew, 0:11:41.480 --> 0:11:45.559 had mothers that were very central in their lives. After lunch, 0:11:45.600 --> 0:11:48.000 she dropped us back at our house, and you know, 0:11:48.040 --> 0:11:50.920 I watched her walk away, and I think because I 0:11:51.000 --> 0:11:54.480 was so young when she left the first time, this 0:11:54.559 --> 0:11:57.520 was the first time that I had really watched her 0:11:58.040 --> 0:12:01.520 walk away, So it sort of stayed with me, that 0:12:01.600 --> 0:12:04.440 image of the back of her head and seeing her 0:12:04.480 --> 0:12:09.240 get into the car and drive away again. And you know, 0:12:09.360 --> 0:12:12.000 her arrival on the same day as an earthquake in 0:12:12.000 --> 0:12:16.239 our Medea. I think that the idea of the earthquake 0:12:16.440 --> 0:12:19.120 and the way that I sort of felt uneasy and 0:12:19.240 --> 0:12:24.360 shaken by her arrival kind of combined in me and 0:12:24.840 --> 0:12:28.320 I sort of constructed this story and became sort of 0:12:28.360 --> 0:12:33.000 obsessed in some ways with with earthquakes and held on 0:12:33.080 --> 0:12:37.440 too that for a very long time. So at this point, 0:12:38.000 --> 0:12:41.160 your stepmother, annabel has been in your life for a 0:12:41.200 --> 0:12:43.720 couple of years, at the point that your that your 0:12:43.760 --> 0:12:48.120 mother makes this visit at that time, what was your 0:12:48.160 --> 0:12:52.680 relationship with Annabelle? Like I mean and describe annabel for 0:12:52.760 --> 0:12:57.440 us a little bit. Annabelle was very young when she 0:12:57.520 --> 0:13:00.520 married my father. She was in her early twenty um. 0:13:00.600 --> 0:13:04.839 She actually finished college in Rome when she was living 0:13:04.840 --> 0:13:07.560 with us. I wasn't aware of how young she was 0:13:07.600 --> 0:13:09.320 at the time. I didn't think about it that much. 0:13:09.360 --> 0:13:11.800 She seemed like a grown up to me, but you know, 0:13:11.880 --> 0:13:15.600 she was twenty three, I think twenty two or twenty three. 0:13:16.040 --> 0:13:19.520 How did they meet? So they met in Tanzania, Annabelle's 0:13:19.559 --> 0:13:23.280 Tanzanian and you know, my father was stationed there, and 0:13:23.320 --> 0:13:25.440 this was during the time that he had sent my 0:13:25.520 --> 0:13:28.400 sister and I to live with his older sister and 0:13:28.440 --> 0:13:31.640 my aunt Harriet in the UK because he was traveling 0:13:31.679 --> 0:13:33.800 so much for work and he didn't like the idea 0:13:33.840 --> 0:13:36.680 of us spending a lot of time with Nanny's and 0:13:36.760 --> 0:13:39.679 so we spent you know, a couple of years with 0:13:39.720 --> 0:13:41.840 my aunt. And so it was during that time that 0:13:41.920 --> 0:13:46.200 he met Annabelle in Tanzania and fell for her. And 0:13:46.240 --> 0:13:50.000 then after he moved to Rome, she came with him 0:13:50.520 --> 0:13:54.280 a few months later to to live with us. And so, 0:13:54.320 --> 0:13:58.719 in the early years of your relationship with Annabelle, how 0:13:58.720 --> 0:14:02.280 would you characterize that time? Yeah, Um, I think that 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:05.480 I would sort of describe it as confusing. You know, 0:14:05.559 --> 0:14:08.439 there were there all these ways in which I resented her. 0:14:08.720 --> 0:14:11.960 You know, my sister and I had just been reunited 0:14:12.040 --> 0:14:14.920 with our father, and we had lost her mom at 0:14:14.920 --> 0:14:18.079 such an early age, and my father was already at 0:14:18.120 --> 0:14:20.960 that time sort of the great hero of my life. 0:14:21.000 --> 0:14:24.160 I adored him, and as much as I loved my 0:14:24.160 --> 0:14:27.720 Aunt Harriet and loved living with her, I always wanted 0:14:27.760 --> 0:14:30.920 to be around my father, and so Annabelle I kind 0:14:30.920 --> 0:14:34.680 of saw her, you know, as competition in some ways, um, 0:14:34.720 --> 0:14:37.360 And I think some of that was my own story 0:14:37.560 --> 0:14:40.480 that I had made up about who she was, but 0:14:40.560 --> 0:14:42.600 some of it also, you know, did show up in 0:14:42.680 --> 0:14:46.360 some of her behaviors, like she seemed unsure of who 0:14:46.440 --> 0:14:49.960 to be in relationship to me and my sister. And 0:14:50.040 --> 0:14:53.920 sometimes she could be very fun and I enjoyed sort 0:14:53.920 --> 0:14:56.400 of being around her, and she was very beautiful, and 0:14:56.440 --> 0:14:59.920 so I liked to sort of watch her and sort 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:03.840 admire her in some ways. But sometimes she seemed to 0:15:03.960 --> 0:15:07.560 resent us and to not want us around. I remember 0:15:07.680 --> 0:15:10.720 sort of her sort of snapping at me to not 0:15:10.840 --> 0:15:13.400 bother them when they were sleeping. I had had a nightmare, 0:15:13.400 --> 0:15:15.400 and I, you know, was used to being able to 0:15:15.440 --> 0:15:17.920 go into my father's room and he would sort of 0:15:17.960 --> 0:15:19.800 come and tuck me back into bed. And she was 0:15:19.920 --> 0:15:22.040 very clear that that was a boundary and that was 0:15:22.080 --> 0:15:25.560 not going to happen. And so our relationship from a 0:15:25.720 --> 0:15:29.960 very start was complicated. There was both sort of an 0:15:30.360 --> 0:15:33.560 an uneasy sort of moving towards each other, but then 0:15:33.640 --> 0:15:37.800 also just this sense that we were competitors in some way. 0:15:40.560 --> 0:15:43.080 We'll be back in a moment with more family secrets. 0:15:57.240 --> 0:16:01.080 Within this fraud family dynamic, there was something else, something 0:16:01.360 --> 0:16:06.520 secret going on. Not as much adored father is actually sick. 0:16:07.240 --> 0:16:10.280 He's been diagnosed with cancer and keeps it a secret 0:16:10.320 --> 0:16:13.440 from his two daughters until keeping it a secret is 0:16:13.520 --> 0:16:17.000 no longer possible. He dies when she's just shy of 0:16:17.080 --> 0:16:23.880 fourteen years old. I had long believed that my father's 0:16:23.920 --> 0:16:27.080 illness was very quick. My sister and I were sent 0:16:27.160 --> 0:16:30.440 to boarding school in England when I was in I 0:16:30.480 --> 0:16:33.400 think it was sixth grade, and we were told that 0:16:33.440 --> 0:16:36.440 it was because you know, we were moving again and 0:16:36.560 --> 0:16:38.880 it was messing with our education and my father wanted 0:16:38.960 --> 0:16:41.560 us to have more stability. But we were then, after 0:16:41.640 --> 0:16:47.040 a term, summoned back home to Rome, and it quickly 0:16:47.120 --> 0:16:50.840 became clear that we had been sent to boarding school 0:16:50.880 --> 0:16:54.400 because my father had been diagnosed with cancer. But over 0:16:54.480 --> 0:16:58.160 the course of that term, the cancer had spread, and 0:16:58.920 --> 0:17:02.280 my father then to us around, you know, in case 0:17:02.360 --> 0:17:06.280 he lost his fight with cancer. But I later learned 0:17:06.560 --> 0:17:10.520 that he had actually been diagnosed years before, and I 0:17:10.560 --> 0:17:12.919 had had sort of kept that secret from my sister 0:17:13.000 --> 0:17:17.479 and me. So yeah, to me, the illness was really fast, 0:17:17.920 --> 0:17:20.359 and you know, it was just you know, a year 0:17:21.119 --> 0:17:26.199 or so between the diagnosis and him passing away. But 0:17:26.320 --> 0:17:29.600 I'm told that he actually knew that he had cancer 0:17:29.760 --> 0:17:34.479 for at least a year or two before that. So 0:17:34.520 --> 0:17:37.560 there's sort of a its own kind of secret right there. Right. 0:17:37.920 --> 0:17:40.320 You and your sister were very young, but the the 0:17:40.480 --> 0:17:43.159 idea of the kind of secret that we keep in 0:17:43.280 --> 0:17:45.840 order to protect, you know, in order to protect the 0:17:45.840 --> 0:17:47.879 people that we love, in order to protect our children, 0:17:48.000 --> 0:17:51.800 or protect whomever. So when did you find that out? 0:17:51.800 --> 0:17:54.280 When did you find out that he had been diagnosed 0:17:54.280 --> 0:17:57.479 with cancer prior? I didn't find that out until I 0:17:57.560 --> 0:17:59.960 was in my twenties, And it was actually Annabelle's sister 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:02.639 who told me that, And during a period that I 0:18:02.720 --> 0:18:06.919 was very angry with Annabelle for I don't remember what 0:18:06.960 --> 0:18:09.399 the reason was now, but we were often sort of 0:18:09.440 --> 0:18:12.600 angry with each other, but I had a good relationship 0:18:12.680 --> 0:18:15.800 with many of the members of her family, and her 0:18:15.840 --> 0:18:19.560 sister was sort of telling me about how hard it 0:18:19.640 --> 0:18:22.480 was for annabel as well, you know, the loss of 0:18:22.560 --> 0:18:26.000 my father and sort of finding herself alone with three 0:18:26.080 --> 0:18:28.679 children by that point, my brother, my half brother, Flammie, 0:18:28.720 --> 0:18:31.240 had been born by the time my father passed away, 0:18:31.240 --> 0:18:33.639 and so she was sort of telling me a side 0:18:33.640 --> 0:18:36.760 of the story that I didn't know or understand, and 0:18:37.000 --> 0:18:39.480 was sort of emphasizing that annabel had lived with the 0:18:39.520 --> 0:18:42.720 fear of his death for much longer and actually carried 0:18:42.720 --> 0:18:45.720 a lot of trauma from that, And so, yeah, it 0:18:45.760 --> 0:18:48.879 wasn't until my twenties that I learned that actually Annabelle 0:18:49.000 --> 0:18:51.560 had kept that secret from from my sister and me 0:18:51.680 --> 0:18:53.920 as well, which I see sort of as an act 0:18:54.000 --> 0:18:58.640 of protection. As you said, So your dad dies when 0:18:58.640 --> 0:19:03.560 you're almost fourteen, and in that situation, what would be 0:19:03.760 --> 0:19:07.960 most logical or typical would be for you and your 0:19:07.960 --> 0:19:14.160 sister to go to your mother. But that's not what happens, right, Yeah, 0:19:14.280 --> 0:19:18.000 So after our father passed away, UM, I called my mother, 0:19:18.320 --> 0:19:21.480 and you know, we had visited her a couple of 0:19:21.520 --> 0:19:26.399 times after her visit to Rome, but eventually those visits 0:19:26.560 --> 0:19:30.080 ended and the letters stopped as well. We stopped receiving 0:19:30.160 --> 0:19:33.240 letters and phone calls, and my mother had sort of 0:19:33.280 --> 0:19:36.119 disappeared from my wife for a number of years, and 0:19:36.200 --> 0:19:39.600 I didn't really know why, and had sort of accepted 0:19:39.680 --> 0:19:42.520 that that was going to be the way that it was. 0:19:43.080 --> 0:19:47.320 But then after my father died, UM, everyone, my father's 0:19:47.760 --> 0:19:51.119 family and friends and even Annabelle said, you know, you 0:19:51.200 --> 0:19:54.399 have to call your mother and talk to her, and 0:19:54.480 --> 0:19:57.600 so we did. I called her, and what I remember 0:19:57.680 --> 0:20:00.320 most about that phone call was that my mother didn't 0:20:00.359 --> 0:20:05.399 immediately say I'm coming to get you, or even I'm coming, 0:20:05.880 --> 0:20:09.119 and I actually had to ask her, and she said 0:20:09.160 --> 0:20:11.320 that she was living in Arizona at the time. She 0:20:11.359 --> 0:20:15.320 couldn't leave, she had other children, she had work, and 0:20:15.560 --> 0:20:18.520 that you know, maybe down the line my sister and 0:20:18.560 --> 0:20:21.600 I could come to her and we could talk about 0:20:21.640 --> 0:20:26.760 the future. And I just took that as such a rejection, 0:20:27.080 --> 0:20:29.640 and I told her that I would, you know, never 0:20:29.680 --> 0:20:31.560 speak to her again. And I sort of hung up 0:20:31.560 --> 0:20:37.639 the phone and kept that promise for a decade. So 0:20:37.720 --> 0:20:44.199 then Annabelle becomes you're de facto guardian. How did you 0:20:44.240 --> 0:20:46.600 think of her over those next few years? You know, 0:20:46.640 --> 0:20:49.360 you were fourteen and then you're eighteen when you moved 0:20:49.359 --> 0:20:51.960 to New York, But in those few years where you're 0:20:52.040 --> 0:20:57.480 living with her, how did you see her? Our relationship 0:20:57.520 --> 0:21:01.040 has always been so complicated, and um, you know, there 0:21:01.080 --> 0:21:04.119 were offers from other members of my father's family and 0:21:04.119 --> 0:21:07.959 my father's sisters, some of my father's extended family in 0:21:08.000 --> 0:21:11.320 Germany and Canada who had offered from my sister and 0:21:11.359 --> 0:21:13.160 I to come and live with them as well. But 0:21:13.560 --> 0:21:17.040 you know, we we sort of felt that we were 0:21:17.080 --> 0:21:19.800 a family, you know, we were a complicated family, but 0:21:20.040 --> 0:21:23.280 we didn't want to lose any any more of our 0:21:23.600 --> 0:21:26.520 life as it was than we already had. And Annabelle 0:21:26.640 --> 0:21:31.000 sort of made this very sort of heartfelt offer and 0:21:31.040 --> 0:21:33.560 sort of told us that she had promised our father 0:21:33.680 --> 0:21:36.960 that she would take care of us. And there was 0:21:37.040 --> 0:21:39.560 a lot of tenderness between us, even you know, as 0:21:39.600 --> 0:21:42.280 my father was really ill. You know, there were moments 0:21:42.280 --> 0:21:45.399 of anger, we thought, but there were also these moments 0:21:45.440 --> 0:21:47.840 where we really felt like we were in this together 0:21:48.040 --> 0:21:50.480 and that we were family and we loved each other 0:21:50.760 --> 0:21:54.760 despite the complications, and she was in many ways a 0:21:54.840 --> 0:21:57.960 mother to me, you know, she was she was there 0:21:58.560 --> 0:22:01.000 when I was so young and had long been a 0:22:01.000 --> 0:22:03.320 part of my life. And then with this offer that 0:22:03.400 --> 0:22:05.960 she would continue to raise my sister and I until 0:22:06.200 --> 0:22:09.320 we graduated from college, that sort of cemented this sense 0:22:09.320 --> 0:22:12.280 of us sort of being a family and being linked 0:22:12.760 --> 0:22:16.240 through our love for for my father, definitely, but also 0:22:16.359 --> 0:22:20.000 just through the relationship that that we had forged over 0:22:20.040 --> 0:22:22.480 the years. But at the same time, sort of the 0:22:22.680 --> 0:22:26.000 shape of our relationship had already been established, this sense 0:22:26.040 --> 0:22:30.120 that we were competitors. The resentments, many resentments that had 0:22:30.160 --> 0:22:33.080 sort of um bubbled up and then dissipeted over the 0:22:33.200 --> 0:22:39.280 years still existed between us and continued to fuel some 0:22:39.480 --> 0:22:43.439 pretty vicious fights, you know, over the several years that 0:22:43.520 --> 0:22:46.280 we continue to live together, and we had this sort 0:22:46.280 --> 0:22:48.920 of pattern of you know, there would be a blow 0:22:49.040 --> 0:22:52.560 up and she would become very angry, and you know, 0:22:52.640 --> 0:22:55.240 I would be sort of seething, and we would retreat 0:22:55.280 --> 0:22:58.520 to our separate rooms and not speak for a period 0:22:58.560 --> 0:23:01.000 of time, and she would some times throw things, or 0:23:01.080 --> 0:23:03.520 she would declare that my sister and I were no 0:23:03.560 --> 0:23:06.960 longer allowed to eat food in the house, you know, 0:23:07.040 --> 0:23:09.440 that we were to take our meals at school. And 0:23:09.760 --> 0:23:13.200 there were all sorts of ways that we punished each other. 0:23:13.359 --> 0:23:15.560 You know, I would I would give her the silent treatment, 0:23:16.280 --> 0:23:19.520 and then we would sort of without talking about it, 0:23:19.880 --> 0:23:23.440 just move back into a sort of detante. And that 0:23:23.520 --> 0:23:25.800 was sort of a pattern that continued, you know, after 0:23:25.880 --> 0:23:28.960 I turned eighteen and graduated and moved to the United 0:23:29.000 --> 0:23:34.840 States as well. Young adulthood is such an incredibly vulnerable age. 0:23:35.280 --> 0:23:39.919 You're legally technically an adult, and yet, as any neurobiologists 0:23:39.960 --> 0:23:42.639 will tell you, our brains don't reach their full adult 0:23:42.680 --> 0:23:46.280 maturity until the age of twenty five. All the while 0:23:46.720 --> 0:23:51.159 we're wrestling with some of life's biggest questions. Nadias In 0:23:51.240 --> 0:23:54.360 school in the States, she's under a lot of pressure, 0:23:54.960 --> 0:23:58.119 she's not doing well, and then she finds out that 0:23:58.160 --> 0:24:00.960 her tuition bill, which Annabe was supposed to be taken 0:24:00.960 --> 0:24:05.119 care of, hasn't been paid. So she finds herself applying 0:24:05.119 --> 0:24:08.880 for student loans. She's staring at a box on the application, 0:24:09.320 --> 0:24:12.720 the kind that asks you to define yourself, and there's 0:24:12.760 --> 0:24:17.080 this box that says orphan, and it stops her cold. 0:24:21.000 --> 0:24:23.879 You know, I moved to the United States at at eighteen, 0:24:24.000 --> 0:24:27.040 and I was on my own because although my mother 0:24:27.160 --> 0:24:31.120 is American, I'm a US citizen, I've never lived here before, 0:24:31.480 --> 0:24:35.639 and I didn't have family here, and so I found 0:24:35.680 --> 0:24:39.080 myself sort of on my own and for the first 0:24:39.160 --> 0:24:42.960 time really sort of contending with what my life was 0:24:43.000 --> 0:24:47.120 going to be like where were my roots and who 0:24:47.200 --> 0:24:49.000 was my family? And was there a home to go 0:24:49.080 --> 0:24:52.159 back to um if if things went wrong? And I 0:24:52.200 --> 0:24:57.439 remember just being just this general sense of fear and anxiety, 0:24:57.640 --> 0:25:00.720 and a lot of anxiety related to money. You know, 0:25:00.760 --> 0:25:04.800 as you said, I my father had left some life 0:25:04.840 --> 0:25:08.880 insurance that contributed to paying for me to go to college, 0:25:08.960 --> 0:25:12.439 and there was some conversation about, because Annabelle was my 0:25:12.440 --> 0:25:14.600 guardian and she at that point worked for the un 0:25:14.680 --> 0:25:17.240 that the u N might cover some of my tuition. 0:25:17.320 --> 0:25:20.080 But Annabelle was always sort of she would give and 0:25:20.119 --> 0:25:22.679 then if if she was angry, she would take away, 0:25:22.800 --> 0:25:25.920 or she would say, I'm actually not going to help 0:25:25.960 --> 0:25:29.000 with this. So there was always this sense of am 0:25:29.000 --> 0:25:31.720 I even going to be able to finish college? And 0:25:31.920 --> 0:25:34.480 I was already funny, I'd always been a really good student, 0:25:35.000 --> 0:25:37.040 and the first year of college, you know, when my 0:25:37.160 --> 0:25:40.560 father's insurance was covering my tuition, I did really well 0:25:40.600 --> 0:25:44.840 in school. But as the anxieties mounted, and I was 0:25:44.880 --> 0:25:48.280 also feeling this sort of sense of grief and anger 0:25:48.520 --> 0:25:51.959 that I didn't have parents who were hoping to at 0:25:52.040 --> 0:25:56.119 least guide me to figure out how to organize my life, 0:25:56.600 --> 0:26:00.959 and so I just I felt really alone. And my 0:26:01.080 --> 0:26:05.000 conversations with Annabelle at that time we're not going anywhere. Really. 0:26:05.560 --> 0:26:08.520 Sometimes she would make promises and then I wouldn't hear 0:26:08.600 --> 0:26:11.000 from her, and so I was really trying to figure 0:26:11.040 --> 0:26:13.040 out what can I do? You know, I was working 0:26:13.040 --> 0:26:17.600 three jobs um at one point and just really struggling 0:26:17.640 --> 0:26:21.760 in school. My grades spell, you know, not being American, 0:26:21.800 --> 0:26:24.440 I didn't even or I am a US citizen, but 0:26:24.560 --> 0:26:27.399 not having grown up here, I didn't even really fully understand, 0:26:27.520 --> 0:26:31.000 you know, the ways that people paid for college, or 0:26:31.000 --> 0:26:34.080 that financial aid was an option for me. I didn't 0:26:34.119 --> 0:26:36.399 have a Social Security number when I moved here, so 0:26:36.440 --> 0:26:37.919 I had to sort of figure out all of the 0:26:38.000 --> 0:26:41.480 bureaucracy of how I was going to explain why I 0:26:41.520 --> 0:26:44.000 had an American passport but I didn't have a Social 0:26:44.000 --> 0:26:46.639 Security number, and all of these confusions, and I was 0:26:46.800 --> 0:26:50.400 very shy and an introvert, and I was very intimidated 0:26:50.480 --> 0:26:54.120 by all of the bureaucracy and having to explain myself 0:26:54.200 --> 0:26:57.040 and have this sort of general fear that I had 0:26:57.080 --> 0:26:59.320 done something wrong or I was going to do something 0:26:59.320 --> 0:27:02.359 wrong and my whole life would fall apart. So finally, I, 0:27:02.520 --> 0:27:05.520 you know, I figured out that I could apply for 0:27:06.119 --> 0:27:10.000 financial aid, but that in order to apply for financial 0:27:10.040 --> 0:27:13.680 aid without sort of having a parent attached, that I 0:27:13.720 --> 0:27:18.119 would need to declare myself an orphan on this form. 0:27:18.160 --> 0:27:21.359 I think that that moment really struck me because I 0:27:21.440 --> 0:27:25.320 had not before I thought of myself in those terms. 0:27:25.359 --> 0:27:27.960 You know, I did have this big, extended family on 0:27:28.000 --> 0:27:30.879 my father's side that definitely was very loving, and you know, 0:27:30.920 --> 0:27:33.119 they did what they could that they were so far away. 0:27:33.680 --> 0:27:37.000 And then after my father passed away, I did have 0:27:37.400 --> 0:27:40.800 mothering from Annabelle in some ways, even though our relationship 0:27:40.840 --> 0:27:43.439 was complicated. But now that I was in the United States, 0:27:43.440 --> 0:27:47.720 it seems like she wasn't going to be that mother 0:27:47.840 --> 0:27:50.480 figure anymore. It was sort of like I turned eighteen 0:27:50.560 --> 0:27:53.119 and now I was on my own, and so coming 0:27:53.160 --> 0:27:56.879 to terms with this idea or this new story that 0:27:57.000 --> 0:27:59.159 I was alone in the world in some ways and 0:27:59.160 --> 0:28:03.919 that I was orphaned. That was a really difficult moment. 0:28:08.040 --> 0:28:25.400 We'll be right back not yet. Does eventually finish college, 0:28:25.440 --> 0:28:27.960 and she stays in New York for the next six 0:28:28.040 --> 0:28:30.560 years or so. She gets by mostly on her own. 0:28:31.359 --> 0:28:34.359 When she is twenty eight, she's working a few jobs 0:28:34.600 --> 0:28:38.520 for a nonprofit and also waitressing to supplement her meager salary. 0:28:39.240 --> 0:28:44.440 Plus she's in graduate school studying urban policy. This is 0:28:44.480 --> 0:28:46.720 when Annabelle happens to be on a work trip to 0:28:46.760 --> 0:28:50.080 the city. The two women go out to dinner. They're 0:28:50.080 --> 0:28:52.960 sitting across a table from each other, and the rage 0:28:53.000 --> 0:28:56.600 and tension between them grows and grows until it ignites 0:28:57.600 --> 0:29:01.760 Annabelle becomes more and more agitated. Nadia knows that if 0:29:01.800 --> 0:29:06.360 there's one thing annabel can't bear, it's being called crazy, 0:29:06.680 --> 0:29:11.280 and also that if Nadia remains utterly unflappable and calm, 0:29:11.360 --> 0:29:16.080 annabel will just will lose it. So that's what Nadia does. 0:29:16.680 --> 0:29:20.800 She very calmly, with no drama, suggests to annabel that 0:29:20.920 --> 0:29:26.320 she's acting unstable. You know that that's going to completely 0:29:26.360 --> 0:29:30.360 get to her because she can't think of herself that way. 0:29:30.800 --> 0:29:35.960 And she then lobbies back something which is that your 0:29:35.960 --> 0:29:40.680 father didn't die of cancer. He died of AIDS, right, 0:29:42.360 --> 0:29:47.080 So you know that argument began from something very small. 0:29:47.440 --> 0:29:51.800 You know, she was in New York visiting, and as 0:29:51.880 --> 0:29:55.200 was our pattern, you know that I have described despite 0:29:55.680 --> 0:29:58.240 a year of silence, you know, we hadn't spoken in 0:29:58.240 --> 0:30:02.320 a long time, and she showed up. It was her 0:30:02.360 --> 0:30:05.640 expectation was that it was going to be as though 0:30:05.680 --> 0:30:08.680 we were in regular contact and she was my mother 0:30:08.960 --> 0:30:11.880 and um, so she expected me to make a lot 0:30:11.920 --> 0:30:14.520 of time for her. And I think I was a 0:30:14.520 --> 0:30:18.280 little bit resentful of that, but I was also I 0:30:18.320 --> 0:30:20.640 was sort of part of that pattern too, you know, 0:30:20.720 --> 0:30:22.840 I played along with that pattern for many years. And 0:30:22.880 --> 0:30:25.560 so we had dinner and we just were talking about 0:30:25.840 --> 0:30:28.600 normal things. It was a perfectly nice dinner, and then 0:30:28.680 --> 0:30:31.680 she wanted to go do something else afterwards, and I 0:30:31.760 --> 0:30:34.840 had plans with my friends, and to myself, I was 0:30:34.880 --> 0:30:38.400 sort of like, I'm not going to move everything around 0:30:38.520 --> 0:30:42.720 because she's here. She has not been around very much 0:30:42.800 --> 0:30:45.320 for me, um, And so I, you know, told her 0:30:45.360 --> 0:30:48.640 that I was busy, and she got angry and said, 0:30:48.920 --> 0:30:51.240 how can you say that I'm busy. You're busy, I've 0:30:51.240 --> 0:30:54.000 come to New York. I'm your mother. You have to 0:30:54.000 --> 0:30:58.120 make time for me. And hearing her say that after 0:30:58.800 --> 0:31:03.040 what I felt like, after the ways that I felt 0:31:03.040 --> 0:31:07.440 like she had failed me, I felt myself sort of 0:31:07.520 --> 0:31:10.360 the fury was sort of bubbling in me. But I 0:31:10.480 --> 0:31:13.760 knew that what would annoy her. As you said, I 0:31:13.840 --> 0:31:15.800 was very much aware of how to push your buttons 0:31:15.800 --> 0:31:18.080 and she was aware of how to push mine. And 0:31:18.160 --> 0:31:22.840 I knew that one way of winning this argument that 0:31:22.920 --> 0:31:26.360 was about nothing and everything at the same time was 0:31:26.440 --> 0:31:32.480 to sort of be detached and unbothered and to sort 0:31:32.520 --> 0:31:37.360 of accuse her of being crazy and you know, over 0:31:37.440 --> 0:31:41.400 exaggerating and unstable and making a big deal out of nothing, 0:31:41.480 --> 0:31:43.280 and those were all things. You know. I think both 0:31:43.320 --> 0:31:47.600 of us experienced through our grief, UM, some sort of 0:31:47.880 --> 0:31:51.600 trauma and madness in the years after my father died, 0:31:51.800 --> 0:31:54.920 and both of us sort of hit from that reality 0:31:55.040 --> 0:31:58.160 in different ways. She sort of had a story of 0:31:58.200 --> 0:32:01.800 herself that she was a survive ever, and that other 0:32:01.920 --> 0:32:04.600 people who lived in their grief and spent a lot 0:32:04.640 --> 0:32:07.320 of time talking about their feelings that they were weak, 0:32:07.640 --> 0:32:10.040 and you know, she had come through on the other side, 0:32:10.040 --> 0:32:14.080 and she didn't want her past struggles to be pointed 0:32:14.080 --> 0:32:17.200 out to her in any way. And I knew that UM, 0:32:17.240 --> 0:32:21.240 and I, on the other hand, was very much focused 0:32:21.480 --> 0:32:25.240 on sort of building a life separate from my past 0:32:25.720 --> 0:32:28.640 and constructing a story in which, you know, my father 0:32:28.800 --> 0:32:31.840 was sort of a godlike figure and he was all 0:32:31.880 --> 0:32:35.040 I needed. And you know, so we're both in denial 0:32:35.160 --> 0:32:37.400 in different ways, but we knew how to use each 0:32:37.440 --> 0:32:41.680 other's denial against each other, and so yeah, I did. 0:32:41.840 --> 0:32:46.680 I pushed her buttons through, kind of calling her crazy 0:32:46.840 --> 0:32:52.120 in so many words, and she responded by telling me 0:32:52.200 --> 0:32:55.640 what she knew was something that would really hurt me, 0:32:56.120 --> 0:32:59.240 which is that my father died not of cancer and 0:32:59.280 --> 0:33:02.400 of AIDS. And I think her assumption as to why 0:33:02.440 --> 0:33:04.840 would hurt me was because she knew how much I 0:33:04.920 --> 0:33:08.760 needed that story of my father, and the story that 0:33:08.840 --> 0:33:11.480 I had constructed for myself was that I was the 0:33:11.520 --> 0:33:14.520 most important person in his world, and he was always 0:33:14.560 --> 0:33:17.000 honest with me, and that I was the one who 0:33:17.080 --> 0:33:20.360 was by his side the most when he was suffering, 0:33:20.560 --> 0:33:23.440 and and I had sort of made of him a 0:33:23.520 --> 0:33:26.880 god and a perfect person, and and she was going 0:33:26.920 --> 0:33:30.040 to take that away from me um with that revelation, 0:33:30.200 --> 0:33:33.920 which you know, embedded in that was was the idea 0:33:34.280 --> 0:33:36.440 that he had a life sort of separate from who 0:33:36.480 --> 0:33:38.959 he was to me um, and that I didn't know 0:33:39.040 --> 0:33:40.960 him as well as I thought I did. But also 0:33:41.040 --> 0:33:44.240 embedded in that was sort of a harmful story about 0:33:44.880 --> 0:33:48.240 and a biased story that so many of us have 0:33:48.600 --> 0:33:53.760 internalized about AIDS, and you know, people who live with 0:33:53.880 --> 0:33:56.160 and die from AIDS, and so there was sort of 0:33:56.160 --> 0:34:00.640 a shaming innuendo in that story as well, the idea 0:34:00.680 --> 0:34:02.720 that my father might have had affairs or might have 0:34:02.800 --> 0:34:09.920 had sort of a life in the shadows. This is 0:34:09.960 --> 0:34:14.239 the moment that a fault line opens up her whole history, 0:34:14.320 --> 0:34:18.400 her mother's disappearance, her father's illness and death, her a 0:34:18.480 --> 0:34:22.880 loneness in the world catches up with Nadia. The sleeping 0:34:23.040 --> 0:34:27.560 giant of trauma awakens and when long held trauma comes 0:34:27.560 --> 0:34:32.480 out of hiding, watch out. Following that dinner with Annabel, 0:34:33.000 --> 0:34:37.080 Nadia can't stop moving. She walks and walks the entire 0:34:37.200 --> 0:34:41.000 length of Manhattan with no destination in mind. On one 0:34:41.040 --> 0:34:44.799 of these walks, she encounters a blue chair that had 0:34:44.840 --> 0:34:48.040 been left on the sidewalk. It was just a week 0:34:48.160 --> 0:34:52.160 or two after, you know, I went into a deep 0:34:52.400 --> 0:34:55.400 denial for a little while, and in order to maintain 0:34:55.440 --> 0:34:58.840 that denial, I decided that Annabel was a liar, and 0:34:58.840 --> 0:35:00.840 then I was not going to her to take the 0:35:00.880 --> 0:35:03.440 story of my father away from me, which was in 0:35:03.480 --> 0:35:06.160 many ways a sacred story to me, and it was 0:35:06.200 --> 0:35:08.640 one of the few things in my life that I 0:35:08.719 --> 0:35:11.200 felt was constant and steady. And then I could turn 0:35:11.280 --> 0:35:14.960 to to remind myself that deep love had existed for 0:35:15.040 --> 0:35:20.359 me in the world before and potentially could again. I 0:35:20.400 --> 0:35:23.920 really needed that story, and I had decided. I decided 0:35:23.920 --> 0:35:25.680 I wasn't going to allow her to take that away 0:35:25.680 --> 0:35:27.400 from me. But I think you know, as you were 0:35:27.440 --> 0:35:29.880 saying about trauma. That was sort of the way that 0:35:29.960 --> 0:35:33.680 I had reacted as well, to my mother leaving, to 0:35:33.719 --> 0:35:36.880 her rejecting me again after my father died. To my 0:35:37.000 --> 0:35:39.880 father's death, you know, I had tried for so long 0:35:40.400 --> 0:35:44.440 to just keep moving forward and to sort of cling 0:35:44.520 --> 0:35:49.000 to this idea of my father as a saving grace 0:35:49.080 --> 0:35:53.520 in my story, and to leave the trauma and the 0:35:53.600 --> 0:35:57.759 grief behind. And I agree with you that that you 0:35:57.880 --> 0:36:00.239 carry that in your body and you can only run 0:36:00.239 --> 0:36:02.399 away from it for so long and it will catch 0:36:02.480 --> 0:36:04.480 up with you. And I think I was, in some 0:36:04.520 --> 0:36:08.240 ways very literally trying to run away from my fear 0:36:08.320 --> 0:36:10.759 and my grief and the trauma. At that point, I 0:36:10.800 --> 0:36:14.960 was taking these incredibly long walks all over Manhattan. I 0:36:15.000 --> 0:36:16.879 lived in Chinatown at the time, and I would sort 0:36:16.920 --> 0:36:20.160 of walk aimlessly on days when I didn't have to 0:36:20.239 --> 0:36:24.279 work um or I didn't have classes, I would just 0:36:24.440 --> 0:36:27.560 walk aimlessly around the city, kind of wandering around. And 0:36:27.560 --> 0:36:30.440 I felt like I needed to keep moving because if 0:36:30.480 --> 0:36:33.640 I sat still, that everything that I was feeling in 0:36:33.680 --> 0:36:35.439 my body was going to be too much to bear. 0:36:35.480 --> 0:36:37.600 And I kind of sensed that I wasn't going to 0:36:37.680 --> 0:36:40.680 be able to stand up, and so I kept walking, 0:36:40.719 --> 0:36:43.040 and I was returning from one of those long walks, 0:36:43.040 --> 0:36:46.120 and I saw this blue It was an arm chair, 0:36:46.320 --> 0:36:48.840 but I found that it was also a rocking chair. 0:36:49.280 --> 0:36:52.160 And you know, in New York, nice furniture is often 0:36:52.239 --> 0:36:55.719 left on the street, and for some reason, I felt 0:36:55.719 --> 0:36:58.200 like I really needed this chair. I really wanted it, 0:36:58.480 --> 0:37:02.239 even though I wasn't someone who often picked up furniture 0:37:02.239 --> 0:37:04.960 on the street, but I it felt urgent that I 0:37:05.000 --> 0:37:07.799 needed this chair, and so I carried it home and 0:37:07.960 --> 0:37:11.800 carried it up to my apartment and found myself increasingly 0:37:12.640 --> 0:37:16.200 wanting to sit in that chair and not go out 0:37:16.239 --> 0:37:20.040 into the world. How far were you from your apartment 0:37:20.120 --> 0:37:22.120 when you saw the chair? Where where was the chair? 0:37:23.200 --> 0:37:25.680 I think it was it was on the border between 0:37:25.719 --> 0:37:29.400 Tribeca and Chinatown, So it wasn't that far because I 0:37:29.440 --> 0:37:33.520 lived in Chinatown, but it was, you know, probably over 0:37:33.680 --> 0:37:37.680 ten blocks which carrying you know, this big bulky chair. 0:37:38.239 --> 0:37:40.680 And it had started to rain, so it was it 0:37:40.719 --> 0:37:42.440 was a little bit and so I was in a 0:37:42.520 --> 0:37:44.239 rush because I didn't want to get drenched and for 0:37:44.320 --> 0:37:47.080 the chair to get drenched, because then I wouldn't want 0:37:47.120 --> 0:37:49.040 to keep the chair. And I felt like I really 0:37:49.080 --> 0:37:50.880 needed it, and so I was sort of in a rush, 0:37:50.920 --> 0:37:53.360 and I was puffing, and my back was sort of 0:37:53.400 --> 0:37:56.560 bent backwards. And I'm very I'm a very petite person. 0:37:56.600 --> 0:37:59.799 I'm a five feet tall and quite slight, and so 0:38:00.120 --> 0:38:02.400 it was quite a feat for me to lug that 0:38:02.480 --> 0:38:05.520 chair home and up the three stories to get to 0:38:05.600 --> 0:38:12.160 my my apartment. What was it about the chair that 0:38:12.719 --> 0:38:17.680 created in you that sense of urgency. I didn't understand 0:38:17.719 --> 0:38:19.799 it at the time, and now, sort of when I 0:38:19.880 --> 0:38:22.600 look back on it, I think that part of it 0:38:22.640 --> 0:38:25.640 was that there was something familiar about it, especially when 0:38:25.640 --> 0:38:27.680 I found out that it was you know, I sort 0:38:27.680 --> 0:38:30.680 of went over and kind of touched the chair, and 0:38:30.760 --> 0:38:33.600 I found out that it was a rocking chair. And 0:38:34.040 --> 0:38:36.520 my father was very fond of rocking chairs, and we 0:38:36.560 --> 0:38:39.080 always had rocking chairs in every house that I lived 0:38:39.080 --> 0:38:42.000 in with him, and when I was very little, I 0:38:42.000 --> 0:38:44.280 would sort of crawl into his lap and he would 0:38:44.560 --> 0:38:47.880 rock me to sleep and read stories to me, and 0:38:47.920 --> 0:38:50.760 maybe that was part of it. I also, I didn't 0:38:50.800 --> 0:38:55.120 have a chair in my room, um, and I had 0:38:55.160 --> 0:38:59.759 found myself increasingly not leaving my room and so sort 0:38:59.800 --> 0:39:02.600 of lying in my bed or sitting in my bed 0:39:02.800 --> 0:39:05.360 up against the wall, and so I kind of felt 0:39:05.400 --> 0:39:09.000 like maybe I needed a chair in my room since 0:39:09.040 --> 0:39:11.680 I was spending so much time there, But I don't know. 0:39:11.760 --> 0:39:13.759 It was a little bit and and still is a 0:39:13.800 --> 0:39:16.880 little bit mysterious to me. UM. I do think that 0:39:16.920 --> 0:39:21.319 we sometimes will choose objects that we pore our our 0:39:21.440 --> 0:39:25.239 grief into or connect with in an emotional way. In 0:39:25.280 --> 0:39:28.799 that chair was that for me, and in ways that 0:39:29.520 --> 0:39:34.319 beyond what I can really understand or explain, and it 0:39:34.400 --> 0:39:40.239 becomes the locus of essentially really like the place in 0:39:40.280 --> 0:39:42.839 which you really fall apart, Like you don't you don't 0:39:42.920 --> 0:39:46.840 leave that chair for what eight days? I retreated to 0:39:46.920 --> 0:39:50.440 that chair for um, for seven days. Um, for the 0:39:50.480 --> 0:39:52.719 most part, you know, I did. I did sort of 0:39:52.800 --> 0:39:55.480 get out of the chair to lie on For some reason, 0:39:55.520 --> 0:39:57.279 I didn't want to get into my bed, so I 0:39:57.320 --> 0:40:00.239 was sleeping on the floor for some of that time. 0:40:00.239 --> 0:40:01.719 But I would get out of the chair and sort 0:40:01.760 --> 0:40:04.839 of curl up on the floor by the chair, and 0:40:04.880 --> 0:40:07.640 I would leave the chair to go to the bathroom 0:40:07.760 --> 0:40:10.520 or to grab a hunk of bread from the kitchen. 0:40:10.600 --> 0:40:13.400 But for the most part, for seven days, I was 0:40:13.440 --> 0:40:17.239 sitting in that chair, just rocking and thinking, and you know, 0:40:17.280 --> 0:40:21.160 I did some reading, I wrote furiously in in a notebook, 0:40:21.920 --> 0:40:25.399 and I just had this fear of going back out 0:40:25.440 --> 0:40:27.760 into the world. I didn't know who I was anymore 0:40:27.800 --> 0:40:30.240 in some ways, and I didn't I didn't I couldn't 0:40:30.239 --> 0:40:33.520 trust that my sacred stories, the stories that had always 0:40:33.520 --> 0:40:35.400 been so important to me, And I felt like my 0:40:35.520 --> 0:40:38.640 grief had come crashing down on me. And I didn't 0:40:38.680 --> 0:40:41.799 know if I was going to be able to get 0:40:41.840 --> 0:40:44.319 out of that and get out of the chair, you know, 0:40:44.360 --> 0:40:47.719 because because the chair did become the place that that 0:40:47.840 --> 0:40:50.799 was in some ways where I went to greet it 0:40:50.920 --> 0:40:54.960 became both a refuge and I was also fearful that 0:40:54.960 --> 0:40:59.600 I would become a prison in some ways. While in 0:40:59.640 --> 0:41:03.160 the Blue Share Not Yet also turns to literature, to 0:41:03.239 --> 0:41:05.680 a world of women writers who had come before her 0:41:06.360 --> 0:41:11.760 Tony Morrison, Audre Lord, June Jordan's Zora, Neil Hurston, Tony 0:41:11.880 --> 0:41:16.000 Kate Bambara. She's calling in the spirits, calling in what 0:41:16.160 --> 0:41:22.000 she calls a council of mothers. I had long sort 0:41:22.040 --> 0:41:26.040 of been able to locate myself in literature, and I 0:41:26.080 --> 0:41:29.880 think because I I had for so long felt this 0:41:30.000 --> 0:41:33.200 absence of my mother, and I had long sort of 0:41:33.200 --> 0:41:38.040 believed that I could find this council of mothers in 0:41:38.040 --> 0:41:40.920 in literature and that there was so much wisdom to 0:41:40.960 --> 0:41:42.880 be found there. And I had turned to that wisdom 0:41:42.920 --> 0:41:44.600 in the past, and so I felt like I could 0:41:44.600 --> 0:41:47.080 turn to it again. And I was also thinking a 0:41:47.080 --> 0:41:49.319 lot at that time about the stories that my father 0:41:49.400 --> 0:41:52.040 had told me. And my father was from the Ashanti 0:41:52.080 --> 0:41:55.359 tribe of Ghana, which is a tribe that really does 0:41:55.520 --> 0:41:58.720 even though you know, most Ashanti people today are a Christian, 0:41:59.480 --> 0:42:03.440 but the old beliefs are still part of the Ashanta 0:42:03.480 --> 0:42:07.000 people's worldview. And the stories that my father told me 0:42:07.040 --> 0:42:10.480 where were stories about how the ancestors are always with us, 0:42:10.560 --> 0:42:13.920 past as present, and they are um always guiding and 0:42:14.040 --> 0:42:18.160 influencing our lives. And I had long grown up with 0:42:18.239 --> 0:42:20.960 this idea of being able to sort of call in 0:42:21.160 --> 0:42:24.200 spirits and ancestors and that they were present, and I 0:42:24.200 --> 0:42:26.399 had sort of thought of my father that way too, 0:42:26.440 --> 0:42:28.719 and so I was also speaking to him, to my 0:42:28.840 --> 0:42:32.160 memories of him and trying to recall those. And I 0:42:32.200 --> 0:42:36.799 think both locate wisdom and a sense of possibility in 0:42:36.800 --> 0:42:41.120 the literature that I was reading, and also to construct 0:42:41.200 --> 0:42:44.080 and reconstruct a story that I could live inside of, 0:42:44.160 --> 0:42:47.719 because the one that I had long told myself UM 0:42:48.040 --> 0:42:51.520 was no longer working for me. That was all part 0:42:51.520 --> 0:42:55.719 of UM. In a very sort of confused and desperate 0:42:55.760 --> 0:42:58.160 way that I was, I was searching for all of 0:42:58.200 --> 0:43:02.520 that while in the Blue Chair. M You also, towards 0:43:02.560 --> 0:43:05.600 the end of your time in the Blue Chair turned 0:43:05.640 --> 0:43:10.800 to jazz, which really struck me as UM, the moment 0:43:10.880 --> 0:43:15.440 where you were able to access your father more, you know, 0:43:15.560 --> 0:43:21.240 having sort of lost that sense of him, as having 0:43:21.280 --> 0:43:24.200 a deep knowing of him, of you know, sort of 0:43:24.200 --> 0:43:27.560 being certain of his um, you know, of the of 0:43:27.640 --> 0:43:31.000 the place that he occupied in your world and in 0:43:31.080 --> 0:43:34.840 the world. And there's this passage where you talk about, 0:43:34.960 --> 0:43:37.799 you know, the music that that your father loved, and 0:43:37.800 --> 0:43:42.279 and Coltrane in particular, and you construct a playlist and 0:43:42.719 --> 0:43:45.480 get lost in it, you know, in this kind of 0:43:45.520 --> 0:43:49.960 the instability in a way of jazz, and that seems 0:43:50.080 --> 0:43:53.960 like it's the point where you get out of the chair. Yeah, 0:43:54.000 --> 0:43:58.120 that's right. I had this sort of memory of my 0:43:58.239 --> 0:44:02.719 father telling me about why he felt so connected to 0:44:02.800 --> 0:44:05.760 jazz and part of it, and particularly the more avant 0:44:05.840 --> 0:44:09.399 garde forms of jazz, and part of it was that 0:44:10.600 --> 0:44:14.040 he believed that there was so much dissonance in the world, 0:44:14.560 --> 0:44:17.759 and that letting go of our expectation that there was 0:44:17.800 --> 0:44:21.040 always going to be harmony and allowing ourselves to feel 0:44:21.600 --> 0:44:26.279 and hear and and touch the beauty in kind of 0:44:26.320 --> 0:44:31.319 wildness and dissonance and the unknown. That was something that 0:44:31.360 --> 0:44:33.640 I remembered him telling me. And you know, he would 0:44:33.680 --> 0:44:37.800 always emphasize that that kind of jazz was really about questions, 0:44:37.840 --> 0:44:42.319 that it was really a philosophical music form, and that 0:44:42.440 --> 0:44:46.760 it had deep roots and including roots in in Ashanti music, 0:44:46.800 --> 0:44:49.920 and that actually you can still hear ancient Ashanti rhythms 0:44:49.920 --> 0:44:53.520 and jazz. And so for all of those reasons, I 0:44:53.600 --> 0:44:57.400 kind of had this um desire to better understand that 0:44:57.520 --> 0:45:00.440 music that had meant so much to my father, and 0:45:00.440 --> 0:45:03.600 and so I created this playlist um and for the 0:45:03.640 --> 0:45:05.799 first time, really, you know, when my father was telling 0:45:05.800 --> 0:45:07.839 me this when I was a child, I was sort 0:45:07.840 --> 0:45:11.239 of like, this is so noisy, I don't understand it. 0:45:11.880 --> 0:45:14.800 But at this point in my life where where nothing 0:45:14.880 --> 0:45:18.640 made sense, you know, I felt like connecting to an 0:45:18.760 --> 0:45:23.799 art form that really was about wrestling with with dissonance 0:45:23.880 --> 0:45:27.160 and uncertainty, and that there was something that I could 0:45:27.160 --> 0:45:30.000 find there and maybe even locate my father in that 0:45:30.160 --> 0:45:33.720 music as well. And so it really was a moment 0:45:33.960 --> 0:45:37.400 where not only did I connect to this music that 0:45:37.480 --> 0:45:39.480 was so important to him, and it sort of opened 0:45:39.520 --> 0:45:41.680 something up in me and allowed me to let go 0:45:42.400 --> 0:45:45.560 of all of this tension that I was holding, this 0:45:45.560 --> 0:45:48.319 this sort of need for everything to make sense and 0:45:48.320 --> 0:45:51.320 to be orderly and to have my story back exactly 0:45:51.360 --> 0:45:53.759 the way that I needed it. It allowed me to 0:45:53.960 --> 0:45:57.920 imagine that maybe there was freedom in in the unknown. 0:45:58.360 --> 0:46:01.720 But also in some ways, I think I was able 0:46:01.760 --> 0:46:05.040 to locate him there because it also brought back these 0:46:05.280 --> 0:46:08.799 joyful memories of him just trying to get me to 0:46:08.840 --> 0:46:12.000 see the world in different ways and just reminded me 0:46:12.160 --> 0:46:16.759 that no matter what in terms of this revelation that 0:46:16.800 --> 0:46:21.400 Annabel had given me about my father, that my memories 0:46:21.440 --> 0:46:23.719 of him and who he was in my life and 0:46:23.719 --> 0:46:25.600 the love that he had for me and my sister 0:46:25.640 --> 0:46:30.440 and my brother, that that remained unchanged. So through listening 0:46:30.480 --> 0:46:32.680 to this music, I could hear those lessons, and so 0:46:32.719 --> 0:46:36.560 many of those lessons were about the questions and and 0:46:36.719 --> 0:46:41.360 being comfortable with questions and following curiosities and being open 0:46:42.080 --> 0:46:44.160 um to new possibilities in the world, and that was 0:46:44.239 --> 0:46:46.960 so much a part of who he was, And so 0:46:47.239 --> 0:46:49.840 I was reminded of the lessons that he tried to 0:46:50.040 --> 0:46:53.960 teach me in the music. But also I started to 0:46:54.120 --> 0:46:59.400 feel that maybe, you know, what Annabel had revealed didn't 0:46:59.520 --> 0:47:02.080 change everything in the way that I thought it had, 0:47:02.360 --> 0:47:05.240 and that maybe through that revelation that I could actually 0:47:05.239 --> 0:47:10.359 come to know my father in a deeper way. Some 0:47:10.440 --> 0:47:14.279 journeys we take without ever leaving the spot. During her 0:47:14.320 --> 0:47:17.360 time in the Blue Chair, Nadia moved away from a 0:47:17.440 --> 0:47:20.560 need to know the quote unquote truth about her father's 0:47:20.600 --> 0:47:27.520 illness and death and toward a place of acceptance. At 0:47:27.560 --> 0:47:35.080 some point, the journey becomes really about being able to 0:47:35.120 --> 0:47:39.360 live with not knowing. You. You don't know for sure 0:47:39.880 --> 0:47:45.040 whether Annabel was telling you the truth or whether Annabel 0:47:45.280 --> 0:47:51.160 was hurling a lie at you to hurt you. You'll 0:47:51.320 --> 0:47:55.279 you'll never know, So the last question I really have 0:47:55.440 --> 0:47:59.000 for you is how do you hold that not knowing? 0:48:00.040 --> 0:48:03.800 I remember when I found out that my dad, who 0:48:03.840 --> 0:48:06.840 I have grieved very similarly to the way you grieved yours. 0:48:07.440 --> 0:48:09.279 Um when I found out that he had not been 0:48:09.280 --> 0:48:12.880 my biological father. In my office, I had a portrait 0:48:12.960 --> 0:48:16.160 of his mother, my grandmother, on the wall and one 0:48:16.200 --> 0:48:17.840 day I just looked at it and I needed to 0:48:17.880 --> 0:48:20.480 take it down. I needed to take it down because 0:48:21.719 --> 0:48:24.200 she wasn't in fact, my biological grandmother, and it was 0:48:24.239 --> 0:48:27.160 just confusing and freaking me out every time I felt 0:48:27.160 --> 0:48:30.040 her eyes on me, and I thought, well, what do 0:48:30.080 --> 0:48:33.600 I replace it with? And you know, now I have 0:48:33.719 --> 0:48:37.359 this blank wall with say nail in it. And I 0:48:37.480 --> 0:48:39.759 ended up getting this piece of artwork by my friend 0:48:39.760 --> 0:48:42.319 Debbie Millman, who's actually I was a guest on this 0:48:42.360 --> 0:48:46.440 podcast in season one, and it was in her handwriting, 0:48:46.480 --> 0:48:49.759 this kind of really beautiful and an inimitable handwriting that 0:48:49.840 --> 0:48:54.160 Debbie has, and the words were this just this I 0:48:54.160 --> 0:48:58.000 am comfortable not knowing. And to me that felt like, well, 0:48:58.040 --> 0:49:01.799 that's my life's work is I've constructed a lot of 0:49:01.840 --> 0:49:03.640 narratives in my life, and this one is going to 0:49:03.719 --> 0:49:09.080 have to remain in that place of open endedness. Yeah, 0:49:09.320 --> 0:49:12.920 thank you for sharing that. I feel very similarly. You know, 0:49:13.040 --> 0:49:16.640 After all of that, I realized how rigid I had 0:49:16.719 --> 0:49:20.279 become in my need um for the story that I 0:49:20.320 --> 0:49:23.680 had constructed, and I didn't like that rigidness, and actually 0:49:23.719 --> 0:49:26.000 that rigidness sort of this counter to all of the 0:49:26.120 --> 0:49:28.440 lessons that my father had tried to teach me about 0:49:28.480 --> 0:49:31.279 the world and who I should be in it. And 0:49:31.360 --> 0:49:34.400 that's sort of what I've discovered. I thought that I 0:49:34.480 --> 0:49:36.239 was going to do all of this research and sort 0:49:36.280 --> 0:49:38.600 of discover the truth, and then ultimately I was going 0:49:38.680 --> 0:49:41.960 to call family members and demand that they tell me 0:49:42.040 --> 0:49:44.840 what they knew. And I actually haven't done any of that. 0:49:45.000 --> 0:49:48.600 I haven't even now. I I still haven't spoken at 0:49:48.640 --> 0:49:52.960 great length about this question, except with my sister. And 0:49:53.000 --> 0:49:56.520 it's because what I realized in the research, rather than 0:49:56.600 --> 0:49:59.960 finding the true story of my father, what I found 0:50:00.400 --> 0:50:03.640 were things that I was uncomfortable with about myself that 0:50:03.719 --> 0:50:06.479 I felt like I really needed to reckon with more 0:50:06.520 --> 0:50:09.440 than anything else. And you know, one of those things 0:50:09.520 --> 0:50:13.200 was this rigidness and my need to sort of make 0:50:13.280 --> 0:50:15.799 up my father a perfect person in a god and 0:50:15.960 --> 0:50:20.840 in that deifying of him, to reject his humanity, but 0:50:20.920 --> 0:50:24.840 also the Annabel's humanity and my mother's humanity. And and 0:50:24.880 --> 0:50:29.600 I found how like uncurious I had been about you know, 0:50:30.320 --> 0:50:34.080 the mother's in my life and their inner lives, because 0:50:34.200 --> 0:50:36.520 I was so afraid of what they might reveal about 0:50:36.560 --> 0:50:39.400 my father, who mattered most of all to me. And 0:50:39.560 --> 0:50:43.360 what I also found was this ugly bias in myself 0:50:43.480 --> 0:50:47.759 that was about cancer being a more noble disease to 0:50:47.840 --> 0:50:50.560 die of than AIDS, and that that was a really 0:50:50.600 --> 0:50:53.440 harmful narrative. And I knew that it was ugly as 0:50:53.480 --> 0:50:56.759 soon as I started to panic about it, about the 0:50:57.600 --> 0:51:00.000 possibility that my father had died of AIDS, I knew 0:51:00.160 --> 0:51:02.680 that it was an ugly story. And at the same time, 0:51:03.000 --> 0:51:05.120 I also had to admit that it was very alive 0:51:05.160 --> 0:51:09.080 in me, and that that sort of revealed biases within 0:51:09.120 --> 0:51:11.400 myself that I needed to deal with and reckon with. 0:51:11.480 --> 0:51:14.839 And so in the research that I that I did 0:51:14.920 --> 0:51:17.759 about sort of people living with and people who have 0:51:17.840 --> 0:51:21.440 died from AIDS in in Uganda and in other and 0:51:21.640 --> 0:51:23.920 other places, you know, And we lived in Uganda at 0:51:23.920 --> 0:51:27.640 the time that my father had in fact died of AIDS, 0:51:27.680 --> 0:51:31.480 that that might have been where he would have contracted it, 0:51:31.960 --> 0:51:34.239 and there was a huge AIDS epidemic at the time 0:51:34.280 --> 0:51:37.040 that we were living there, and so I was doing 0:51:37.080 --> 0:51:39.239 all of this research to see, as you said if 0:51:39.239 --> 0:51:41.839 it would sort of bring back any memories of that 0:51:41.920 --> 0:51:44.919 time and anything that my father might have said. Um. 0:51:44.960 --> 0:51:48.400 But what I realized was that for so much time 0:51:49.040 --> 0:51:51.440 against the stories that my father had told me and 0:51:51.480 --> 0:51:53.320 the work that he did in the world, which was 0:51:53.360 --> 0:51:57.520 about recognizing the responsibilities that we all had towards each 0:51:57.520 --> 0:52:01.560 other and how to forge deeper connection and across boundaries 0:52:01.560 --> 0:52:04.080 and borders that had been drawn in ways that did 0:52:04.120 --> 0:52:07.680 people harm, and that I had contributed to drawing a 0:52:07.880 --> 0:52:12.279 boundary between myself and people who lived with and died 0:52:12.320 --> 0:52:15.080 from AIDS. And so I actually spent a lot of 0:52:15.080 --> 0:52:18.000 time looking at that and sort of examining myself in 0:52:18.040 --> 0:52:22.120 the mirror. And what I realized is that it doesn't 0:52:22.160 --> 0:52:25.920 actually matter if my father died of cancer or of AIDS. 0:52:25.960 --> 0:52:29.560 You know, I lost him all the same, and that 0:52:30.080 --> 0:52:34.080 actually opening up the possibility that there were parts of 0:52:34.120 --> 0:52:35.920 his life, which of course there were parts of his 0:52:36.000 --> 0:52:38.360 life that were unknown to me as a child, but 0:52:38.480 --> 0:52:41.480 opening up that possibility allowed me to then connect with 0:52:41.560 --> 0:52:44.280 him as a man, you know, in the fullness of 0:52:44.440 --> 0:52:47.560 who he was, as opposed to this very rigid story 0:52:47.719 --> 0:52:51.319 that I had created of him, and that that was 0:52:51.520 --> 0:52:53.840 the best way to sort of honor his life and 0:52:53.840 --> 0:52:56.399 the lessons that he had given me. And I did 0:52:56.680 --> 0:52:59.560 decide that I don't want to know. It doesn't matter 0:52:59.640 --> 0:53:02.160 to me what he died of, and what matters to 0:53:02.200 --> 0:53:05.759 me was the relationship that we shared, and you know, 0:53:05.880 --> 0:53:22.160 the love that he had for all of us. Family 0:53:22.239 --> 0:53:25.600 Secrets is a production of I Heart Media. Dylan Fagin 0:53:25.800 --> 0:53:30.040 and Bethan Mcalouso are the executive producers. Andrew Howard is 0:53:30.040 --> 0:53:33.319 our audio editor. If you have a secret you'd like 0:53:33.400 --> 0:53:36.520 to share, leave us a voicemail and your story could 0:53:36.560 --> 0:53:41.640 appear on an upcoming bonus episode. Our number is one 0:53:42.719 --> 0:53:47.920 secret zero. That's secret and then the number zero. You 0:53:47.960 --> 0:53:52.600 can also find us on Instagram at Danny Writer, Facebook 0:53:52.760 --> 0:53:56.880 at facebook dot com slash Family Secrets Pod, and Twitter 0:53:56.960 --> 0:53:59.600 at fami Secret Spot. And if you want to know 0:53:59.640 --> 0:54:03.640 about my family secret that inspired this podcast, check out 0:54:03.719 --> 0:54:26.560 my New York Times bestselling memoir Inheritance. For more podcasts. 0:54:26.560 --> 0:54:28.879 For my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, 0:54:28.960 --> 0:54:32.000 Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.