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Speaker 1: Family Secrets is a production of I Heart Radio. Mat

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Speaker 1: had made a myth out of me, spending so many

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Speaker 1: stories about my travels and adventures that some of her

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Speaker 1: friends did not believe I was real. Is this the one,

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Speaker 1: one of them said. As I sat in MAT's kitchen,

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Speaker 1: tucking into a bowl of noodles, I was. I'll leave

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Speaker 1: from a journalism job in Cambodia, always choosing to go

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Speaker 1: home when I had time off rather than on holiday.

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Speaker 1: Matt's friends smiled and squeezed my arm as if to

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Speaker 1: confirm I was not a ghost. Is this your baby

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Speaker 1: girl with the big job and all the money, the

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Speaker 1: one who almost died on the boat. Matt smiled and nodded.

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Speaker 1: Her friend turned to me. Your mother talks about you

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Speaker 1: all the time, she said, still holding my arm. She

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Speaker 1: says you are special. That's puts out O Rang, journalist

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Speaker 1: and author of the Sea Ring memoir Ma and Me.

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Speaker 1: Putsada's is a story right from the start of overcoming

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Speaker 1: staggering odds. It's also a story about familial loyalty and

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Speaker 1: cultural expectations, and the strength it takes to become one's

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Speaker 1: truest self. I'm Danny Shapiro and This is family secrets,

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Speaker 1: the secrets that are kept from us, the secrets we

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Speaker 1: keep from others, and the secrets we keep from ourselves.

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Speaker 1: I was born in a seaside town in Cambodia called

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Speaker 1: the Bung Sum, in a hospital right in downtown near

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Speaker 1: an open market called Salo, and I have no memory

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Speaker 1: of where I was born, although when I was a

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Speaker 1: teenager I went for the first time to visit, and

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Speaker 1: immediately I fell in love with this beach community. I

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Speaker 1: could smell the briny air and feel that the sea

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Speaker 1: breeze pushing through my hair, and um, there was something

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Speaker 1: very idyllic and peaceful about it. But I remember about

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Speaker 1: the first time I visited Kabung Soud, Cambodia, were so

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Speaker 1: many palm trees and just absolutely everywhere coconut trees, just

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Speaker 1: a landscape that was so very different from anything that

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Speaker 1: I ever knew growing up in America. And it's one

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Speaker 1: of those things where you you see a place for

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Speaker 1: the first time with clear eyes and with new eyes,

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Speaker 1: and it just steared in my heart as I felt

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Speaker 1: so proud to be from this bland cut through with

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Speaker 1: such a pure light and um, just everything about where

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Speaker 1: I was born engaged my senses, the size of sounds,

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Speaker 1: that smells, to feel every thing, you know, sand between

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Speaker 1: my toes. They're on the beach and seeing the beautiful,

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Speaker 1: gorgeous sunsets Um they're in Kabung Sum. It's something that

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Speaker 1: just never leaves you. It was a bit of paradise.

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Speaker 1: So it's hard to equate that slice of paradise with

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Speaker 1: the reality of my country, which is the dark history

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Speaker 1: of genocide. It was four when I was born in

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Speaker 1: Kobung Sound, Cambodia. Most of Kimbodia had already been overrun

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Speaker 1: by the Camarouge communist regime, and so by then I

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Speaker 1: imagine um and my mother has the memories of this,

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Speaker 1: that Kabung Sum, this place that I saw for the

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Speaker 1: first time in a in a time of peace. Back

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Speaker 1: then in seventy four, when I was born, it was

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Speaker 1: actually a period of terrible chaos. It was a quiet

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Speaker 1: kind of chaos. As my mom describes that she could

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Speaker 1: feel a particular energy in the air and a certain

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Speaker 1: heaviness in the air. Kbung Sound, my mother tells me,

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Speaker 1: had been a place for the ultra wealthy and tourists

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Speaker 1: to come in and play with a playground for the

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Speaker 1: wealthy and during the war, and it specifically in nineteen

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Speaker 1: seventy four when I was born there suddenly it was

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Speaker 1: absolutely quiet. Nobody was on the streets, there were no taurists.

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Speaker 1: So my mother felt the weight of that moment and

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Speaker 1: what was about to happen. I don't think that she

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Speaker 1: actually knew that our country would truly fall to the

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Speaker 1: cammarriage at that moment in time, but she certainly felt

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Speaker 1: that something, something terrible was on the horizon. My mom

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Speaker 1: gave birth to five children, one of whom her second child,

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Speaker 1: died as a baby. All of my parents children were

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Speaker 1: born with a midwife at home, but something different happened

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Speaker 1: with me. When I was in my mother's room, she

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Speaker 1: felt nothing through the course of her pregnancy, no movement,

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Speaker 1: no eggs, nothing. It's almost as if I wasn't there.

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Speaker 1: And she worried that this baby she was carrying was

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Speaker 1: possibly dead. And so she made the decision with my

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Speaker 1: father that for the first time, she would go give

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Speaker 1: birth with trained professionals at the nearest clinic or hospital

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Speaker 1: to where my family lived in Realm, Cambodia, also on

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Speaker 1: the coast, about a twenty minute drive away. She entered

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Speaker 1: the clinic, pregnant, intending to give birth, and she was

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Speaker 1: absolutely convinced that something was wrong with me when I

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Speaker 1: was in her room, because I wasn't moving. You know,

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Speaker 1: she got zero sense that she was even pregnant at all.

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Speaker 1: She only believed and was convinced that I was alive

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Speaker 1: when she did give birth, and the doctor held me

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Speaker 1: upside down and smacked me on the butt, and she

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Speaker 1: heard a very tiny little ink, a little cry come out,

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Speaker 1: and that's when she knew her baby was alive. And

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Speaker 1: you were four and a half pounds when you were born.

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Speaker 1: I was I was very little. My mother believes that

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Speaker 1: she had about of hemorrhoids when she was pregnant with me,

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Speaker 1: and she took medicine that had an alcohol base, and

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Speaker 1: she believed that it was the medicine that she took

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Speaker 1: this sort of left me drunk and debilitated in her

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Speaker 1: womb and therefore unable to move or or not unable

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Speaker 1: to move. But but that I didn't move. It's almost

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Speaker 1: as if I was just, you know, sleeping, waiting for

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Speaker 1: my day to arrive in the world. When she brought

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Speaker 1: me back to the naval base where my family lived.

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Speaker 1: My father was an accountant in the Cambodian Navy. The

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Speaker 1: women of the village rushed to her to get a

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Speaker 1: look at my parents latest baby, and they weren't convinced

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Speaker 1: that my mother was carrying anything at home, because they

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Speaker 1: didn't see me for a while until they kind of

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Speaker 1: pilled back the layers of they called it Grandma, which

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Speaker 1: are which are sort of like computy ubiquitous scarves. And

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Speaker 1: once they peeled back the layers and saw there was

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Speaker 1: indeed a baby there, everybody was satisfied. But my mom

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Speaker 1: tells me, and has always told me, that I was

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Speaker 1: born sort of the kind of like the rent of

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Speaker 1: the family, the smallest, the weakest, the one who always

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Speaker 1: got sick. And so that's the story that I believed

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Speaker 1: about myself because that's the one that I heard most consistently.

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Speaker 1: But this isn't the only survival story that defines Putsada's

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Speaker 1: early life. When put is just a year old, it's

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Speaker 1: no longer safe for the family to stay in Cambodia,

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Speaker 1: and her parents, Ma and Bab decide to make their escape.

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Speaker 1: During that difficult journey, puts life is very much in

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Speaker 1: danger again. So in there came a point when my

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Speaker 1: father went to work and there was a lot of

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Speaker 1: chaos happening that day, and he was listening with his

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Speaker 1: coworkers to radio communications with their headquarters in Kimbodia's capital,

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Speaker 1: kunot Bing, and their colleague in kunot Bing said to them,

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Speaker 1: the Communists have arrived in punot Bing. They've taken over.

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Speaker 1: If you can get out, get out, go and good luck.

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Speaker 1: And that was it. The radio went dead. It was

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Speaker 1: April seventeen ninet and so my family rushed to the

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Speaker 1: docks to escape the only way we could, which was

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Speaker 1: by sea, and because of the fact that my father

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Speaker 1: worked for the Kimbodi Navy, we were allowed to get

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Speaker 1: on board one of four naval ships that were docked

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Speaker 1: at Real Naval based on the coast of Cambodia. In addition,

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Speaker 1: my father was able to go back to our neighborhood

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Speaker 1: and collect other family members, and so in total there

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Speaker 1: were fourteen relatives that were able to get into this

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Speaker 1: boat before my father ran out of time. My parents

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Speaker 1: tell me about that time that nobody on the boat,

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Speaker 1: including my parents, believe that we were going to be

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Speaker 1: leaving our country forever. There was always a feeling of

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Speaker 1: we're just going to go out to see for a

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Speaker 1: few days, wait till things calmed down. You know, with

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Speaker 1: the help of the Americans, we will prevail against the communists.

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Speaker 1: That was the prevailing attitude among my father and his

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Speaker 1: colleagues and the military wise at the time. Well, of

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Speaker 1: course that didn't happen. So suddenly these boats get thrust

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Speaker 1: out to see. And these boats, they were built for

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Speaker 1: a crew of sa to thirty men. Suddenly you have

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Speaker 1: more than three people on board each one. The way

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Speaker 1: my mother describes it, there was no room to sleep.

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Speaker 1: You just kind of sat the whole time and then

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Speaker 1: took turns laying down at night. On April seventeenth, n

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Speaker 1: it was actually ten days to my first birthday. And

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Speaker 1: from the time that I was born up until the

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Speaker 1: time my family left the shores of Cambodia, I had

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Speaker 1: not been doing very well healthwise. Um I was still

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Speaker 1: pretty small. I had not been growing robustly in the

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Speaker 1: way that my older siblings had been growing, and so

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Speaker 1: by the time my family got thrust out to see,

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Speaker 1: I was already a bit of a disadvantage in the

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Speaker 1: sense that I was already I won't stay sick, but

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Speaker 1: I was certainly, you know, in need of more nutrients

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Speaker 1: than what we ended up getting on the boat. So

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Speaker 1: when I turned one years old, about ten days after

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Speaker 1: our escape, I stopped moving and I stopped crying. There

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Speaker 1: wasn't very much to eat on the boat. There wasn't

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Speaker 1: much water to drink. And you know, as you can imagine,

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Speaker 1: a mother who was lactating needs nourishment to continue to

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Speaker 1: lactate and to provide milk for her baby. But my

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Speaker 1: mother didn't have that, and so she had no milk

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Speaker 1: in her breast to feed me, and so I didn't eat.

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Speaker 1: And she had tried to spoon feed a canned milk

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Speaker 1: into my mouth, but I wouldn't take it. I was

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Speaker 1: so malnourished that I just became very life list. As

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Speaker 1: my mother describes it, um I made no sounds, not

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Speaker 1: even a cry on my I didn't move. She described

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Speaker 1: me as being heavy, because she had been carrying me

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Speaker 1: all these days um at sea already NonStop. And I

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Speaker 1: remember asking her, how is that possible that a baby

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Speaker 1: could be heavy, especially one who was born premature, and

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Speaker 1: also a baby who was very malnourished. And I realized

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Speaker 1: now looking back, that when she described me as heavy,

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Speaker 1: it was perhaps more of an emotional feeling than a

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Speaker 1: physical feeling that this idea and this absolute fear and

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Speaker 1: terror that perhaps my baby is not going to make

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Speaker 1: it on this journey. So what happened was there was

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Speaker 1: a day that the captain of the ship walked across

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Speaker 1: the bow and throughout other parts of the ship to

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Speaker 1: sort of assess his passengers, and he came across my

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Speaker 1: mother and bent low to her, and apparently, as the

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Speaker 1: way my mother tells the story, looked at my mother's

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Speaker 1: baby and saw that this baby looked dead to him,

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Speaker 1: and he essentially told her, if your baby dies, you

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Speaker 1: need to throw your baby overboard. Do you see all

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Speaker 1: these passengers on this ship if you're if your baby dies,

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Speaker 1: your baby is going to contaminate all these other passengers

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Speaker 1: on my ship. Even though I've I've heard this story

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Speaker 1: so many times, I've told this story myself so many times.

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Speaker 1: I've written about this story so many times, and I

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Speaker 1: still get emotional about it because I am not a mother. However,

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Speaker 1: I can imagine what that moment must have been like

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Speaker 1: for my mother. When somebody tells you your baby is dead,

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Speaker 1: you have to get rid of this baby. It's like

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Speaker 1: it's it's nightmarish, and it's like really literally the stuff

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Speaker 1: of nightmares. So what does she all the captain. My

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Speaker 1: mother is so clever and smart. She understood that she

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Speaker 1: had to sort of find some commonality between her and

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Speaker 1: the captain, and the commonality it was religion. They are Buddhist,

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Speaker 1: and so she told the captain. You know, she said lok,

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Speaker 1: which is a term of reverence in the language. Please

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Speaker 1: let me keep my baby. We're Buddhist. Please let me

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Speaker 1: keep my baby until we reach land and I can

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Speaker 1: give my baby a proper burial. And that was the

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Speaker 1: strategy that worked. My mother was able to keep me.

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Speaker 1: When I think about it now, I can't imagine the

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Speaker 1: fierce determination it must have taken my mother, just absolute

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Speaker 1: steely determination. It took her to face down somebody of

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Speaker 1: authority in our culture where we are always told, especially

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Speaker 1: as women and girls, too respect authority. Um, you know,

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Speaker 1: we don't have a right to request anything, or to

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Speaker 1: talk back or anything like that. And yet she did.

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Speaker 1: She did it in the name was keeping her baby

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Speaker 1: and saving her baby, saving me. In Puts memoir, she

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Speaker 1: quotes the poet wars on Shire who once wrote, you

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Speaker 1: have to understand that no one puts their children in

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Speaker 1: a boat unless the water is safer than the land.

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Speaker 1: This couldn't ring truer from Ma and their tumultuous experience

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Speaker 1: at sea. There is no predetermined destination. The ship docks

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Speaker 1: at the naval base in Subic Bay in the Philippines.

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Speaker 1: For over three weeks, Ma has seen only sea and sky.

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Speaker 1: When she finally sees land, safe land, she weeps. By

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Speaker 1: the time the ship docked, my mother had a single

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Speaker 1: and very narrow mission in mind. She was going to

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Speaker 1: do whatever she could to save me, truly, because she

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Speaker 1: herself wasn't fully convinced that I was still alive. So

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Speaker 1: when the ship sure as a big bay nettle base,

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Speaker 1: she thrust me into the arms of the very first

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Speaker 1: white man she saw, who was a soldier there on

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Speaker 1: the base, And that soldier pointed her to a building

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Speaker 1: with a red cross on It was the American Red Cross,

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Speaker 1: and so my mother went there. My mother had no

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Speaker 1: English words whatsoever to explain that her baby was sick

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Speaker 1: and she needed help, and so she passed me off

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Speaker 1: to the nurses there. And it was in that moment,

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Speaker 1: for the very first time, that I think my mother

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00:15:35,200 --> 00:15:40,400
Speaker 1: could actually take one true deep breath because she no

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Speaker 1: longer was carrying me in her arms, and that she

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Speaker 1: felt safe now that she was with you know, she

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Speaker 1: was in a facility of doctors and nurses that could

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Speaker 1: help revive her baby, and indeed they did, you know,

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Speaker 1: immediately doctors and nurses hooked me up to an IVY trip.

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Speaker 1: My mother there ended up laying on the ground underneath

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Speaker 1: my hospital bed and and I'm certain, out of sheer exhaustion,

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Speaker 1: just fell into the deepest sleep. I just think about

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Speaker 1: that time. I just can't imagine. Here's this young mother,

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Speaker 1: thirty years old. She has carried her baby for three

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Speaker 1: and a half weeks in the middle of the ocean,

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Speaker 1: fleeing her war torn country, and unsure of what her

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Speaker 1: future is, holding an issure of even where her family

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Speaker 1: is going to end up, and her single concern is

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Speaker 1: keeping her baby alive. And that the moment she's able

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Speaker 1: to release her baby into the arms of medical professionals,

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Speaker 1: that is the moment that I could imagine, like one's

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Speaker 1: body just gives in as she just the way she

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00:16:50,200 --> 00:16:53,720
Speaker 1: described it, she just you know, I can't translate the

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00:16:53,760 --> 00:16:56,160
Speaker 1: word correctly, but but them my word is a lot

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Speaker 1: and I think the closest translation I could come up

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Speaker 1: with is the you faint, We'll be right back put

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Speaker 1: recovers at the Red Cross. And after this temporary stint

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Speaker 1: in the Philippines, the family finally makes it to America.

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Speaker 1: They settle in Corvallis, Oregon, where they are among the

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Speaker 1: first Cambodian refugees brought into this community. There's this perfume

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Speaker 1: in the air in Carvellis, Oregon that I am certain

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00:17:42,800 --> 00:17:45,520
Speaker 1: has to do with all of the crops that grow

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00:17:46,000 --> 00:17:48,399
Speaker 1: all up and down the Willamet Valley. You have strawberries

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00:17:48,400 --> 00:17:52,240
Speaker 1: and raspberries, blackberries, any kind of berry you can imagine

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00:17:52,240 --> 00:17:56,359
Speaker 1: grows in the Willamette Valley. And so every summer the

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Speaker 1: air is just filled with an absolute sweetness. That is

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Speaker 1: something that I think of and I smile whenever I

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Speaker 1: think of my hometown. Um there in Oregon. So my family,

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Speaker 1: I grew up in a I would describe our neighborhood

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Speaker 1: as sort of a lower middle class neighborhood. Um, and

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00:18:15,359 --> 00:18:17,119
Speaker 1: you know, we we live. My family lived in a

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Speaker 1: in a ranch style house. It was a three bedroom

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00:18:19,560 --> 00:18:25,080
Speaker 1: to bath house, constantly overrun with kids. Because not only

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Speaker 1: were my parents raising myself and my siblings, but they

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00:18:29,720 --> 00:18:32,600
Speaker 1: were also raising one of my cousins and then over

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00:18:32,640 --> 00:18:37,959
Speaker 1: the years more of my cousins. Immediately, the family embarks

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00:18:37,960 --> 00:18:41,679
Speaker 1: on the project of rebuilding their lives. Those a landscape

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00:18:41,720 --> 00:18:45,520
Speaker 1: is lush and welcoming, the transition is far from seamless.

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00:18:46,359 --> 00:18:50,160
Speaker 1: Ma and Boss struggle to find work. My dad went

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Speaker 1: from wearing a navy uniform with three stripes on his

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00:18:54,640 --> 00:18:57,320
Speaker 1: a pelts and feeling very proud of who he was

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00:18:58,240 --> 00:19:02,640
Speaker 1: working for the Kimbootan government, now suddenly wearing an apron

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Speaker 1: and flipping burgers at our local diner in downtown Carvella

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00:19:06,080 --> 00:19:10,560
Speaker 1: Is called m Burton's Diner. And my mom she had

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Speaker 1: to convince my dad to go out and find work.

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Speaker 1: Because my mom is a very prideful woman and though

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Speaker 1: she accepted the help of our church sponsors and Carvallis,

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00:19:23,320 --> 00:19:26,960
Speaker 1: she didn't want any anybody in America to think that

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00:19:27,440 --> 00:19:31,040
Speaker 1: we were dependent on Americans to survive. She wanted to

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00:19:31,080 --> 00:19:33,639
Speaker 1: prove that we were independent and that we could survive

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00:19:33,680 --> 00:19:36,880
Speaker 1: our our own So she worked as a janitor, scrubbing

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00:19:36,880 --> 00:19:40,960
Speaker 1: toilets and vacuuming and mopping floors at the Student Health

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00:19:41,000 --> 00:19:44,840
Speaker 1: Center at Oregon State university and it was essentially media

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00:19:44,960 --> 00:19:48,159
Speaker 1: labor when we first arrived in Carvallis, and um, you know,

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00:19:48,200 --> 00:19:51,000
Speaker 1: I never I remember growing up and not really seeing

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00:19:51,000 --> 00:19:54,440
Speaker 1: them that whole much. In essence, we were raised And

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00:19:54,560 --> 00:19:57,280
Speaker 1: when I say we, my siblings and my cousins were

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Speaker 1: raised by my older sister Cineow. She was oldest in

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Speaker 1: the family. She was eight years old when we escaped Cambodia,

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00:20:03,960 --> 00:20:06,520
Speaker 1: and she was the one that cooked our dinners, and

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00:20:07,160 --> 00:20:09,720
Speaker 1: she was one the baby sat us and walked us

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00:20:09,760 --> 00:20:11,879
Speaker 1: to school and whatnot. And I think that this is

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00:20:11,920 --> 00:20:14,879
Speaker 1: one of the things as a child of immigrants, but

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00:20:14,960 --> 00:20:19,679
Speaker 1: specifically a child of refugees, um that I've come to

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00:20:19,760 --> 00:20:23,760
Speaker 1: learn and appreciate and be extraordinarily grateful for for my

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00:20:23,880 --> 00:20:26,760
Speaker 1: parents is that there's that kind of silent sacrifice that

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00:20:26,880 --> 00:20:30,680
Speaker 1: parents do. You know, when one leaves one's country by force,

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00:20:30,760 --> 00:20:32,680
Speaker 1: and in the case of my family, because of a war,

321
00:20:33,320 --> 00:20:37,120
Speaker 1: you end up in another country, you do absolutely whatever

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00:20:37,200 --> 00:20:42,400
Speaker 1: it takes to do to survive. Tell me a bit

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00:20:42,440 --> 00:20:51,080
Speaker 1: about them expectations culturally regarding familial duty and what it

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00:20:51,119 --> 00:20:53,840
Speaker 1: means to be a member of a family, and particularly

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00:20:53,840 --> 00:20:56,960
Speaker 1: what it means to be a female member of a

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00:20:57,040 --> 00:21:01,600
Speaker 1: family to be a daughter in my culture and my culture,

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Speaker 1: when you were born and if you are born female,

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00:21:06,640 --> 00:21:11,399
Speaker 1: essentially your life is going to have one path only,

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00:21:11,440 --> 00:21:13,040
Speaker 1: and that path is that one day you are going

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00:21:13,080 --> 00:21:16,360
Speaker 1: to get ready to a command man and you are

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Speaker 1: going to be a stay at home mother and or

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Speaker 1: you know, work in the rice patties, if your family

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00:21:20,840 --> 00:21:24,919
Speaker 1: happens to own rice patties. But you know, for for

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00:21:25,040 --> 00:21:27,720
Speaker 1: girls and for women in Cambodia, there's no sense of agency,

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00:21:27,800 --> 00:21:31,359
Speaker 1: there's no sense of independence. It's almost as if you

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00:21:31,480 --> 00:21:33,960
Speaker 1: belong to the men in your family. It's a very

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00:21:33,960 --> 00:21:38,040
Speaker 1: patriarchical society in that way. And so in America that

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00:21:38,160 --> 00:21:41,320
Speaker 1: was really difficult. Indeed, it was a culture clash in

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00:21:41,400 --> 00:21:44,960
Speaker 1: my family and specifically for my parents and even more

340
00:21:44,960 --> 00:21:48,760
Speaker 1: specifically for my mother, because so much of what America

341
00:21:49,000 --> 00:21:53,520
Speaker 1: is for for being a woman is different than how

342
00:21:53,560 --> 00:21:56,240
Speaker 1: it is to be a woman in Cambodia. And so

343
00:21:56,560 --> 00:21:59,840
Speaker 1: on the one hand, though my mother went out and

344
00:22:00,040 --> 00:22:04,840
Speaker 1: worked outside of the home, she wore pants, she ended

345
00:22:04,880 --> 00:22:06,880
Speaker 1: up learning how to drive, She did all of these

346
00:22:06,920 --> 00:22:11,560
Speaker 1: things that my women don't do in Cambodia. But we

347
00:22:11,560 --> 00:22:13,880
Speaker 1: were not in Cambodia. We were in America and they

348
00:22:13,920 --> 00:22:16,680
Speaker 1: were starting new lives, and so she understood she had

349
00:22:16,720 --> 00:22:21,800
Speaker 1: to operate in a different way. However, she still held

350
00:22:21,880 --> 00:22:26,080
Speaker 1: onto those cultural codes of what it means to be

351
00:22:26,440 --> 00:22:29,560
Speaker 1: a girl in my culture, because that's the way that

352
00:22:29,600 --> 00:22:31,960
Speaker 1: she raised my sisters and I. One of the things

353
00:22:32,040 --> 00:22:35,320
Speaker 1: that I grew up hearing as well as my sisters

354
00:22:36,080 --> 00:22:38,520
Speaker 1: was one day, when you grow up, you're going to

355
00:22:38,560 --> 00:22:41,240
Speaker 1: have a husband, and when you do, you have to

356
00:22:41,240 --> 00:22:43,000
Speaker 1: have a hot meal ready for him when he gets

357
00:22:43,000 --> 00:22:45,639
Speaker 1: home from work. I'll never forget that. She told us

358
00:22:45,680 --> 00:22:48,320
Speaker 1: that so many times. It just steered into my into

359
00:22:48,359 --> 00:22:52,159
Speaker 1: my entire being, and so I had a very narrow

360
00:22:52,280 --> 00:22:54,600
Speaker 1: vision of what it meant to be a my daughter.

361
00:22:55,400 --> 00:22:58,600
Speaker 1: And at the time, one of the things that's so

362
00:22:58,680 --> 00:23:02,399
Speaker 1: hard is that an American culture, in American society, it's

363
00:23:02,440 --> 00:23:05,280
Speaker 1: already hard enough to be a teenager and figure out

364
00:23:05,280 --> 00:23:07,679
Speaker 1: how to fit in, but then to have this added

365
00:23:07,720 --> 00:23:13,680
Speaker 1: complexity of being a Cambodian refugee in American society and

366
00:23:13,840 --> 00:23:20,680
Speaker 1: added familial pressure and cultural pressure of adhering to and

367
00:23:20,720 --> 00:23:25,320
Speaker 1: maintaining a fidelity to my own Cambodian culture while also

368
00:23:25,440 --> 00:23:30,159
Speaker 1: navigating this American culture that was an extremely difficult place

369
00:23:30,240 --> 00:23:33,760
Speaker 1: to be and to navigate those two worlds. It was

370
00:23:33,800 --> 00:23:36,600
Speaker 1: a real challenge, and not just for me. This is

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00:23:36,640 --> 00:23:40,480
Speaker 1: something that you know is repeated with among many refugees

372
00:23:40,480 --> 00:23:46,600
Speaker 1: and among many immigrants. Though Ma imposes many of these

373
00:23:46,720 --> 00:23:51,560
Speaker 1: Kami conventions upon her children, she herself had flouted them

374
00:23:51,560 --> 00:23:54,560
Speaker 1: when she was a teenager growing up in Cambodia. Ma

375
00:23:54,880 --> 00:23:57,960
Speaker 1: was raised in a very traditional family and she was

376
00:23:58,000 --> 00:24:01,800
Speaker 1: expected to fulfill all the duty of a perfectly obedient

377
00:24:01,920 --> 00:24:06,720
Speaker 1: to my daughter. But she bristled, she pursued an education,

378
00:24:07,520 --> 00:24:11,159
Speaker 1: and when her marriage to Put's father was arranged, she fled.

379
00:24:11,680 --> 00:24:18,600
Speaker 1: She literally ran away. So she had this history of

380
00:24:19,560 --> 00:24:24,679
Speaker 1: really not wanting this, but nonetheless, you know, fulfilling her duty,

381
00:24:25,200 --> 00:24:27,600
Speaker 1: and that becomes a huge part of her story, and

382
00:24:27,640 --> 00:24:31,520
Speaker 1: then a huge part of her story with you, that's right,

383
00:24:32,359 --> 00:24:35,920
Speaker 1: and then it became my story until I met my wife. Essentially,

384
00:24:36,800 --> 00:24:40,560
Speaker 1: I often feel that as a child, we come across

385
00:24:40,600 --> 00:24:43,439
Speaker 1: these moments in our lives, where would we get a

386
00:24:43,480 --> 00:24:46,320
Speaker 1: glimpse into our parents before they were parents, Like they

387
00:24:46,320 --> 00:24:51,199
Speaker 1: were actually people, they they were young people, they were

388
00:24:51,280 --> 00:24:54,879
Speaker 1: kids also, they had dreams, they had ambitions. You know,

389
00:24:54,920 --> 00:24:57,520
Speaker 1: they fought with their parents away. You know I fought

390
00:24:57,520 --> 00:24:59,639
Speaker 1: with my parents. You know, they were their own people,

391
00:24:59,720 --> 00:25:01,960
Speaker 1: because when I'm when I was growing up, I only

392
00:25:02,000 --> 00:25:05,520
Speaker 1: ever sought my parents as just parents. And so there's

393
00:25:05,560 --> 00:25:10,480
Speaker 1: this whole other life that they had before they had

394
00:25:10,560 --> 00:25:13,439
Speaker 1: children and before they made a family together. And so

395
00:25:13,560 --> 00:25:15,840
Speaker 1: for my mom, when I learned a story about how

396
00:25:16,520 --> 00:25:19,560
Speaker 1: she ran away because she didn't want to get married

397
00:25:19,600 --> 00:25:23,520
Speaker 1: in an arranged marriage, what I understood about her was that,

398
00:25:23,680 --> 00:25:28,239
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, all this time I felt that my

399
00:25:28,280 --> 00:25:31,239
Speaker 1: mom and I had been always in conflict with each other,

400
00:25:31,280 --> 00:25:33,000
Speaker 1: always fighting with each other, and all this time I

401
00:25:33,000 --> 00:25:36,600
Speaker 1: thought it was because we were so different, when in fact,

402
00:25:36,680 --> 00:25:39,440
Speaker 1: what that story tells me, the story of my mother

403
00:25:39,560 --> 00:25:43,040
Speaker 1: running away rather than getting married, is that we are

404
00:25:43,080 --> 00:25:50,040
Speaker 1: actually so similar. And when you were a kid growing

405
00:25:50,160 --> 00:25:54,280
Speaker 1: up and your mother was saying, really, essentially, you know,

406
00:25:54,359 --> 00:25:58,359
Speaker 1: your job is to marry my man and have a

407
00:25:58,400 --> 00:26:01,320
Speaker 1: hut dinner ready for him at the table, you didn't

408
00:26:01,320 --> 00:26:03,960
Speaker 1: know any of this. And you know, I think our

409
00:26:04,000 --> 00:26:07,560
Speaker 1: parents often protect us from this knowledge, or protect themselves

410
00:26:07,560 --> 00:26:11,400
Speaker 1: from our having this knowledge when we're children. That's right,

411
00:26:14,520 --> 00:26:18,440
Speaker 1: In addition to secrecy. Put also grows up amidst violence.

412
00:26:19,119 --> 00:26:23,040
Speaker 1: Bah her father has a temper, but it's not until

413
00:26:23,160 --> 00:26:26,840
Speaker 1: well into her adulthood that Put realizes why he was

414
00:26:26,880 --> 00:26:30,480
Speaker 1: so often angry after enduring the war and trauma of

415
00:26:30,600 --> 00:26:37,600
Speaker 1: escaping Cambodia. Like so many survivors, Bah had PTSD. I

416
00:26:37,640 --> 00:26:42,000
Speaker 1: think some of wider lens about this idea of writing memoir.

417
00:26:42,040 --> 00:26:44,919
Speaker 1: There's always this question that comes up of you know,

418
00:26:44,960 --> 00:26:46,960
Speaker 1: what do you put in and what do you leave out?

419
00:26:47,720 --> 00:26:50,360
Speaker 1: And on the topic of my father's violence, I really

420
00:26:50,400 --> 00:26:54,600
Speaker 1: struggled with that because I still wanted to protect him.

421
00:26:54,600 --> 00:26:56,439
Speaker 1: I still wanted to protect our family and that and

422
00:26:56,520 --> 00:27:00,159
Speaker 1: that's the power of secrets. And yet a bigger part

423
00:27:00,200 --> 00:27:04,960
Speaker 1: of me felt that I absolutely needed to write about

424
00:27:05,000 --> 00:27:09,000
Speaker 1: my father's violence as a way in which to show

425
00:27:09,600 --> 00:27:13,320
Speaker 1: how complex of a person he is, and also a

426
00:27:13,400 --> 00:27:16,440
Speaker 1: way in which to show how war has a very

427
00:27:16,480 --> 00:27:23,440
Speaker 1: long tail. War impacts people in such deep ways that

428
00:27:23,440 --> 00:27:27,439
Speaker 1: that manifests later on and manifest across generations. And this

429
00:27:27,560 --> 00:27:29,880
Speaker 1: is something that I think so much about now, especially

430
00:27:29,920 --> 00:27:32,880
Speaker 1: when I see on the news the war in Ukraine

431
00:27:32,920 --> 00:27:34,760
Speaker 1: and I think about, Oh my gosh, all the men

432
00:27:35,240 --> 00:27:38,760
Speaker 1: in Ukraine, how many more families are going to be

433
00:27:38,880 --> 00:27:41,919
Speaker 1: like mine, where the fathers don't have an outlet for

434
00:27:42,760 --> 00:27:46,720
Speaker 1: their PTSD and it manifests in very violent ways, or

435
00:27:47,440 --> 00:27:51,800
Speaker 1: either violence towards family members or violence towards themselves. Um

436
00:27:51,880 --> 00:27:56,400
Speaker 1: and um. You know so much of what I experienced

437
00:27:56,440 --> 00:28:00,600
Speaker 1: growing up with my father's short temper and his violence,

438
00:28:00,920 --> 00:28:04,080
Speaker 1: and ultimately how he had a nervous breakdown and ended

439
00:28:04,160 --> 00:28:07,359
Speaker 1: up being admitted into a psychiatric ward. I can look

440
00:28:07,720 --> 00:28:10,879
Speaker 1: on it now as an adult and look behind me

441
00:28:12,119 --> 00:28:15,320
Speaker 1: and look with compassion, But at the time, when you're

442
00:28:15,359 --> 00:28:17,440
Speaker 1: in the middle of it, all I had was anger

443
00:28:17,520 --> 00:28:20,480
Speaker 1: towards my father. I just felt so angry at him,

444
00:28:20,520 --> 00:28:22,320
Speaker 1: like how could you hurt people you love? How could

445
00:28:22,359 --> 00:28:26,320
Speaker 1: you hurt your own kids, your own wife? And that

446
00:28:26,480 --> 00:28:29,679
Speaker 1: anger for me manifested in me stabbing my father with

447
00:28:29,720 --> 00:28:31,800
Speaker 1: a pencil when I was four years old. I was

448
00:28:31,880 --> 00:28:34,320
Speaker 1: just thinking about that your weapon, your weapon was a

449
00:28:34,440 --> 00:28:38,760
Speaker 1: number two pencil, exactly, and and intervening in the dynamic

450
00:28:38,800 --> 00:28:41,600
Speaker 1: between your parents, intervening in the violence between your parents

451
00:28:41,640 --> 00:28:45,000
Speaker 1: as a four year old. Yeah, I had to stop it.

452
00:28:45,200 --> 00:28:47,400
Speaker 1: You know. I have always felt that my duty was

453
00:28:47,640 --> 00:28:50,720
Speaker 1: to protect my mother. It's something that I felt was

454
00:28:50,760 --> 00:28:53,080
Speaker 1: an intrinsic part of me that I was I was

455
00:28:53,120 --> 00:28:55,360
Speaker 1: put on this earth to protect my mother, and that

456
00:28:55,520 --> 00:28:57,760
Speaker 1: indeed also she was put on this earth to protect me.

457
00:28:57,840 --> 00:29:00,880
Speaker 1: And so in that sense there was always existing this

458
00:29:01,000 --> 00:29:04,120
Speaker 1: very symbiotic relationship between us and or you know, one

459
00:29:04,200 --> 00:29:08,040
Speaker 1: would say co dependence, which is also very true. The

460
00:29:08,080 --> 00:29:11,120
Speaker 1: difference between my relationship with my mother and my siblings

461
00:29:11,160 --> 00:29:15,840
Speaker 1: relationship with our mother is that story on the boat

462
00:29:16,080 --> 00:29:18,760
Speaker 1: and the fact that my mother saved me, because what

463
00:29:18,800 --> 00:29:22,440
Speaker 1: it meant was that, already being female in my culture,

464
00:29:22,600 --> 00:29:25,720
Speaker 1: I was saddled with this notion of debt and duty

465
00:29:26,160 --> 00:29:29,800
Speaker 1: I just culturally being female in Cambodia. On top of

466
00:29:29,840 --> 00:29:33,760
Speaker 1: that we add the extra dimension of the fact that

467
00:29:33,800 --> 00:29:36,720
Speaker 1: my mother saved me. It just compounded my sense of

468
00:29:36,800 --> 00:29:40,320
Speaker 1: duty to my mother that I owed her everything. I

469
00:29:40,320 --> 00:29:42,760
Speaker 1: thought at one point I owed her my life, and

470
00:29:42,800 --> 00:29:47,160
Speaker 1: so in essence, I felt like every action that I

471
00:29:47,280 --> 00:29:52,040
Speaker 1: made had to do with protecting her, preserving our relationship,

472
00:29:52,880 --> 00:29:58,120
Speaker 1: preserving our reputation, making her happy. Everything that I did

473
00:29:58,200 --> 00:30:01,680
Speaker 1: was focused on her. And in that kind of dynamic,

474
00:30:01,720 --> 00:30:06,920
Speaker 1: there's no me what a profound and telling way of

475
00:30:07,040 --> 00:30:12,680
Speaker 1: viewing oneself there's no me in this dynamic. As a

476
00:30:12,760 --> 00:30:16,560
Speaker 1: young girl put struggles with her identity, she doesn't have

477
00:30:16,720 --> 00:30:22,120
Speaker 1: language for it. Who is she? I think I knew

478
00:30:22,280 --> 00:30:25,160
Speaker 1: since I was a little girl that I was different.

479
00:30:25,720 --> 00:30:28,280
Speaker 1: I didn't have the vocabulary. I didn't know the word

480
00:30:28,320 --> 00:30:30,800
Speaker 1: gay back then, but I knew it was different. I

481
00:30:30,920 --> 00:30:34,000
Speaker 1: knew that I liked girls in a different way than

482
00:30:34,040 --> 00:30:41,160
Speaker 1: I liked boys. And yet, because I was so confused

483
00:30:41,200 --> 00:30:44,200
Speaker 1: by that feeling, I did absolutely everything that I could

484
00:30:45,120 --> 00:30:47,600
Speaker 1: to tamp that feeling down because I just thought it

485
00:30:47,640 --> 00:30:49,600
Speaker 1: was just it was so weird, and it was very

486
00:30:49,600 --> 00:30:52,360
Speaker 1: disorienting to me because I thought, you know, I'm not

487
00:30:52,360 --> 00:30:56,600
Speaker 1: supposed to like why why do I feel something, you know,

488
00:30:56,800 --> 00:31:00,400
Speaker 1: beyond liking, you know, my female friends? What is this

489
00:31:00,520 --> 00:31:02,560
Speaker 1: other feeling that I'm feeling? And it was kind of

490
00:31:02,600 --> 00:31:06,280
Speaker 1: just this. I can barely articulate and describe it other

491
00:31:06,280 --> 00:31:08,400
Speaker 1: than to say it was just this depth of emotion

492
00:31:09,360 --> 00:31:11,920
Speaker 1: for certain female friends I had when I was growing up.

493
00:31:11,960 --> 00:31:13,880
Speaker 1: That and I did not have that feeling at all

494
00:31:13,920 --> 00:31:16,680
Speaker 1: towards boys. And you know, I could look back on

495
00:31:16,760 --> 00:31:19,760
Speaker 1: and out so obvious I was crushing out on, you know,

496
00:31:19,840 --> 00:31:22,440
Speaker 1: my my girlfriends. When I was a kid. But then

497
00:31:22,440 --> 00:31:25,280
Speaker 1: there was another piece of it to I understood I

498
00:31:25,320 --> 00:31:28,880
Speaker 1: was different. My siblings, they always used to call me

499
00:31:28,920 --> 00:31:33,600
Speaker 1: tomboy because I dressed like my brother. I wore jeans

500
00:31:33,640 --> 00:31:36,040
Speaker 1: and T shirts always. I hated wearing a dress. I

501
00:31:36,080 --> 00:31:40,080
Speaker 1: still do now. But where things really I think I

502
00:31:40,240 --> 00:31:43,720
Speaker 1: sort of became clear to me, or a feeling that

503
00:31:43,880 --> 00:31:46,400
Speaker 1: got really worded in me, was when my mom also

504
00:31:46,680 --> 00:31:51,000
Speaker 1: started calling me tomboy. My siblings and my mother saw

505
00:31:51,160 --> 00:31:55,000
Speaker 1: who I was before I saw who I was. I

506
00:31:55,040 --> 00:31:57,920
Speaker 1: felt who I was, but I couldn't see and admit

507
00:31:57,960 --> 00:32:01,440
Speaker 1: who I was, which is that I was gay. And

508
00:32:02,520 --> 00:32:04,480
Speaker 1: that's one of the things where when I look back

509
00:32:05,240 --> 00:32:08,840
Speaker 1: what we do to try to figure out our own identities,

510
00:32:08,880 --> 00:32:11,400
Speaker 1: it's almost like that there's a self sabotage. I just

511
00:32:11,480 --> 00:32:13,640
Speaker 1: didn't know that there were things I hid for myself.

512
00:32:13,680 --> 00:32:16,280
Speaker 1: There were things about myself that I didn't want to acknowledge.

513
00:32:16,920 --> 00:32:20,320
Speaker 1: And then and the big thing was that the fact

514
00:32:20,320 --> 00:32:22,040
Speaker 1: that I was gay, and so that was a secret

515
00:32:22,040 --> 00:32:24,160
Speaker 1: that I that I kept to myself, even when I

516
00:32:24,200 --> 00:32:28,680
Speaker 1: did have the word for what I was feeling toward women.

517
00:32:29,120 --> 00:32:33,760
Speaker 1: And do you attribute that to what it was going

518
00:32:33,840 --> 00:32:39,600
Speaker 1: to mean? For your mother to know that. Absolutely, I

519
00:32:39,680 --> 00:32:43,760
Speaker 1: knew that if I were to admit in my family

520
00:32:44,400 --> 00:32:48,520
Speaker 1: with my mother that I was gay, it was going

521
00:32:48,560 --> 00:32:51,960
Speaker 1: to cause a rupture, an unbelievable rupture that that we

522
00:32:52,000 --> 00:32:56,160
Speaker 1: may never recover from. I was certain of that, Um,

523
00:32:56,200 --> 00:33:05,720
Speaker 1: and indeed the rupture did happen. We'll be back in

524
00:33:05,760 --> 00:33:23,120
Speaker 1: a moment with more family secrets. Put is sixteen years

525
00:33:23,120 --> 00:33:26,040
Speaker 1: old and her family has opened up their home to

526
00:33:26,240 --> 00:33:29,760
Speaker 1: over a dozen relatives from Cambodia who had survived the

527
00:33:29,800 --> 00:33:34,280
Speaker 1: genocide and fled. The house is just full of traumatized

528
00:33:34,320 --> 00:33:38,040
Speaker 1: family members, all of whom have, as Put describes it,

529
00:33:38,600 --> 00:33:43,360
Speaker 1: genocide eyes, eyes that are glassy and opaque, eyes that

530
00:33:43,520 --> 00:33:48,120
Speaker 1: taken no light and let none out either. This is

531
00:33:48,160 --> 00:33:50,680
Speaker 1: the year her mother takes her on a trip to Cambodia.

532
00:33:53,200 --> 00:33:57,200
Speaker 1: I had no idea what was about to happen. I

533
00:33:57,240 --> 00:34:00,160
Speaker 1: didn't know anything about my country. I grew up an

534
00:34:00,160 --> 00:34:04,200
Speaker 1: American kid, and so at the tail end of that trip,

535
00:34:04,640 --> 00:34:08,880
Speaker 1: when suddenly there was a line of young men outside

536
00:34:08,880 --> 00:34:13,759
Speaker 1: our hotel door with their mother's asking my mother to

537
00:34:14,000 --> 00:34:18,960
Speaker 1: issentially set up their sons in an arranged marriage with me. Um,

538
00:34:19,000 --> 00:34:23,120
Speaker 1: I was just absolutely filled with panic, And suddenly I

539
00:34:23,160 --> 00:34:26,080
Speaker 1: was thrust into the scenario where there were these young

540
00:34:26,120 --> 00:34:29,640
Speaker 1: men my age, my men, I should just call them

541
00:34:29,680 --> 00:34:31,920
Speaker 1: what they were, teenagers, they were boys. I was a

542
00:34:31,960 --> 00:34:35,839
Speaker 1: girl waiting to, you know, have their mother's marry marry

543
00:34:35,880 --> 00:34:38,879
Speaker 1: them off to me. I grew suspicious of my mother

544
00:34:39,080 --> 00:34:41,200
Speaker 1: because I thought, oh, my gosh, is this why she

545
00:34:41,280 --> 00:34:43,160
Speaker 1: brought me with her? Is this why she chose me

546
00:34:43,440 --> 00:34:45,239
Speaker 1: to come to Cambodia. Is she's going to leave me

547
00:34:45,360 --> 00:34:48,440
Speaker 1: here to get in and marry me off? And she

548
00:34:48,480 --> 00:34:51,839
Speaker 1: didn't do that. That it certainly sparked a deep fear

549
00:34:51,840 --> 00:34:54,759
Speaker 1: of me. Looking back, I can't say that that was

550
00:34:54,800 --> 00:34:57,120
Speaker 1: part of the grooming, that that was part of the

551
00:34:57,160 --> 00:34:59,400
Speaker 1: conditioning that you were going to grow up and marrying

552
00:34:59,400 --> 00:35:05,520
Speaker 1: a commin. And this trip triggers something input and when

553
00:35:05,520 --> 00:35:09,920
Speaker 1: they return home, she begins running away. Of course, put

554
00:35:09,920 --> 00:35:12,440
Speaker 1: doesn't know this at the time, but running away is

555
00:35:12,440 --> 00:35:14,719
Speaker 1: what her mother had done too all those years ago.

556
00:35:15,440 --> 00:35:20,120
Speaker 1: Running away is part of her inheritance. When she graduates

557
00:35:20,120 --> 00:35:23,240
Speaker 1: from high school, she runs to college, where she continues

558
00:35:23,280 --> 00:35:26,759
Speaker 1: to struggle with her identity. She is recognizing that she

559
00:35:26,840 --> 00:35:30,839
Speaker 1: has feelings for women, but she stifles the feelings, and

560
00:35:30,880 --> 00:35:34,840
Speaker 1: so she runs away again, this time from her very self.

561
00:35:35,600 --> 00:35:38,960
Speaker 1: She busies herself to the point of exhaustion, anything to

562
00:35:39,040 --> 00:35:43,680
Speaker 1: avoid her truths. That was a really hard time in

563
00:35:43,719 --> 00:35:46,120
Speaker 1: my life, you know, when when I got to college.

564
00:35:46,760 --> 00:35:50,080
Speaker 1: I think because of the family in which I came from,

565
00:35:50,120 --> 00:35:52,880
Speaker 1: I was already used to working, and not just working,

566
00:35:52,880 --> 00:35:57,080
Speaker 1: but overworking, and so I really overextended myself by trying

567
00:35:57,080 --> 00:36:00,440
Speaker 1: to graduate college in three years at the University of Oregon.

568
00:36:00,600 --> 00:36:02,799
Speaker 1: And there was a lot of pressure in that. But

569
00:36:03,280 --> 00:36:06,560
Speaker 1: also there was a pressure building inside of me that

570
00:36:07,760 --> 00:36:11,160
Speaker 1: I knew I was gay. I knew I had attractions

571
00:36:11,680 --> 00:36:16,040
Speaker 1: towards um, towards women, and towards female friends in particular,

572
00:36:16,960 --> 00:36:18,680
Speaker 1: and yet I didn't know how to express that. I

573
00:36:19,160 --> 00:36:22,040
Speaker 1: felt like I couldn't be who I was because if

574
00:36:22,080 --> 00:36:25,480
Speaker 1: I were to admit that, the consequences in my family

575
00:36:25,520 --> 00:36:29,920
Speaker 1: would be too severe. And so in college I tried

576
00:36:29,920 --> 00:36:35,440
Speaker 1: to outrun my own feelings by overworking myself. I had

577
00:36:35,480 --> 00:36:38,799
Speaker 1: two part time jobs, I took the maximum number of

578
00:36:38,840 --> 00:36:42,920
Speaker 1: class credits that I could um at school. I just

579
00:36:42,960 --> 00:36:46,000
Speaker 1: did everything I could to not think about this deeply

580
00:36:46,080 --> 00:36:50,480
Speaker 1: unsettling feeling in myself that I was gay, and um,

581
00:36:50,520 --> 00:36:55,520
Speaker 1: what I realized only looking back is that how foolish, right, Like,

582
00:36:55,840 --> 00:36:58,479
Speaker 1: we can never outrun ourselves, we can never outrun who

583
00:36:58,520 --> 00:37:01,960
Speaker 1: we truly are. Um, it's going to come up at

584
00:37:02,000 --> 00:37:03,880
Speaker 1: some point and we're going to have to face it.

585
00:37:03,960 --> 00:37:07,799
Speaker 1: And indeed I did and and had to and wanted to.

586
00:37:08,760 --> 00:37:11,960
Speaker 1: I think that part of one search for identity is

587
00:37:12,000 --> 00:37:15,120
Speaker 1: wanting to be free ultimately, and I wanted to be free.

588
00:37:15,960 --> 00:37:17,799
Speaker 1: I didn't know how to get there. I didn't know

589
00:37:18,000 --> 00:37:21,840
Speaker 1: if I would have the courage to live as I am,

590
00:37:22,160 --> 00:37:25,400
Speaker 1: as being you know, lesbian, as being gay, but I

591
00:37:25,440 --> 00:37:28,800
Speaker 1: definitely wanted to get there because it was so heavy.

592
00:37:29,280 --> 00:37:33,879
Speaker 1: That's it's interesting that word, you just use it heavy. Yeah.

593
00:37:34,120 --> 00:37:37,720
Speaker 1: You write at one point that perfectionism was the price

594
00:37:37,800 --> 00:37:41,840
Speaker 1: for affection with your mother, And you know, it just

595
00:37:41,880 --> 00:37:45,520
Speaker 1: strikes me that you were gay. You knew you were gay.

596
00:37:46,120 --> 00:37:50,640
Speaker 1: You wanted to be able to fully live. You know

597
00:37:50,719 --> 00:37:53,560
Speaker 1: who you were and who you are and what you're

598
00:37:54,080 --> 00:37:56,239
Speaker 1: You know what your desires are and what your identity is,

599
00:37:56,360 --> 00:37:59,839
Speaker 1: and you know, maybe just maybe if you did everything

600
00:38:00,000 --> 00:38:06,839
Speaker 1: else perfectly, maybe that would be okay, that's exactly right. Yeah, Yeah,

601
00:38:06,840 --> 00:38:09,239
Speaker 1: I thought if I could be perfect, that that would

602
00:38:09,239 --> 00:38:12,640
Speaker 1: be enough for my mother, that I would shine enough

603
00:38:13,960 --> 00:38:17,440
Speaker 1: to balance out this ugly truth about me, which is

604
00:38:17,480 --> 00:38:25,320
Speaker 1: that my mother had a gay child. When Put graduates

605
00:38:25,320 --> 00:38:29,400
Speaker 1: from college, she pursues journalism. She quickly has success in

606
00:38:29,440 --> 00:38:32,759
Speaker 1: the field, and by her early twenties, she's working as

607
00:38:32,760 --> 00:38:38,480
Speaker 1: a professional journalist and writer. When she's twenty five, considered

608
00:38:38,719 --> 00:38:42,160
Speaker 1: really old in her culture, Put makes a second trip

609
00:38:42,200 --> 00:38:47,440
Speaker 1: to Cambodia with Ma. Given her geriatric age of Put

610
00:38:47,480 --> 00:38:51,080
Speaker 1: receives a lot of pressure on this trip. Nobody in

611
00:38:51,080 --> 00:38:53,640
Speaker 1: the family understands why she's not yet married to her

612
00:38:53,719 --> 00:38:57,920
Speaker 1: husband and cooking him dinner. When I was a teenager

613
00:38:58,960 --> 00:39:02,759
Speaker 1: years earlier, meeting my cousins for the first time, we

614
00:39:02,760 --> 00:39:05,840
Speaker 1: were all the same age and they were working the

615
00:39:05,960 --> 00:39:09,160
Speaker 1: rice patties. I was working in the strawberry fields of Carvals, Oregon.

616
00:39:09,640 --> 00:39:12,600
Speaker 1: But then flash forward and I go on my second

617
00:39:12,600 --> 00:39:16,280
Speaker 1: trip to Cambodia, and I am twenty five years old, unmarried,

618
00:39:16,360 --> 00:39:19,760
Speaker 1: and yet here are my the same cousins. They are married,

619
00:39:19,960 --> 00:39:23,759
Speaker 1: toting babies on their hips, and they thought, what is

620
00:39:23,800 --> 00:39:27,520
Speaker 1: wrong with you, Put, Like, do you have a They'll

621
00:39:27,560 --> 00:39:30,920
Speaker 1: never forget all my cousins crowded around me and just

622
00:39:30,960 --> 00:39:33,960
Speaker 1: started peaching me questions, do you have a husband, don't

623
00:39:33,960 --> 00:39:36,839
Speaker 1: you have children? How old are you now? And I

624
00:39:36,880 --> 00:39:42,560
Speaker 1: think that that actually, that trip brought a fair amount

625
00:39:42,600 --> 00:39:44,759
Speaker 1: of shame to my mother, because I saw my mother

626
00:39:44,840 --> 00:39:50,200
Speaker 1: making excuses, um, to my relatives of why I was

627
00:39:50,239 --> 00:39:52,239
Speaker 1: not married and why I did not have children, and

628
00:39:52,320 --> 00:39:54,120
Speaker 1: she was saying, you know, put, she's got a career,

629
00:39:54,239 --> 00:39:58,080
Speaker 1: she's a journalist, and you know she'll she'll meet somebody eventually,

630
00:39:58,120 --> 00:40:00,960
Speaker 1: but right now, she's focused on earning money and and

631
00:40:01,040 --> 00:40:03,680
Speaker 1: saving up. She wants to buy a house. Like just

632
00:40:03,719 --> 00:40:07,480
Speaker 1: the excuses were just piled on thick because she didn't

633
00:40:07,600 --> 00:40:10,160
Speaker 1: know and I knew but didn't yet tell her the

634
00:40:10,239 --> 00:40:14,520
Speaker 1: real reason. So when you return home, you do tell her.

635
00:40:15,239 --> 00:40:19,520
Speaker 1: I did. I came out to my mother, UM when

636
00:40:20,040 --> 00:40:23,480
Speaker 1: I moved to California and I wasn't dating anybody at

637
00:40:23,480 --> 00:40:27,840
Speaker 1: the time, and I knew that, UM, I wanted to

638
00:40:27,840 --> 00:40:30,200
Speaker 1: tell her myself that I was gay. So my mom

639
00:40:30,200 --> 00:40:32,200
Speaker 1: flew down to the Bay Area where I was working

640
00:40:32,239 --> 00:40:37,560
Speaker 1: to visit me one weekend, and UM, I'll never forget

641
00:40:37,920 --> 00:40:42,600
Speaker 1: just how stressful that moment was, because it in my mind,

642
00:40:42,640 --> 00:40:44,560
Speaker 1: it was to make it or break a moment my

643
00:40:44,640 --> 00:40:49,120
Speaker 1: mother would either accept me or she would abandon me.

644
00:40:49,239 --> 00:40:51,319
Speaker 1: In that moment, that's what I felt was on the

645
00:40:51,360 --> 00:40:54,560
Speaker 1: line um and she did something that was unexpected when

646
00:40:54,600 --> 00:40:56,839
Speaker 1: I came out to my mother, when she came down

647
00:40:56,880 --> 00:41:00,040
Speaker 1: to California for a weekend visit with me, she on

648
00:41:00,120 --> 00:41:04,040
Speaker 1: me for the very first time, I love you. Going Now,

649
00:41:04,239 --> 00:41:08,200
Speaker 1: in my culture, we don't communicate things like I love

650
00:41:08,239 --> 00:41:10,840
Speaker 1: you and I'm sorry. It's you know, the emphasis is

651
00:41:10,840 --> 00:41:15,080
Speaker 1: more on actions as it is on language and expressing

652
00:41:15,160 --> 00:41:17,480
Speaker 1: through language. And so that was the first time she

653
00:41:17,520 --> 00:41:21,000
Speaker 1: told me I love you, and I thought, in that moment, oh,

654
00:41:21,320 --> 00:41:24,080
Speaker 1: the worst didn't happen. She's actually going to accept me.

655
00:41:24,520 --> 00:41:27,400
Speaker 1: And just to make absolute sure she knew what I

656
00:41:27,440 --> 00:41:30,960
Speaker 1: meant when I told her I'm gay, I piled us

657
00:41:30,960 --> 00:41:33,480
Speaker 1: into my Honda Civic and I drunk this across the

658
00:41:33,960 --> 00:41:37,560
Speaker 1: Bay Bridge, right into the heart of the Gay districtive

659
00:41:37,560 --> 00:41:40,880
Speaker 1: San Francisco and the Castro And it's just this moment

660
00:41:40,920 --> 00:41:43,160
Speaker 1: that I'll never forget for all of my life, in

661
00:41:43,160 --> 00:41:45,960
Speaker 1: which my mom is you know, we're going through the

662
00:41:46,000 --> 00:41:48,040
Speaker 1: Castor and my mom is just seeing things that she's

663
00:41:48,080 --> 00:41:52,880
Speaker 1: never seen before, including two men and leather chaps with

664
00:41:52,960 --> 00:41:55,959
Speaker 1: their bare behind hanging out, and she presses her cheek

665
00:41:56,000 --> 00:41:57,760
Speaker 1: to the window and points at them. And she turns

666
00:41:57,800 --> 00:42:00,839
Speaker 1: to me and she says, put, put that to gay.

667
00:42:01,080 --> 00:42:04,080
Speaker 1: And I said, Mom, yes, that's the gay. Stop pointing

668
00:42:04,560 --> 00:42:10,520
Speaker 1: so embarrassed, And in my very naive mind, I thought,

669
00:42:10,840 --> 00:42:13,360
Speaker 1: she gets it. She knows who I am now, and

670
00:42:13,400 --> 00:42:15,799
Speaker 1: so I thought, Oh, we're done. Don't need to say

671
00:42:15,800 --> 00:42:18,040
Speaker 1: anything else more about who I am. She's accepted me.

672
00:42:18,120 --> 00:42:21,480
Speaker 1: She has seen what what gay life or gay culture is.

673
00:42:21,520 --> 00:42:24,120
Speaker 1: In this one short drive we took down the castro.

674
00:42:24,960 --> 00:42:28,120
Speaker 1: But actually we weren't done. We were very far from

675
00:42:28,120 --> 00:42:34,840
Speaker 1: being done on the topic of me being gay. Flash

676
00:42:34,920 --> 00:42:39,080
Speaker 1: forward to two and Put and Ma still aren't done

677
00:42:39,120 --> 00:42:42,160
Speaker 1: getting to know one another on a deeper level. They're

678
00:42:42,160 --> 00:42:46,279
Speaker 1: not estranged exactly, but they're not sharing intimate details about

679
00:42:46,320 --> 00:42:51,120
Speaker 1: their lives either. Then, in this same year, gets a

680
00:42:51,160 --> 00:42:54,080
Speaker 1: call from her mother a has had a heart attack.

681
00:42:55,160 --> 00:42:57,640
Speaker 1: Put puts her work on hold and rushes back to

682
00:42:57,719 --> 00:43:02,879
Speaker 1: Oregon to help her mother to protect her. When she's there,

683
00:43:03,360 --> 00:43:06,600
Speaker 1: her mother begins to tell her stories she's never heard before,

684
00:43:07,360 --> 00:43:11,239
Speaker 1: stories about whom was before she was mom before she

685
00:43:11,360 --> 00:43:15,360
Speaker 1: was married and had children. When I think back on

686
00:43:15,440 --> 00:43:17,759
Speaker 1: my life, I always think about it in terms of

687
00:43:17,840 --> 00:43:22,400
Speaker 1: these moments where there's a before and then after, and

688
00:43:22,520 --> 00:43:25,200
Speaker 1: very clearly my father's heart attack was one of those moments.

689
00:43:25,760 --> 00:43:30,120
Speaker 1: There was the mother I knew before my father's heart attack,

690
00:43:30,400 --> 00:43:32,560
Speaker 1: and then the mother I knew afterwards when she began

691
00:43:32,600 --> 00:43:37,160
Speaker 1: to share stories about her life, and an interesting thing happened.

692
00:43:37,239 --> 00:43:41,680
Speaker 1: The more she began to share stories of her life,

693
00:43:42,200 --> 00:43:45,960
Speaker 1: the more I began to reflect on my own, and

694
00:43:46,040 --> 00:43:49,480
Speaker 1: also that sort of magnified my own need to want

695
00:43:49,480 --> 00:43:51,879
Speaker 1: to live as I am and to have much more

696
00:43:51,960 --> 00:43:57,239
Speaker 1: clarity around the fact that I could try all I

697
00:43:57,280 --> 00:44:01,440
Speaker 1: could to find and marry at least a man, if

698
00:44:01,480 --> 00:44:03,960
Speaker 1: not a comman man, but know that in the end

699
00:44:04,040 --> 00:44:06,560
Speaker 1: that would not have been my true self, that would

700
00:44:06,600 --> 00:44:12,479
Speaker 1: not have been the true put rain. So I think

701
00:44:12,520 --> 00:44:16,240
Speaker 1: that I did enter relationships with men trying to convince

702
00:44:16,320 --> 00:44:20,439
Speaker 1: myself that I could do one last thing for my mother,

703
00:44:20,560 --> 00:44:22,680
Speaker 1: which is to marry it Matt. But in the end

704
00:44:22,719 --> 00:44:25,319
Speaker 1: of the day, I couldn't do it. That just wasn't me.

705
00:44:25,520 --> 00:44:29,000
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have been happy, he wouldn't have been happy.

706
00:44:29,320 --> 00:44:31,840
Speaker 1: I could tell it what you know would have been

707
00:44:31,880 --> 00:44:33,680
Speaker 1: a miserable life, because who wants to live in a

708
00:44:33,800 --> 00:44:37,960
Speaker 1: cage when you already know who you are? And so

709
00:44:38,360 --> 00:44:40,799
Speaker 1: I think that that's when I was got back into

710
00:44:40,840 --> 00:44:43,840
Speaker 1: a corner and I really had to reckon with myself

711
00:44:44,320 --> 00:44:46,160
Speaker 1: and what was I going to do? How was I

712
00:44:46,239 --> 00:44:48,319
Speaker 1: going to live my life? And how was I going

713
00:44:48,360 --> 00:44:51,040
Speaker 1: to live it? For me? No longer for her? And

714
00:44:51,080 --> 00:44:55,640
Speaker 1: it's so interesting you know what happens when finally there's

715
00:44:55,640 --> 00:44:58,600
Speaker 1: no place else to go but the truth. M hmm,

716
00:44:58,800 --> 00:45:02,120
Speaker 1: that's right. And by being backed into that corner, and

717
00:45:02,320 --> 00:45:08,239
Speaker 1: by ironically by your mother letting you see her in

718
00:45:08,600 --> 00:45:13,680
Speaker 1: more layers of her complexity, that just liberates something in you.

719
00:45:14,560 --> 00:45:17,480
Speaker 1: Doesn't make it any less tortured, but it's just it

720
00:45:17,600 --> 00:45:25,839
Speaker 1: liberates it, that's right. Absolutely. It's only then that put

721
00:45:25,880 --> 00:45:29,279
Speaker 1: finds herself falling head over heels in love with a

722
00:45:29,320 --> 00:45:32,680
Speaker 1: woman that she'd met years before, but the timing hadn't

723
00:45:32,719 --> 00:45:36,600
Speaker 1: been right. Her name is April, and now they begin

724
00:45:36,640 --> 00:45:41,080
Speaker 1: a relationship. They move in together, and they plan to

725
00:45:41,120 --> 00:45:45,160
Speaker 1: get married, but will not be marrying a command man

726
00:45:45,440 --> 00:45:49,560
Speaker 1: or a man at all. She will marry April. Finally,

727
00:45:49,840 --> 00:45:53,680
Speaker 1: Put feels aligned with her identity. She and April begin

728
00:45:53,719 --> 00:45:57,520
Speaker 1: to plan a large and celebratory wedding. Friends will be

729
00:45:57,560 --> 00:46:00,919
Speaker 1: coming from all over the world. Puts siblings will come,

730
00:46:01,480 --> 00:46:04,440
Speaker 1: but at a certain point in the planning, but realizes

731
00:46:04,840 --> 00:46:08,520
Speaker 1: that her parents are not planning to be present. They

732
00:46:08,560 --> 00:46:11,680
Speaker 1: know she's gay by now, but they just cannot accept

733
00:46:11,760 --> 00:46:16,920
Speaker 1: the finality of her marriage to a woman. Oh, that

734
00:46:17,000 --> 00:46:19,719
Speaker 1: moment left a hole in my heart. It still does.

735
00:46:20,640 --> 00:46:25,719
Speaker 1: Um that whole is still there. I've reconcile that whole

736
00:46:25,760 --> 00:46:28,239
Speaker 1: and I have filled that void in other ways and

737
00:46:28,360 --> 00:46:32,879
Speaker 1: with other love. But it's hard when your own mother

738
00:46:33,400 --> 00:46:36,719
Speaker 1: is the one who is absent at your wedding. For me,

739
00:46:36,760 --> 00:46:38,479
Speaker 1: it was the most important day of my life because

740
00:46:38,520 --> 00:46:41,520
Speaker 1: it was the proudest moment of my life. I had

741
00:46:41,600 --> 00:46:45,400
Speaker 1: finally met somebody who I love and who I was

742
00:46:45,440 --> 00:46:48,040
Speaker 1: in love with, who I felt saw me for who

743
00:46:48,080 --> 00:46:50,520
Speaker 1: I am and accepted me for who I am. And

744
00:46:50,600 --> 00:46:52,960
Speaker 1: what happens when you meet that person. You want to

745
00:46:53,000 --> 00:46:55,280
Speaker 1: share that person with your family, you know, with your parents,

746
00:46:55,280 --> 00:46:57,760
Speaker 1: and in my case, I wanted to share that joy

747
00:46:57,800 --> 00:47:01,040
Speaker 1: and happiness I had with my mother and it she

748
00:47:01,080 --> 00:47:04,480
Speaker 1: couldn't be happy for me. And that's when I knew.

749
00:47:04,960 --> 00:47:06,960
Speaker 1: I talked about this and I and I and I

750
00:47:06,960 --> 00:47:10,200
Speaker 1: still think about it, that a part of me had

751
00:47:10,239 --> 00:47:11,879
Speaker 1: to die so that the rest of me could live.

752
00:47:12,320 --> 00:47:14,520
Speaker 1: The part of me that had to die was the

753
00:47:14,560 --> 00:47:17,200
Speaker 1: baby on the boat finally had to die, the story

754
00:47:17,239 --> 00:47:19,640
Speaker 1: of the baby on the boat and what that baby represented.

755
00:47:19,960 --> 00:47:24,319
Speaker 1: That part had to die so that the rest of

756
00:47:24,320 --> 00:47:27,239
Speaker 1: me could live, and I could finally live for myself

757
00:47:27,480 --> 00:47:31,279
Speaker 1: and find joy and happiness for myself, and not live

758
00:47:32,000 --> 00:47:37,920
Speaker 1: for my mother and because of my mother. After it

759
00:47:37,960 --> 00:47:42,200
Speaker 1: Puts wedding to April, she and Ma rarely speak. BA

760
00:47:42,200 --> 00:47:45,400
Speaker 1: will occasionally fill her in on news when it's necessary,

761
00:47:45,480 --> 00:47:48,759
Speaker 1: but in general there is very little contact for quite

762
00:47:48,800 --> 00:47:54,239
Speaker 1: a while. And then in puts beloved father in law,

763
00:47:54,480 --> 00:47:59,760
Speaker 1: April's father, Jimmy, is diagnosed with a terminal illness. Shortly

764
00:47:59,800 --> 00:48:02,920
Speaker 1: before he dies. Put In April throw him a party

765
00:48:02,960 --> 00:48:06,040
Speaker 1: at one of his favorite restaurants, a celebration of his

766
00:48:06,120 --> 00:48:09,200
Speaker 1: life where he can be surrounded by family and friends.

767
00:48:12,160 --> 00:48:15,360
Speaker 1: When my father in law was dying and insisted on

768
00:48:15,480 --> 00:48:19,200
Speaker 1: having a party to say goodbye to people in person,

769
00:48:20,320 --> 00:48:23,480
Speaker 1: um while he was still standing and walking and talking.

770
00:48:24,040 --> 00:48:26,480
Speaker 1: We ended up inviting my parents. I was skeptical that

771
00:48:26,520 --> 00:48:30,399
Speaker 1: they would come. My wife wanted to add minimum at

772
00:48:30,480 --> 00:48:33,200
Speaker 1: least just invite them, because I had told my wife April,

773
00:48:33,880 --> 00:48:37,120
Speaker 1: and only her and the subsequent years after we got married,

774
00:48:37,280 --> 00:48:39,680
Speaker 1: that I would never forgive my mother if she did

775
00:48:39,719 --> 00:48:44,799
Speaker 1: not meet April's father before he passed away. I could

776
00:48:44,840 --> 00:48:46,840
Speaker 1: not forget that. I could forgive my parents for not

777
00:48:46,880 --> 00:48:48,879
Speaker 1: coming to our wedding, but I would not forgive them

778
00:48:48,920 --> 00:48:51,520
Speaker 1: if they didn't meet your dad. That's what I told April,

779
00:48:52,400 --> 00:48:54,719
Speaker 1: And so April kind of took the initiative and she

780
00:48:54,800 --> 00:48:56,799
Speaker 1: emailed my mom and told my mom that her father

781
00:48:56,920 --> 00:48:59,360
Speaker 1: was dying and he was going to have a party

782
00:48:59,360 --> 00:49:02,560
Speaker 1: and would they come um And the most surprising thing happened.

783
00:49:02,680 --> 00:49:05,000
Speaker 1: I got a phone call on my cell phone the

784
00:49:05,040 --> 00:49:07,799
Speaker 1: next day and it was my mom. We hadn't talked

785
00:49:07,840 --> 00:49:10,840
Speaker 1: in months, and she said, April sent an email and

786
00:49:10,960 --> 00:49:13,759
Speaker 1: let me know that her dad is dying. We want

787
00:49:13,840 --> 00:49:15,799
Speaker 1: to join the party, but we don't know how to

788
00:49:15,800 --> 00:49:18,640
Speaker 1: get to the restaurant in Portland. Even though my mom

789
00:49:18,680 --> 00:49:20,359
Speaker 1: did say she wanted to go, I still wasn't sure

790
00:49:20,360 --> 00:49:21,759
Speaker 1: if she was going to show, whether she and my

791
00:49:21,840 --> 00:49:24,040
Speaker 1: dad were going to show up, and so similar to

792
00:49:24,080 --> 00:49:27,280
Speaker 1: what happened at my wedding. UM, I sort of glanced

793
00:49:27,360 --> 00:49:29,319
Speaker 1: up now and again to look at the door to see, if,

794
00:49:29,600 --> 00:49:31,960
Speaker 1: you know, they were going to walk through. And at

795
00:49:32,040 --> 00:49:34,239
Speaker 1: just the moment when I was going to give up

796
00:49:34,239 --> 00:49:35,880
Speaker 1: and think, oh, you know, they're not gonna They're going

797
00:49:35,920 --> 00:49:39,360
Speaker 1: to be no shows, just as they were at my wedding, UM,

798
00:49:39,400 --> 00:49:41,080
Speaker 1: there was a bit of a fuss at the foyer,

799
00:49:41,560 --> 00:49:45,600
Speaker 1: and I saw April over at the foyer of the restaurant,

800
00:49:45,840 --> 00:49:48,560
Speaker 1: and then I quickly saw, you know, I saw my

801
00:49:48,600 --> 00:49:51,200
Speaker 1: father in law quickly making his way over with my

802
00:49:51,239 --> 00:49:54,800
Speaker 1: mother in law, and next thing I knew, my parents

803
00:49:55,320 --> 00:49:59,279
Speaker 1: and my in laws were all hugging. And it's a

804
00:49:59,320 --> 00:50:03,120
Speaker 1: moment that when I think back over the course of

805
00:50:03,160 --> 00:50:06,399
Speaker 1: the years and the moments, the hard moments, and the

806
00:50:06,480 --> 00:50:11,319
Speaker 1: and the tender moments, that single moment of tenderness did

807
00:50:11,400 --> 00:50:15,560
Speaker 1: so much to call me and soothe me and kind

808
00:50:15,560 --> 00:50:18,640
Speaker 1: of rekindle the compassion I have for my mother, because

809
00:50:18,680 --> 00:50:20,960
Speaker 1: I also have to think about what it took for

810
00:50:21,080 --> 00:50:26,080
Speaker 1: her to make the decision to come, knowing that we

811
00:50:26,160 --> 00:50:30,759
Speaker 1: had been in conflict over me marrying a woman that

812
00:50:30,880 --> 00:50:34,279
Speaker 1: she did not accept having a gay daughter, and yet

813
00:50:34,320 --> 00:50:37,200
Speaker 1: here she was meeting my in laws. It was a

814
00:50:37,239 --> 00:50:41,080
Speaker 1: pretty remarkable moment. It's so astonishing when I think about it.

815
00:50:41,280 --> 00:50:46,640
Speaker 1: They were so much emotion that went into that moment,

816
00:50:47,200 --> 00:50:49,920
Speaker 1: both for my father in law and mother in law,

817
00:50:50,000 --> 00:50:53,759
Speaker 1: as well as my parents and and everybody else. My

818
00:50:54,040 --> 00:50:56,320
Speaker 1: wife and I continue to care for my father in

819
00:50:56,400 --> 00:51:02,280
Speaker 1: law for another month. He passed one month after that party.

820
00:51:02,640 --> 00:51:05,880
Speaker 1: And in the past, my mom was always the person

821
00:51:05,920 --> 00:51:08,799
Speaker 1: that I would call if I had good news, up

822
00:51:08,840 --> 00:51:11,160
Speaker 1: until the point of our rupture when I decided I

823
00:51:11,200 --> 00:51:14,320
Speaker 1: was going to marry a woman. Up until that point,

824
00:51:14,360 --> 00:51:16,440
Speaker 1: I always called my mom. If I got a promotion

825
00:51:16,480 --> 00:51:18,919
Speaker 1: at work, if I got an award in journalism, any

826
00:51:18,960 --> 00:51:22,400
Speaker 1: good news, I would call her. When my father in

827
00:51:22,480 --> 00:51:26,360
Speaker 1: law passed, I picked up the phone and I didn't call,

828
00:51:26,600 --> 00:51:28,640
Speaker 1: but I texted my mother. She was the first that

829
00:51:28,680 --> 00:51:31,520
Speaker 1: I thought to contact, and all I texted her was

830
00:51:32,400 --> 00:51:39,400
Speaker 1: he has gone and and she texted me back three words.

831
00:51:41,520 --> 00:51:46,640
Speaker 1: She texted me Matt sorry. And so in that moment,

832
00:51:46,680 --> 00:51:51,920
Speaker 1: I understood we can begin again. The old relationship that

833
00:51:52,000 --> 00:51:54,400
Speaker 1: my mom and I had needed to die so that

834
00:51:54,480 --> 00:51:58,440
Speaker 1: a new relationship could be reborn in its place, And

835
00:51:58,520 --> 00:52:01,080
Speaker 1: that's sort of where I'm at now with her, is

836
00:52:01,160 --> 00:52:06,920
Speaker 1: just trying to navigate a new relationship that's really beautiful. Put,

837
00:52:07,760 --> 00:52:10,799
Speaker 1: really really beautiful. She had to be careful there. I

838
00:52:10,840 --> 00:52:17,520
Speaker 1: felt the tears coming up. Yeah, and me too. Here's

839
00:52:17,560 --> 00:52:22,320
Speaker 1: put reading one final passage from her resonant memoir, Ma

840
00:52:22,640 --> 00:52:28,120
Speaker 1: and Me. As I drove north out of their subdivision,

841
00:52:28,600 --> 00:52:30,799
Speaker 1: past the same farm fields I had come to know

842
00:52:30,960 --> 00:52:35,040
Speaker 1: by heart, I felt a pounding between my ears. That

843
00:52:35,239 --> 00:52:39,280
Speaker 1: pounding traveled down in my body like a shot, piercing

844
00:52:39,320 --> 00:52:42,879
Speaker 1: that place in my heart. While had stockpiled pride, confidence

845
00:52:43,200 --> 00:52:47,120
Speaker 1: and self acceptance to buffer against a perennial depression that

846
00:52:47,239 --> 00:52:51,319
Speaker 1: always managed to sling me straight to the edge, the

847
00:52:51,360 --> 00:52:55,000
Speaker 1: realization I had was so clear. I cried. I had

848
00:52:55,040 --> 00:52:58,239
Speaker 1: lived my life a slave to sound good, but I

849
00:52:58,280 --> 00:53:01,600
Speaker 1: could never repay my mother. There is a moment when

850
00:53:01,600 --> 00:53:04,080
Speaker 1: you realize you are not the same person as your mother,

851
00:53:04,400 --> 00:53:07,600
Speaker 1: and yet the things she taught you, the imprint she

852
00:53:07,719 --> 00:53:11,600
Speaker 1: left remains. I no longer have moths food to go

853
00:53:11,719 --> 00:53:15,319
Speaker 1: home too, because I no longer could go home. So

854
00:53:15,560 --> 00:53:18,759
Speaker 1: back in Seattle, when I finally stopped crying, I went

855
00:53:18,800 --> 00:53:21,400
Speaker 1: to the kitchen and started cooking and didn't stop for

856
00:53:21,520 --> 00:53:24,960
Speaker 1: days and then weeks. Mats Montra repeated in my head

857
00:53:25,000 --> 00:53:28,920
Speaker 1: as I chopped, diced, and stirred. Always have a hotmail

858
00:53:28,960 --> 00:53:33,320
Speaker 1: ready for your husband. I substituted the word wife her husband,

859
00:53:33,640 --> 00:53:37,000
Speaker 1: and flourished ahead. If I could no longer go home

860
00:53:37,040 --> 00:53:39,880
Speaker 1: to eat moths food, I would make it for myself

861
00:53:40,080 --> 00:53:54,680
Speaker 1: and the woman I loved. Family Secrets is a production

862
00:53:54,719 --> 00:53:58,120
Speaker 1: of My Heart Radio. Molly's Core is the story editor

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Speaker 1: and Dylan Fagin is the executive producer. If you have

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Speaker 1: a family secret you'd like to share, please leave us

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Speaker 1: a voicemail and your story could appear on an upcoming episode.

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Speaker 1: Our number is one eight Secret zero. That's the number zero.

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Speaker 1: You can also find me on Instagram at Danny writer.

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Speaker 1: And if you'd like to know more about the story

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Speaker 1: that inspired this podcast, check out my memoir Inheritance. For

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Speaker 1: more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the I Heart

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Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your

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Speaker 1: favorite shows.