WEBVTT - Don't Duck 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:07.080 Family Secrets is a production of I Heart Radio. When 0:00:07.080 --> 0:00:10.760 we talk about secrets, often we use the word buried. 0:00:11.640 --> 0:00:15.360 We discover a buried secret. We bury our own secrets 0:00:15.360 --> 0:00:17.200 in places where we think they'll never rise to the 0:00:17.239 --> 0:00:20.400 surface again. We go to the grave with our secrets. 0:00:21.600 --> 0:00:28.520 But what about when a secret actually is buried. Sylvia 0:00:28.560 --> 0:00:32.320 Borstein was born in Brooklyn, New York, in just so 0:00:32.479 --> 0:00:34.400 you don't have to do the math that makes her 0:00:34.840 --> 0:00:37.920 two years old. She's been married for fifty two years 0:00:37.920 --> 0:00:41.839 to her husband, Seymour. They have four children and seven grandchildren. 0:00:43.320 --> 0:00:46.320 Sylvia is one of our country's most beloved teachers of 0:00:46.360 --> 0:00:49.800 mindfulness meditation. Many of you may have heard of her, 0:00:50.479 --> 0:00:53.880 and if you haven't, trust me, you should download one 0:00:53.880 --> 0:00:56.720 of her audiobooks. Do that right now, just cause this 0:00:56.760 --> 0:01:00.000 podcast and download one of her books. You will say 0:01:00.000 --> 0:01:04.240 inked me later. She's also a very dear friend of mine, 0:01:04.880 --> 0:01:10.160 which makes me a very lucky person. In truth, Sylvia 0:01:10.319 --> 0:01:13.880 is the entire reason this podcast exists. As I was 0:01:13.920 --> 0:01:17.200 grappling with my own humongous family secret, I was on 0:01:17.240 --> 0:01:20.479 the phone with Sylvia one afternoon. As tends to happen 0:01:20.520 --> 0:01:23.480 when we share a family secret, it prompts the listener 0:01:23.560 --> 0:01:26.200 to think of family secrets of her own, and so 0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:28.360 Sylvia began to tell me the story of a secret 0:01:28.400 --> 0:01:31.600 that had haunted her for much of her life. As 0:01:31.600 --> 0:01:33.800 I sat in my little office with the phone glued 0:01:33.840 --> 0:01:37.280 to my ear, listening to my friend's story, I thought, 0:01:38.160 --> 0:01:47.640 I wish I was recording this. Hence this podcast. I'm 0:01:47.720 --> 0:01:51.960 Danny Shapiro, and this is family secrets. Secrets that are 0:01:52.040 --> 0:01:55.880 kept from us, secrets we keep from others, and secrets 0:01:56.080 --> 0:02:02.800 we keep from ourselves. Sylvia was raised in Coney Island, 0:02:02.840 --> 0:02:06.640 in an enclave of immigrant Jews. In her neighborhood, she 0:02:06.760 --> 0:02:11.000 was surrounded by relatives my parents met because they lived 0:02:11.040 --> 0:02:14.880 around the corner from each other. My grandparents were friends 0:02:14.880 --> 0:02:18.200 of each other, and my mother and father married. They 0:02:18.280 --> 0:02:22.600 moved in with my father's parents because my father didn't 0:02:22.680 --> 0:02:26.680 yet have a job, and I was born there a 0:02:26.760 --> 0:02:30.960 year later. A year after that, my grandfather died and 0:02:31.000 --> 0:02:34.480 my grandmother, who was my principal caretaker as I was 0:02:34.520 --> 0:02:38.200 growing up, lived with us for the rest of her life. 0:02:38.800 --> 0:02:41.920 So I lived in a situation where I was the 0:02:41.960 --> 0:02:45.440 only child and the only grandchild of the three people 0:02:45.560 --> 0:02:48.840 who lived in my house with me and much loved 0:02:48.840 --> 0:02:52.280 by all three of them. Um. We lived within the 0:02:52.320 --> 0:02:58.760 wider community of a large family of cousins and aunts 0:02:58.840 --> 0:03:02.520 and uncle's and my mother, who was a wonderful storyteller, 0:03:02.840 --> 0:03:06.000 told me all the background about all these people, so 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:09.200 and I loved them. They were my favorite kind of stories, 0:03:09.560 --> 0:03:12.000 how uncle Julius came to the United States, and how 0:03:12.080 --> 0:03:14.960 this one did that and that one did this. So 0:03:15.000 --> 0:03:17.720 I felt growing up that I knew most of the 0:03:17.760 --> 0:03:22.440 things about my family. But within all this closeness and happiness, 0:03:22.880 --> 0:03:27.280 Sylvia's mother was very sick. My mother's health was frail. 0:03:27.960 --> 0:03:31.919 My mother had rheumatic heart disease, the consequence of having 0:03:31.960 --> 0:03:36.320 had rheumatic fever as a child, And I was always 0:03:36.360 --> 0:03:41.720 alarmed because I really didn't understand that the consequences of 0:03:42.800 --> 0:03:45.760 what that meant for her, and I worried always because 0:03:45.760 --> 0:03:48.880 she was out of breath, she couldn't walk as fast 0:03:48.920 --> 0:03:53.440 as other people's mother's, she couldn't swim or play tennis. Um, 0:03:54.600 --> 0:03:57.480 And I think I know that I was always frightened 0:03:57.480 --> 0:04:01.040 that she would die. We didn't talk of that sickness 0:04:01.080 --> 0:04:05.120 in my house because I think in the end, maybe 0:04:05.120 --> 0:04:09.200 it was a good decision. My mother had this defective 0:04:09.280 --> 0:04:12.200 mitral valve that limited what she could do, but she 0:04:12.320 --> 0:04:16.520 was a cheerful person, so she wasn't totally undone by 0:04:16.560 --> 0:04:19.640 the illness, and she didn't mention it. We just knew 0:04:19.680 --> 0:04:23.560 about it. But then Sylvia learned that there was a 0:04:23.600 --> 0:04:27.120 story she didn't know, a painful story that wasn't part 0:04:27.120 --> 0:04:30.200 of the great and often joyous oral tradition of her family. 0:04:31.320 --> 0:04:35.159 Somewhere in my adolescence, but I think before I went 0:04:35.200 --> 0:04:39.839 to college, my mother mentioned in a conversation, maybe it 0:04:39.880 --> 0:04:45.800 was an overheard conversation, that she had a sister who 0:04:45.880 --> 0:04:49.120 was younger than she was, but not as younger as 0:04:49.160 --> 0:04:56.960 my aunt Marian, and that that sister had died. So 0:04:57.520 --> 0:05:02.000 let's talk about what you remember about that conversation, or 0:05:02.000 --> 0:05:05.920 whether it was something that you overheard. I think one 0:05:05.960 --> 0:05:09.839 of the really interesting things about those moments where one 0:05:09.960 --> 0:05:15.480 is discovering something or hearing something that is of incredible 0:05:15.560 --> 0:05:20.560 importance that maybe coming out in a kind of casual 0:05:20.680 --> 0:05:26.080 way or overheard or just slipped into conversation, and yet 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:30.680 it lodges somewhere in the psyche, and it was some 0:05:30.960 --> 0:05:33.800 offend manner. I don't remember if she said it to 0:05:33.839 --> 0:05:37.520 me or to somebody else. There was no photograph as 0:05:37.760 --> 0:05:40.480 pictures of my mother as a child and our cousins 0:05:40.960 --> 0:05:45.400 as a as children. I think, now that you're asking 0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:48.480 me and I'm thinking about it, the best I remember 0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:52.320 is I thought. I remember thinking maybe I heard wrong. 0:05:53.120 --> 0:05:56.840 And I've asked myself, since I've known your story, and 0:05:56.880 --> 0:06:01.040 since I've learned stories of secrets from side of my friends, 0:06:01.240 --> 0:06:03.839 why is it that I wouldn't say the obvious, Hey, 0:06:04.040 --> 0:06:09.080 you had another sister. Sylvia had one aunt, her mother's 0:06:09.120 --> 0:06:12.080 younger sister, Miriam, and her father was an only child. 0:06:12.880 --> 0:06:17.480 So these adults comprise her entire immediate family. But now 0:06:17.520 --> 0:06:21.240 it seemed her grandparents had had three daughters, not too 0:06:22.440 --> 0:06:25.080 but Sylvia talks this information away to the point that 0:06:25.160 --> 0:06:29.279 she barely remembers it. It's a vestige, a mirage, not 0:06:29.440 --> 0:06:33.960 something tangible. She doesn't exactly forget all about it. It's 0:06:33.960 --> 0:06:36.919 more like she puts it off to the side, way 0:06:36.960 --> 0:06:41.120 off to the side. Sylvia grows up, attends Barnard College 0:06:41.120 --> 0:06:44.200 at the age of sixteen, miss her future husband, Seymour, 0:06:44.360 --> 0:06:48.120 a doctor. She's married by the time she's twenty, and 0:06:48.200 --> 0:06:52.880 eventually she and Seymour settle in northern California. Sylvia has 0:06:52.920 --> 0:06:55.640 all her children by the time she's twenty five, a 0:06:55.720 --> 0:06:59.280 span of years during which her mother dies, finally succumbing 0:06:59.279 --> 0:07:02.719 to her weak her During this time, it's almost like 0:07:02.720 --> 0:07:05.280 Sylvia is trying to cram it all in, get as 0:07:05.360 --> 0:07:08.120 much as she possibly can out of this life, since 0:07:08.160 --> 0:07:11.440 she's grown up with a powerful internalized message that life 0:07:11.480 --> 0:07:15.920 may be short, perhaps very short, there's always the possibility 0:07:15.960 --> 0:07:21.840 of loss. What happened is that after she died, years 0:07:21.840 --> 0:07:25.360 went by, during which time I became closer to her 0:07:25.920 --> 0:07:29.720 than I had been to her younger sister, Miriam. I 0:07:29.720 --> 0:07:33.560 think Miriam missed my mother very much, and I did too. 0:07:33.960 --> 0:07:35.960 And at that time I was married, I had my 0:07:36.000 --> 0:07:40.440 own family, was living in California, and I developed the 0:07:40.480 --> 0:07:43.800 habit of calling my aunt every Saturday afternoon and we 0:07:43.800 --> 0:07:48.080 will talk on the phone about everything. So we were 0:07:48.080 --> 0:07:54.960 really close. And at one point, oh, I know what happened. 0:07:55.480 --> 0:07:58.080 My grandfather came to spend time with me and lived 0:07:58.120 --> 0:08:01.280 with me in California. He was years old and in 0:08:01.520 --> 0:08:06.200 very good health and um sound memory, and we became 0:08:06.320 --> 0:08:10.760 very close, sharing old stories and one day just having 0:08:10.760 --> 0:08:14.480 a walk together. I said, by the way, I once 0:08:14.520 --> 0:08:18.840 heard that you actually had three daughters and that there 0:08:18.920 --> 0:08:24.200 was somebody born after Gladys and before Miriam. And I 0:08:24.240 --> 0:08:27.360 remember him looking at me and squinting over at me, 0:08:28.040 --> 0:08:30.840 say I could I could almost imitate his tone of voice. 0:08:31.120 --> 0:08:33.920 He would say, what wasn't matter with you? One word, 0:08:34.200 --> 0:08:36.720 wasn't matter with you? Why did you hear that story? 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:40.120 That's not true, that never happened, that wasn't true. No, no, no, 0:08:40.920 --> 0:08:42.920 why did you get that? So it was the end 0:08:42.960 --> 0:08:46.680 of that. I let it go. Sometime later, after I 0:08:46.800 --> 0:08:51.520 developed this relationship with my with my aunt, I'm one 0:08:51.559 --> 0:08:55.840 of our Saturday phone calls, I said, by the way, Miriam, uh, 0:08:56.120 --> 0:08:59.000 I heard, and I told the whole story, And I said, 0:08:59.040 --> 0:09:01.720 I asked Grandpa, who had then by then died, said 0:09:01.760 --> 0:09:04.920 I asked Grandpa about it, and he said no. She 0:09:04.960 --> 0:09:07.480 said no, no, no, there was for any other child. No, 0:09:07.679 --> 0:09:14.040 never any other child. I said, Okay, time went by. 0:09:14.160 --> 0:09:16.600 How did you feel during the time that was going by? 0:09:16.679 --> 0:09:19.760 Did you accept that was it? Was it a sense 0:09:19.800 --> 0:09:22.240 of maybe I was wrong, maybe I misheard. Did you 0:09:22.320 --> 0:09:25.160 doubt yourself? Well? It was really it was like maybe 0:09:25.200 --> 0:09:28.680 I had a dream. Maybe I had a dream. Oh yeah, 0:09:28.760 --> 0:09:30.439 and you know that any one of the things about me, 0:09:30.720 --> 0:09:33.760 because I don't like to be wrong. So if I, 0:09:33.760 --> 0:09:37.800 if I, if I had developed something which was so 0:09:37.920 --> 0:09:41.120 to speak, quote unquote stupid, I wouldn't have admitted it 0:09:41.160 --> 0:09:43.520 to people. I've had this idea, and I'm sure of 0:09:43.559 --> 0:09:46.240 it from my grandfather had said, it's not true. I've 0:09:46.280 --> 0:09:51.200 never seen any artifact of that. Time went by. My 0:09:51.280 --> 0:09:55.080 grandfather had died. I was in New York, and of 0:09:55.080 --> 0:09:56.920 course my mother had died long before I was in 0:09:56.960 --> 0:10:01.479 New York, probably somewhere in my late fift these early sixties, 0:10:02.559 --> 0:10:06.559 and my husband's Seymore was with me. I think I 0:10:06.600 --> 0:10:09.880 was teaching and I had a day free, and I said, 0:10:09.920 --> 0:10:11.600 you know, I'd like to go out to the cemetery. 0:10:11.640 --> 0:10:13.400 I'd like to go to the cemetery where my mother 0:10:13.520 --> 0:10:16.440 was buried. And so he said okay, and we went out. 0:10:16.760 --> 0:10:22.319 Then anybody who knows cemeteries in Queens knows that there's endless, 0:10:22.520 --> 0:10:27.040 endless acreage of cemeteries and Queens. But I had the 0:10:27.120 --> 0:10:31.080 name of the cemetery, and what was the cemetery called? 0:10:31.120 --> 0:10:34.120 Do you remember Mount Hebron? Mount Hebron so it was 0:10:34.160 --> 0:10:40.520 a Jewish cemetery. Was absolutely a Jewish cemetery, which brings 0:10:40.559 --> 0:10:43.760 me back to buried secrets. I know these cemeteries on 0:10:43.800 --> 0:10:46.920 the outskirts of New York City. My dad's family plot, 0:10:47.240 --> 0:10:50.800 the Shapiro family plot, is in one of them. They 0:10:50.840 --> 0:10:55.080 aren't pastoral final resting places, you know, with pretty benches 0:10:55.120 --> 0:10:59.280 and shady trees. They tend to be massive, crumbling places 0:10:59.679 --> 0:11:02.920 to stones crammed up against one another, like crooked teeth 0:11:02.960 --> 0:11:05.760 in the mouth of the world. And I knew that 0:11:06.240 --> 0:11:10.240 my mother was buried in a burial area that was 0:11:11.679 --> 0:11:16.959 bought by the first men's Atonia Society of my grandfather's 0:11:17.000 --> 0:11:20.440 Austrian town. What people did is they came as immigrants 0:11:20.920 --> 0:11:23.480 and among other things, they pulled their money and they 0:11:23.520 --> 0:11:29.600 bought acreage or acreage, they bought a plot in Jewish cemetery, 0:11:29.800 --> 0:11:34.320 and you paid your cemetery dues to pay for the plot, 0:11:34.720 --> 0:11:38.200 and then whenever you died twenty or thirty or forty 0:11:38.280 --> 0:11:41.040 years later, you have placed in that plot. So that 0:11:41.440 --> 0:11:44.520 so it's like the village from the old country was 0:11:44.960 --> 0:11:48.400 transported to this cemetery plot where you would all be 0:11:48.520 --> 0:11:53.200 together again, no kidding, and there's a there's anyway story 0:11:53.720 --> 0:11:55.640 never want comes to visit a friend of his who 0:11:55.679 --> 0:11:58.480 is in the hospital, and very we ill apparently in 0:11:58.520 --> 0:12:03.000 the conversation in Yiddish is about how you're doing and 0:12:03.040 --> 0:12:07.400 whether or not you might die, and he the visitor 0:12:07.559 --> 0:12:11.160 tells the patient in the hospital, you know who died 0:12:11.240 --> 0:12:14.760 last week, so and so and tells him. And this 0:12:14.960 --> 0:12:18.080 person's response is not I'm sorry that so and so died, 0:12:18.400 --> 0:12:20.640 but oh dear, if I die now, I'm gonna have 0:12:20.720 --> 0:12:24.319 to lie next to so and so forever. Uh so 0:12:25.080 --> 0:12:27.200 all the jokes that they made about that, but that's 0:12:27.200 --> 0:12:29.720 what you did. My mother is not, so to speak, 0:12:29.840 --> 0:12:33.720 lying next to my grandparents. She is in the order 0:12:33.760 --> 0:12:36.920 that she died as part of the village, as part 0:12:36.920 --> 0:12:40.160 of the village. It's not even my mother is village. 0:12:40.240 --> 0:12:46.800 It's my father's parents village. An irresistible side note here. 0:12:47.720 --> 0:12:49.400 My dad died in a car crash when I was 0:12:49.440 --> 0:12:52.880 twenty three, and my mom died almost two decades later. 0:12:53.840 --> 0:12:56.840 When my mother was dying, she informed me that she 0:12:57.040 --> 0:12:59.400 was not going to be buried in my father's family 0:12:59.440 --> 0:13:02.480 plot in one. Instead, she planned to be buried in 0:13:02.520 --> 0:13:06.320 southern Jersey. I mean way down the Jersey Turnpike, which, 0:13:06.360 --> 0:13:07.880 if you don't know it is one of the least 0:13:07.920 --> 0:13:12.319 fun roads in the country, with her family and away 0:13:12.360 --> 0:13:15.200 from all of those people who she had fought with 0:13:15.240 --> 0:13:18.960 her whole married life. I feel sorry for you, she said, 0:13:19.080 --> 0:13:21.760 though I knew she didn't. You'll have to visit your 0:13:21.800 --> 0:13:28.360 parents in two different cemeteries. Any who, Charle malecham Irene Shapiro. 0:13:29.080 --> 0:13:34.439 Generations come and go and not much changes. We're going 0:13:34.480 --> 0:13:36.960 to take a quick break. We'll be back in a moment. 0:13:50.280 --> 0:13:53.200 It's a miserable day, cold and wet when Sylvia and 0:13:53.240 --> 0:13:56.920 Seymour make the swept from Manhattan to the cemetery in Queens. 0:13:58.800 --> 0:14:03.640 So we win. And we found those two tombstones, and 0:14:04.160 --> 0:14:05.920 I looked at them, and you know, I put a 0:14:05.960 --> 0:14:09.880 requisite rock on the top of each one, which signifies 0:14:10.320 --> 0:14:13.120 all kinds of things, but the people going by it 0:14:13.200 --> 0:14:16.959 means someone was there and someone visited. And then we 0:14:17.080 --> 0:14:22.120 walked back to the entrance and there's a little hot 0:14:22.360 --> 0:14:25.520 or a house or very small office at the bottom 0:14:25.560 --> 0:14:28.520 of them where you can go in and ask where 0:14:28.520 --> 0:14:30.000 it is so and so buried, and they give you 0:14:30.040 --> 0:14:33.400 the plot map. And when we went in there, I said, 0:14:33.480 --> 0:14:35.280 you know, I said to see more on the way back. 0:14:35.320 --> 0:14:42.200 You know, this was my father's father's plot. My mother's 0:14:42.640 --> 0:14:48.560 family also had a plot in this cemetery. Um, and 0:14:48.840 --> 0:14:54.520 my grandmother's Trasia and must be buried there. Let's find 0:14:54.520 --> 0:14:59.320 out where. So we go into the cemetery. I'm all 0:14:59.320 --> 0:15:00.920 of a sudden, really, I seem that as I'm telling 0:15:00.920 --> 0:15:03.080 you the story, I'm a little choking up about it. 0:15:04.160 --> 0:15:06.840 So we take your breath and out, getting a little 0:15:06.840 --> 0:15:10.680 bit teary about it. We go into this office and 0:15:12.600 --> 0:15:17.520 I said, my grandfather's last name, and and then just 0:15:17.720 --> 0:15:21.680 suddenly I'm kind of a whim. I said, you know, 0:15:22.720 --> 0:15:26.320 I'm also interested in a child that might be buried 0:15:26.440 --> 0:15:32.600 in that same community's burial place. And I know that 0:15:32.680 --> 0:15:36.400 she was a child about five years old, and that 0:15:36.520 --> 0:15:45.240 she died in about Remember this is the mid nineteen nineties. 0:15:45.800 --> 0:15:49.360 The small cemetery office is not equipped with WiFi or internet. 0:15:50.040 --> 0:15:52.840 In fact, they're in the midst of transferring all their 0:15:52.840 --> 0:15:57.880 files from a rolodex a rolodex to a computer. So 0:15:58.000 --> 0:16:02.560 finding a child with Sylvia's grandfather's name Fuchs is slow going, 0:16:03.040 --> 0:16:09.400 if not impossible. He looked and looking through names, says, 0:16:09.440 --> 0:16:12.480 we have a lot of folks this here. What was 0:16:12.520 --> 0:16:16.080 her first name? Uh, what was the first name? And 0:16:16.160 --> 0:16:19.560 of course Sylvia doesn't know the child's first name because 0:16:19.600 --> 0:16:25.000 the child was a secret. And I said, I don't know, 0:16:25.800 --> 0:16:34.400 but I think maybe it was Sylvia. He looks, he said, yeah, 0:16:34.440 --> 0:16:41.720 this is Sylvia. Folks that died in nineteen twenty one. 0:16:42.960 --> 0:16:45.120 And I said, well, I go back, show me on 0:16:45.160 --> 0:16:48.720 the map where to look and know what to say. Really, 0:16:50.480 --> 0:16:52.360 he said, well, you would be able to find it 0:16:52.480 --> 0:16:57.000 because um children were buried not in a regular plot. 0:16:57.320 --> 0:17:00.880 They were buried in a corner of plot that their 0:17:00.920 --> 0:17:04.080 community owned, and they were just buried next to each other. 0:17:05.000 --> 0:17:07.120 When they have young children, they're buried next to each other. 0:17:07.400 --> 0:17:12.560 And they didn't have granite headstones. They had limestone headstones. 0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:16.240 The children. Yeah, they just the oral grouped in the corner. 0:17:16.280 --> 0:17:21.040 There's a children's area for young children and newborns. And 0:17:21.480 --> 0:17:28.080 they're just limestone. Marco's mounds name. And it's been so 0:17:28.200 --> 0:17:31.680 many years in the rains, the limestone washes off. You'll 0:17:31.720 --> 0:17:36.159 never find it. So we walk out of that place 0:17:36.240 --> 0:17:39.920 and I say more, says, let's go back. Meantime it's 0:17:40.000 --> 0:17:42.000 the end of the long day, and it's a long 0:17:42.119 --> 0:17:44.040 walk up there, and I'm kind of blown away by 0:17:44.080 --> 0:17:47.480 the whole thing, and it's becoming overcast and it looks 0:17:47.480 --> 0:17:50.000 like it's going to rain, and I said, well, he says, well, 0:17:50.040 --> 0:17:53.640 we won't find it. He said, let's go. We're going 0:17:53.680 --> 0:18:04.359 to take a quick break. Sylvia is overcome with a 0:18:04.440 --> 0:18:08.359 desire to flee the cemetery. She's suddenly exhausted. It has 0:18:08.400 --> 0:18:12.639 been a very long day. But Seymour and this totally 0:18:12.680 --> 0:18:16.520 gets to me. Seymour pushes her. He knows it's probably 0:18:16.520 --> 0:18:18.439 the only time she'll ever be able to get to 0:18:18.440 --> 0:18:22.159 the bottom of this question she's always had, so, he insists. 0:18:24.280 --> 0:18:28.440 So we walk back up, we find that plot. Then 0:18:28.440 --> 0:18:32.080 we see in the corners there are these like clumps 0:18:32.119 --> 0:18:37.359 of limestone. Marker's all very washed off, so you really 0:18:37.400 --> 0:18:42.000 can't read the names. And by this time I'm really 0:18:42.040 --> 0:18:47.200 feeling undone in the weather, and I just I said, 0:18:47.280 --> 0:18:50.600 let's go. That can't do this anymore. And sans, I know, 0:18:50.920 --> 0:18:53.920 keeping looking, with keeping looking, this is making me cry 0:18:53.920 --> 0:18:57.320 as well. And all of a sudden, he said, here 0:18:57.320 --> 0:19:06.240 it is. And it isn't limestone. It's a dark gray, 0:19:06.280 --> 0:19:11.879 beautiful granites down and it says Sylvia folks daughter official folks. 0:19:12.560 --> 0:19:21.320 It's my grandfather's child. So when we came over from 0:19:21.359 --> 0:19:25.520 the trip, I called my aunt Miriam. You know, as 0:19:25.520 --> 0:19:27.919 I'm telling you the story, it's not easy. I have 0:19:27.960 --> 0:19:31.439 all goose pimples all over me. I called my aunt Miriam, 0:19:31.520 --> 0:19:34.719 and we talked about one thing or another. And I said, Miriam, 0:19:34.920 --> 0:19:38.560 I was in New York. Yeah I know, I said, Merriwell, 0:19:38.600 --> 0:19:40.480 I was in New York. I went to the cemetery 0:19:42.280 --> 0:19:48.160 and I went to look at graves, my mother's grave, 0:19:48.240 --> 0:19:51.760 and then I went over to where your mother is 0:19:51.800 --> 0:19:57.800 buried with Rajah is buried, and I found the gravestone 0:19:58.440 --> 0:20:04.200 for Sylvia folks. And she didn't say anything, so I said, 0:20:04.359 --> 0:20:08.680 I was I was really upset, Miriam. I said, it's 0:20:08.680 --> 0:20:11.840 really upset because I thought I had such a close 0:20:11.880 --> 0:20:16.399 relationship with with myanpa official. You know, we were so close, 0:20:16.720 --> 0:20:19.840 and he lied to me. And she said, you know 0:20:20.040 --> 0:20:22.280 he didn't lie to Merriam. What do you mean you 0:20:22.280 --> 0:20:25.760 didn't lie? I found with toolstone. She said, you forgot. 0:20:26.840 --> 0:20:28.760 I said, Marriam, you don't forget it if you have 0:20:28.800 --> 0:20:31.880 a six year old child that dies. She said, if 0:20:31.920 --> 0:20:40.080 it's too horrible for you, you forget it. And you know, 0:20:40.119 --> 0:20:43.199 I thought it'd be easier to tell this story, but 0:20:43.320 --> 0:20:47.720 it's not. It's a very loving thing that Seymour did. 0:20:48.400 --> 0:20:51.639 It was it was I think about it now, I 0:20:51.720 --> 0:20:55.040 think about it in that moment, and I was that 0:20:55.359 --> 0:20:57.920 really it was he who said no, no, we're here, 0:20:58.560 --> 0:21:01.520 let's go. No, no, no, not finished looking the look. 0:21:02.240 --> 0:21:05.199 And after we discovered it, I remember, you know, I 0:21:05.280 --> 0:21:09.600 was physically upset and crying, I think, but I remember 0:21:09.600 --> 0:21:12.560 he was saying to me, tell me what's so upsetting, 0:21:13.200 --> 0:21:17.160 and I said, um, they lied to me, all those people. 0:21:19.520 --> 0:21:23.080 The end of the phone call with Aunt Miriam is 0:21:23.400 --> 0:21:26.280 he forgot as this said, Miriam, tell me, did you 0:21:26.359 --> 0:21:30.639 forget you? Did you remember her at all? Uh? Because 0:21:30.680 --> 0:21:36.280 Miriam was between two and three when her sister Sylvia died, 0:21:37.280 --> 0:21:41.399 she said, you know, I only have one memory. I 0:21:41.480 --> 0:21:47.080 remember I was sitting on the floor in the sun 0:21:48.119 --> 0:21:53.400 porch of the apartment where I lived with my parents. 0:21:54.800 --> 0:21:57.440 I was sitting on the floor and watching the light 0:21:58.080 --> 0:22:02.399 patterns of sunshine on the wooden floor of that sun porch, 0:22:03.200 --> 0:22:06.080 and my mother was sitting in a rocking chair behind me, 0:22:07.040 --> 0:22:10.320 and all of a sudden I heard my mother crying, 0:22:11.440 --> 0:22:16.119 and I became upset because she was crying. And my 0:22:16.240 --> 0:22:19.920 mother picked me up right away, and she said, mine, dish, fine, dish, 0:22:20.000 --> 0:22:24.159 mine kin, don't cry my child, And room said, I 0:22:24.200 --> 0:22:30.360 never saw her cry again, and we don't. Don't tell 0:22:30.400 --> 0:22:34.040 you that story. I'm thinking how painful it is to 0:22:35.240 --> 0:22:38.480 not be able to talk about it ever, not be 0:22:38.560 --> 0:22:41.240 able to cry to your children, or cry to anybody. 0:22:42.359 --> 0:22:44.800 I'm sure it never goes away if you have a 0:22:44.880 --> 0:22:50.359 child who's six years old and dies. One thing I 0:22:50.400 --> 0:22:53.680 find myself wondering. Sylvia is a person who has spent 0:22:53.800 --> 0:22:56.240 much of her adult life coming to know the inner 0:22:56.240 --> 0:22:59.720 workings of her own mind. She's gone on silent meditation 0:22:59.800 --> 0:23:04.040 rich treats for months, months at a time. She's taught 0:23:04.080 --> 0:23:07.399 mindfulness all over the world. I remember when I was 0:23:07.440 --> 0:23:09.840 first getting to know her work. I read a few 0:23:09.840 --> 0:23:12.040 sentences from one of her books. Allowed to my husband. 0:23:12.840 --> 0:23:16.000 Why is this so good? I asked him. He answered, 0:23:16.600 --> 0:23:20.600 because it's the product of an unconfused mind. How was 0:23:20.640 --> 0:23:24.480 it that the original conversation or overheard moment way back 0:23:24.480 --> 0:23:28.639 when with her mother never drifted into Sylvia's unconfused mind 0:23:29.200 --> 0:23:33.480 in all those periods of silence and contemplation. I mean, 0:23:33.480 --> 0:23:36.560 one of the things that's interesting to me is there 0:23:36.640 --> 0:23:41.560 was that overheard conversation or she or she straight out 0:23:41.600 --> 0:23:45.240 told you and I don't know, and you put it somewhere. 0:23:45.240 --> 0:23:49.640 I think this is what we do. Um. I'm understanding 0:23:49.760 --> 0:23:54.360 that more and more as I'm in my own process 0:23:54.359 --> 0:23:57.760 of discovering what I knew, what I didn't know. You 0:23:57.800 --> 0:24:02.560 know about my own family secrets. Um, but where do 0:24:02.680 --> 0:24:05.840 we put you? Know? You you have lived a very 0:24:05.920 --> 0:24:10.760 examined life more than most. You're you're a Buddhist, you're 0:24:10.760 --> 0:24:14.480 a teacher, you're a writer, you're a storyteller, you're a psychologist. 0:24:14.480 --> 0:24:22.560 For God to say, and so there was this this 0:24:23.040 --> 0:24:27.400 piece of knowledge that just kind of wedged itself somewhere 0:24:27.440 --> 0:24:31.960 while you were busy becoming a psychologist and getting a 0:24:32.040 --> 0:24:35.720 doctorate and going to school and having four children and 0:24:35.800 --> 0:24:38.439 raising a family and living a life and going on 0:24:39.240 --> 0:24:44.040 you know, month long meditation retreats, and it never emerged again. 0:24:44.880 --> 0:24:47.520 I've thought several times, and often I think in my 0:24:47.640 --> 0:24:52.960 life that there's been something very dependable about my psyche, 0:24:53.359 --> 0:24:56.960 depending on what situation I would be in, I would 0:24:57.000 --> 0:25:00.920 say about my psyche or about my heart, but where 0:25:01.840 --> 0:25:04.560 my psyche or my heart did not let me know 0:25:04.760 --> 0:25:08.160 things at a time that I couldn't have handled them well. 0:25:09.240 --> 0:25:12.359 And later on I thought to myself, that was so 0:25:12.800 --> 0:25:16.880 really thoughtful of my mind and my heart to tell me, well, 0:25:17.000 --> 0:25:19.000 you don't have to take care of this now, we'll 0:25:19.040 --> 0:25:25.359 be back when you can handle it. I don't know 0:25:25.440 --> 0:25:27.920 that you ever finished Anny when I told you that 0:25:28.000 --> 0:25:31.760 story before. I was surprised to find that still gives 0:25:31.760 --> 0:25:34.919 me goose pet flush and I still feel like crying 0:25:34.960 --> 0:25:42.080 about it. So here's a question for you. In that 0:25:42.200 --> 0:25:45.639 moment in the in the cemetery office, when you were 0:25:45.680 --> 0:25:49.560 asked the question what was her first name? And out 0:25:49.600 --> 0:25:54.719 of your mouth came maybe it was Sylvia. Where did 0:25:54.760 --> 0:26:01.280 that come from? You know, I don't know you were 0:26:01.359 --> 0:26:04.160 named for her. I don't know that's what I figured, 0:26:04.560 --> 0:26:08.280 but you know, um, that's why I offered the name. 0:26:08.800 --> 0:26:11.240 Had you ever had that thought before before that moment 0:26:11.320 --> 0:26:17.119 that it came out of your mouth? I think I 0:26:17.240 --> 0:26:21.640 must have known, really on some level, and I think 0:26:21.680 --> 0:26:25.720 I'm on the spot there. I don't remember thinking beforehand 0:26:25.880 --> 0:26:28.600 that she would be Sylvia. But phasebook, what do you 0:26:28.600 --> 0:26:31.960 think her name was? Coming from Jews who named for 0:26:32.080 --> 0:26:36.199 people who died. I figured I must be Sylvia and 0:26:36.320 --> 0:26:45.679 she must be Sylvia. I mean, this is on the 0:26:45.680 --> 0:26:50.359 one hand, it's a doozy of a secret. It's also 0:26:51.800 --> 0:26:54.520 very far back in the reaches of history in terms 0:26:54.600 --> 0:27:00.600 of a life you know, um, and yet there's some 0:27:00.680 --> 0:27:04.840 way in which it seems like it has hovered over 0:27:04.880 --> 0:27:09.879 the course of of your life without knowing it. Um. 0:27:10.080 --> 0:27:11.960 I remember when you first told me the story. What 0:27:12.040 --> 0:27:18.040 I was so struck by was that moment where you said, 0:27:18.160 --> 0:27:20.879 where you just decided today, I'm going to go to 0:27:20.920 --> 0:27:24.080 the cemetery. We're gonna go, We're gonna take buses and trains, 0:27:24.080 --> 0:27:25.800 We're going to get there in the rain. We're gonna 0:27:25.800 --> 0:27:31.199 have this kind of day. How did you reconcile? I 0:27:31.200 --> 0:27:35.360