WEBVTT - All Without Telling Me 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:04.360 Hi, Family Secrets. Family. The season is not remotely over. 0:00:04.880 --> 0:00:08.160 But this week, this Christmas Day, I'm going to do 0:00:08.200 --> 0:00:12.280 something a little different, a gift for you, and perhaps 0:00:12.280 --> 0:00:16.159 a gift for myself as well. Over six years and 0:00:16.239 --> 0:00:20.160 now thirteen seasons of hosting this podcast, I've heard hundreds 0:00:20.200 --> 0:00:23.040 of stories of family secrets and the way what we 0:00:23.120 --> 0:00:26.279 don't know, what has been hidden from us, acts upon 0:00:26.360 --> 0:00:30.320 us none the less. Long before I discovered the secret 0:00:30.400 --> 0:00:34.159 that had shaped me, there were other secrets. As a child, 0:00:34.360 --> 0:00:38.519 I simply felt them, hungry ghosts in the room. When 0:00:38.560 --> 0:00:40.920 I grew up and became a writer, I began to 0:00:40.960 --> 0:00:43.880 write about these secrets, digging for them in my fiction 0:00:44.080 --> 0:00:47.720 and my nonfiction, trying to get to the essential why 0:00:48.479 --> 0:00:51.680 Why had I been born into such a legacy of secrecy. 0:00:53.800 --> 0:00:56.600 In nineteen ninety eight, I wrote a personal history piece 0:00:56.760 --> 0:01:00.760 for the New Yorker magazine. I was terrified. It was 0:01:00.800 --> 0:01:03.680 a huge opportunity for a young writer, but that wasn't 0:01:03.720 --> 0:01:06.600 the only reason it scared me. It scared me because 0:01:06.640 --> 0:01:09.120 I was going to have to dig without knowing what 0:01:09.280 --> 0:01:12.200 I would come up with, how complex and painful I 0:01:12.280 --> 0:01:16.040 might find it. I'm going to tell you that story, 0:01:16.400 --> 0:01:21.080 which is titled The Secret Wife. I may interrupt myself 0:01:21.120 --> 0:01:24.360 as I'm telling it, annotate it in a way, because 0:01:24.400 --> 0:01:27.160 when I wrote this story about my father and what 0:01:27.240 --> 0:01:31.000 I thought was his most profound secret, of course, I 0:01:31.040 --> 0:01:34.040 did not yet know his biggest secret of all, which 0:01:34.080 --> 0:01:38.000 is that I was not his biological daughter. So let's 0:01:38.000 --> 0:01:45.440 go on this adventure together. Here's The Secret Wife. In 0:01:45.560 --> 0:01:49.000 nineteen fifty three, nine years before I was born, my 0:01:49.080 --> 0:01:52.160 father fell in love with a young woman named Darthy Gribbitz. 0:01:53.200 --> 0:01:56.640 She was a beautiful Orthodox Jewish girl who was at 0:01:56.640 --> 0:02:01.080 twenty seven, startlingly old to still be single in the moneyed, 0:02:01.160 --> 0:02:06.280 religious urban world of my father and his family. My 0:02:06.360 --> 0:02:09.520 father was fresh out of a miserable marriage, stinging from 0:02:09.560 --> 0:02:12.360 a custody battle for his six year old daughter, Susy. 0:02:14.240 --> 0:02:16.680 He married Darcy in the living room of her parents 0:02:16.840 --> 0:02:22.440 modest Brooklyn apartment on April eleventh, nineteen fifty four. She 0:02:22.600 --> 0:02:26.600 wore ivory satin and carried a bouquet of pale flowers 0:02:26.720 --> 0:02:31.160 streaming with ribbons. Her enormous blue green eyes were hidden 0:02:31.160 --> 0:02:34.480 beneath her veil, and a tiara rested on her dark 0:02:34.520 --> 0:02:38.400 wavy hair. My father was handsome in a morning suit 0:02:38.480 --> 0:02:42.800 and silk ascot. His best friend and best man, Danny Shackter, 0:02:43.040 --> 0:02:46.840 stood behind him. The rabbi placed a glass wrapped in 0:02:46.880 --> 0:02:49.880 a cloth napkin on the floor, and my father raised 0:02:49.919 --> 0:02:53.079 his foot to perform the ritual that ends every Jewish wedding. 0:02:53.760 --> 0:02:57.680 He stamped hard and smashed the glass. The guests shouted 0:02:57.800 --> 0:03:03.640 mazeltov and applauded as he and Dorothy kissed. My father 0:03:03.800 --> 0:03:06.360 was beginning his marriage with a secret that only a 0:03:06.400 --> 0:03:10.160 few people shared. At the end of the evening, after 0:03:10.200 --> 0:03:14.000 the dancing, cigars and toasts, when he and Dorothy ran 0:03:14.120 --> 0:03:16.720 laughing out of the building and into the brand new 0:03:16.919 --> 0:03:19.800 oldmobile coup her father had given them as a wedding gift. 0:03:20.480 --> 0:03:23.680 Dorothy was bundled up in her sealskin coat and jaunty hat. 0:03:24.360 --> 0:03:27.040 A bit of black netting drifted over her pretty eyes. 0:03:27.840 --> 0:03:31.160 She looked the way any bride might, embarking on a 0:03:31.200 --> 0:03:39.600 life with plans and expectations. Dorothy was my father's second wife, 0:03:39.640 --> 0:03:43.600 my mother was his third. I was seventeen before I 0:03:43.640 --> 0:03:48.080 ever knew Dorothy had existed. My half sister Susy let 0:03:48.120 --> 0:03:51.400 it slip one day once when Dad Dorothy and I 0:03:51.440 --> 0:03:55.280 were upstate. She began and I interrupted her, Who's Dorothy. 0:03:55.920 --> 0:03:58.240 The few details I learned that day of this marriage 0:03:58.240 --> 0:04:01.640 of my father's, a marriage so painful he never spoke 0:04:01.680 --> 0:04:04.240 of it, were all I knew for a long time, 0:04:05.480 --> 0:04:09.040 But still it made deep emotional sense to me. My 0:04:09.120 --> 0:04:12.200 father had been missing for most of my childhood. He 0:04:12.240 --> 0:04:16.800 had retreated behind a wall of pills and prayer, occasionally 0:04:17.240 --> 0:04:19.200 playing ball with him in the back yard on a 0:04:19.200 --> 0:04:22.200 beautiful summer morning, I would catch a glimpse of the 0:04:22.240 --> 0:04:25.919 young man he must once have been, a deep belly laugh, 0:04:26.279 --> 0:04:30.279 a crushing hug, a sudden sparkle in his eyes, and 0:04:30.320 --> 0:04:32.080 I would want to reach out and hold on to 0:04:32.200 --> 0:04:35.280 him and to make things better for him, without ever 0:04:35.400 --> 0:04:40.680 knowing what had gone wrong. In a photograph snapped seconds 0:04:40.680 --> 0:04:43.760 before I was married last year, I am standing next 0:04:43.760 --> 0:04:46.960 to my husband to be under a canopy draped with 0:04:47.000 --> 0:04:51.760 my late father's ivory and white striped talis. In front 0:04:51.760 --> 0:04:55.320 of us, a rabbi recites a blessing. My heart is racing. 0:04:56.080 --> 0:04:58.919 I know this isn't a case of premarital jitters. I 0:04:58.960 --> 0:05:01.800 have no second thoughts, no doubts about the man I'm 0:05:01.800 --> 0:05:05.479 about to marry. Before we leave for Paris, I call 0:05:05.520 --> 0:05:09.400 my doctor and ask for a prescription for tranquilizers. I 0:05:09.400 --> 0:05:12.400 have never taken pills before. Pills make me think of 0:05:12.440 --> 0:05:16.520 my father. He was addicted to valium, perkidin and emperin 0:05:16.880 --> 0:05:20.360 for most of his life. I have a childhood memory 0:05:20.360 --> 0:05:22.320 of him sitting at the kitchen table in front of 0:05:22.360 --> 0:05:26.320 a lazy Susan filled with prescription bottles, checking his pulse, 0:05:26.640 --> 0:05:29.800 two fingers pressed against the side of his neck, his 0:05:29.880 --> 0:05:34.880 face contorted with fear. I spend my honeymoon certain that 0:05:34.920 --> 0:05:37.960 I'm about to die. I feel this not in an 0:05:38.000 --> 0:05:41.599 abstract intellectual way, but in my bones, and I take 0:05:41.640 --> 0:05:44.440 the first tranquilizer of my life in order to get 0:05:44.520 --> 0:05:48.039 on the plane home. I have been married three times, 0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:52.479 once at nineteen, then at twenty eight, and now for 0:05:52.520 --> 0:05:56.720 the third time at thirty five. My first husband was 0:05:56.760 --> 0:06:00.479 a shop owner, a boyish, free spirit, took off on 0:06:00.520 --> 0:06:03.760 buying trips for months at a time. I was a teenager, 0:06:04.000 --> 0:06:08.560 unprepared for marriage or solitude. I threw dinner parties, cooked 0:06:08.600 --> 0:06:10.919 the one dish I knew, and pretended to be a 0:06:10.920 --> 0:06:14.679 grown up. Less than a year after the wedding I left. 0:06:15.320 --> 0:06:18.080 I don't think either of us was surprised, but I 0:06:18.120 --> 0:06:21.120 was now a divorcee at twenty and ashamed of it. 0:06:22.240 --> 0:06:25.440 My second husband was an investment banker. He was exactly 0:06:25.480 --> 0:06:28.480 the man I'd been brought up to marry, Jewish stable, 0:06:28.880 --> 0:06:32.920 financially secure, with a life planned down to the last millisecond. 0:06:33.960 --> 0:06:37.160 I felt numb. I was giving up at the age 0:06:37.160 --> 0:06:40.800 of twenty eight. The marriages had just this in common. 0:06:41.279 --> 0:06:44.120 They marked the only times in my life when I 0:06:44.160 --> 0:06:50.040 had been governed by severe, quippling anxiety. As soon as 0:06:50.040 --> 0:06:52.080 I met Michael, I knew I was going to spend 0:06:52.120 --> 0:06:54.880 the rest of my life with him. The insanity of 0:06:54.920 --> 0:06:59.159 those earlier alliances became even starker when, for the first 0:06:59.160 --> 0:07:02.599 time I realized what love actually felt like. Yet the 0:07:02.680 --> 0:07:07.080 panic persisted. Why did I equate being a wife with 0:07:07.200 --> 0:07:12.840 being destroyed? My father's first wedding to Susie's mother had 0:07:12.840 --> 0:07:15.880 been a gala, candlelit affair in the grand ball room 0:07:15.960 --> 0:07:19.680 of the Waldorf Astoria, marking the union of two powerful 0:07:19.800 --> 0:07:23.840 Orthodox clans. Elaine Brodie was from a textile and real 0:07:23.920 --> 0:07:27.720 estate dynasty whose properties included the Essex House and the 0:07:27.720 --> 0:07:31.320 Fifth Avenue hotel. Her great grandfather had been the chief 0:07:31.400 --> 0:07:35.280 Orthodox rabbi of New York. My father never even proposed 0:07:35.320 --> 0:07:41.040 to Elaine, his parents proposed to hers. After the wedding, 0:07:41.040 --> 0:07:44.640 he began to work at his father's silk mill in Blackstone, Virginia, 0:07:45.120 --> 0:07:47.200 and would travel there for two weeks of each month. 0:07:48.360 --> 0:07:51.320 My grandfather was a self made millionaire, and my father 0:07:51.640 --> 0:07:55.760 was firmly under his control. He didn't even receive a salary. 0:07:56.360 --> 0:07:58.560 Whatever he needed in the way of money he had 0:07:58.560 --> 0:08:02.400 to petition for. When Susy was a toddler. My father 0:08:02.440 --> 0:08:05.760 and Elaine moved into an apartment on Park Avenue, but 0:08:05.800 --> 0:08:09.800 Elaine never accepted the role of traditional Jewish wife. She 0:08:09.840 --> 0:08:13.400 had been a serious pianist before getting married and wanted 0:08:13.400 --> 0:08:16.400 to continue to perform and even perhaps pursue a doctorate. 0:08:17.400 --> 0:08:20.440 Nine years into their marriage, my father returned home from 0:08:20.440 --> 0:08:24.040 a trip to Blackstone to find the apartment empty. His 0:08:24.160 --> 0:08:28.400 wife and child were gone, the furniture was gone. Only 0:08:28.440 --> 0:08:31.840 his clothes remained, folded neatly on the top shelves of 0:08:31.880 --> 0:08:37.240 the closets. Divorce was unheard of in their circle, a 0:08:37.360 --> 0:08:40.640 rarefied community of Eastern European Jews who had brought their 0:08:40.679 --> 0:08:44.480 old world values with them to America. Everyone knew something 0:08:44.520 --> 0:08:47.160 about it. Elaine had always been too ambitious for her 0:08:47.200 --> 0:08:50.600 own good. People gossiped over ice cream sodas at shrafts 0:08:50.679 --> 0:08:53.520 or lunches at the Tiptoe Inn on Broadway in eighty 0:08:53.520 --> 0:08:56.240 seventh Street. She had left my father without even a 0:08:56.240 --> 0:08:58.480 bed to sleep in, and then there was talk that 0:08:58.520 --> 0:09:02.120 she had been having an affair with Susie's pediatrician. My 0:09:02.200 --> 0:09:05.560 father first met Dorothy Gribbets at the Brunswick Hotel in Lakewood, 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:08.960 New Jersey. Since his separation, he'd been trying to meet 0:09:09.000 --> 0:09:12.720 eligible Orthodox women, going to Kosher resorts like Grossinger's or 0:09:12.720 --> 0:09:16.080 the Concord in the Catskills, or the Brunswick, where Darthy 0:09:16.120 --> 0:09:19.800 was staying with her parents. She was devout educated, with 0:09:19.840 --> 0:09:23.640 a degree from Cornell and a master's from Columbia, and warm. 0:09:23.800 --> 0:09:27.200 She was kind to Susie. Orthodox Jews in the nineteen 0:09:27.240 --> 0:09:30.720 fifties weren't as strictly observant as they've since become, and 0:09:30.800 --> 0:09:33.320 my father and Darthy had a courtship typical of its time. 0:09:34.040 --> 0:09:36.600 She saved the orchids he sent her each week and 0:09:36.720 --> 0:09:39.880 pinned them to her bedroom wall. On their Saturday night 0:09:39.960 --> 0:09:43.240 dates after Shabus, they'd stop into a cocktail lounge for 0:09:43.360 --> 0:09:46.520 Cuba libres. They'd go ballroom dancing at the Plaza or 0:09:46.520 --> 0:09:49.480 the pier. For a nice kosher dinner, they'd go to 0:09:49.559 --> 0:09:53.920 Lugie Siegal's on thirty eighth Street. My father presented Drothy 0:09:53.960 --> 0:09:57.360 with an emerald cut diamond engagement ring, and this time 0:09:57.559 --> 0:10:02.800 he proposed himself. The summer before she met my father, 0:10:03.280 --> 0:10:07.280 Dorothy had a cough she couldn't shake. Her doctor told 0:10:07.280 --> 0:10:10.760 her it was whooping cough, and he hospitalized her briefly. 0:10:11.800 --> 0:10:14.280 While Dorothy was having tea at the water off Astoria 0:10:14.600 --> 0:10:18.199 the winter before her wedding, my father's younger sister surely 0:10:18.840 --> 0:10:22.440 noticed her carefully examining her cup before taking a sip. 0:10:23.440 --> 0:10:27.000 Dorothy explained that she had caught a virus in Nantucket 0:10:27.320 --> 0:10:30.120 the summer before, and she believed it was from drinking 0:10:30.160 --> 0:10:33.920 tea out of a cracked cup. My father's family became 0:10:34.000 --> 0:10:38.760 concerned Dorothy would grow suddenly pale, and unnaturally dark circles 0:10:38.960 --> 0:10:42.640 would appear under her eyes. On the advice of his parents, 0:10:43.080 --> 0:10:47.680 my father called Dorothy's internest. The doctor assured him that 0:10:47.800 --> 0:10:52.280 Dorothy was fine, but a distant cousin of my father's, 0:10:52.280 --> 0:10:55.720 who was an intern at the same hospital, had interpreted 0:10:55.760 --> 0:10:59.920 Dorothy's pattern of symptoms and he didn't think she was fine. 0:11:00.400 --> 0:11:03.120 He stole a peek at her medical records and saw 0:11:03.160 --> 0:11:07.240 a page after page of scrawled blood test results. She 0:11:07.360 --> 0:11:12.880 had hotkins lymphoma at the time, a uniformly fatal illness. 0:11:13.720 --> 0:11:17.160 Once diagnosed, most patients could be expected to live about 0:11:17.160 --> 0:11:21.040 a year. Not knowing what to do with this information, 0:11:21.240 --> 0:11:25.320 the cousin called my father's best friend, Danny, and told 0:11:25.400 --> 0:11:28.600 him what he had learned. Danny was married to the 0:11:28.679 --> 0:11:32.120 daughter of the renowned Rabbi Joseph h Lukstein, and he 0:11:32.160 --> 0:11:35.400 immediately went to his father in law for advice. The 0:11:35.520 --> 0:11:38.960 rabbi was emphatic Danny had to tell my father what 0:11:39.080 --> 0:11:44.760 he knew. The wedding was two weeks away. That night, 0:11:45.320 --> 0:11:48.079 Danny went to see my father, who was camping out 0:11:48.120 --> 0:11:51.199 in his parents study, A black and gold book lined 0:11:51.280 --> 0:11:56.000 room twenty seven floors above Central Park West. Oil paintings 0:11:56.000 --> 0:11:59.760 of the Shapiro ancestors, the men with white double beards 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:04.320 and black skull caps hung on the walls. Then he 0:12:04.400 --> 0:12:08.760 broke the news to him Dorothy was dying. She didn't know. 0:12:09.640 --> 0:12:13.280 Only the doctors and her father knew the truth, and 0:12:13.360 --> 0:12:17.679 a decision had been made to protect her. Danny advised 0:12:17.760 --> 0:12:20.640 him not to marry Dorothy, for the sake of his future, 0:12:21.320 --> 0:12:25.400 his reputation was already tarnished as a divorced Orthodox Man 0:12:25.720 --> 0:12:28.680 in nineteen fifty four, and for the sake of his 0:12:28.720 --> 0:12:33.960 six year old, who had already lost enough. The morning 0:12:34.040 --> 0:12:37.400 after Danny's visit, my father took a checker cab to 0:12:37.440 --> 0:12:42.040 Brooklyn to see Dorothy's father. Louis Gribbitts, was a short, 0:12:42.040 --> 0:12:45.440 wiry man, a respected attorney who had written a book 0:12:45.440 --> 0:12:48.679 about Mayor Jimmy Walker and made an unsuccessful run for 0:12:48.760 --> 0:12:52.520 city council. He had studied for the Rabbinet. He would 0:12:52.520 --> 0:12:55.840 have known that TAMA generally prohibits telling a terminally ill 0:12:55.920 --> 0:12:59.840 patient the truth about her condition. Dorothy was the oldest 0:13:00.080 --> 0:13:04.160 his three children. Eleven years earlier, the youngest, a son 0:13:04.240 --> 0:13:06.960 named Stanley, had died at the age of seven of 0:13:07.040 --> 0:13:12.160 rheumatic fever. Louis, in his living room high above Grand 0:13:12.240 --> 0:13:16.320 Army Plaza that night, explained to my father that he 0:13:16.360 --> 0:13:19.160 hadn't told him because he wanted his daughter to know 0:13:19.280 --> 0:13:24.120 happiness in the last months of her life. My father 0:13:24.200 --> 0:13:27.480 postponed his wedding to Darthy for ten days. He had 0:13:27.520 --> 0:13:29.480 a boil on his stomach, and he checked into Beth 0:13:29.520 --> 0:13:32.760 Israel Hospital on Friday morning to have it removed and 0:13:32.840 --> 0:13:36.200 to buy time. He didn't get in touch with Drothy 0:13:36.320 --> 0:13:38.760 to let her know, and once it was sundown on Friday, 0:13:39.120 --> 0:13:41.680 the Sabbath, he wouldn't be able to call her until 0:13:41.679 --> 0:13:46.440 at least sundown on Saturday. In the meantime, his sister Shirley, 0:13:46.520 --> 0:13:49.360 made arrangements to come down on the overnight train from Boston. 0:13:50.360 --> 0:13:53.520 My father was determined that his parents shouldn't be told 0:13:53.520 --> 0:13:56.920 about Darthy's illness. He had been under his father's som 0:13:57.000 --> 0:13:59.959 his whole life. This time he was going to make 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:03.880 his own decision, but he needed advice. The next day, 0:14:04.320 --> 0:14:07.600 through a series of favors and connections, Shirley reached and 0:14:07.640 --> 0:14:11.280 made an appointment to see the Grand labovicher Rebbe Menachim 0:14:11.320 --> 0:14:16.400 Schneerssen in nineteen fifty four, decades before he was thought 0:14:16.400 --> 0:14:19.640 of as the Messiah by many of the Labubbisher community. 0:14:20.200 --> 0:14:24.280 Rabbi Schneerson was already a mythic figure. While my family 0:14:24.360 --> 0:14:28.200 were considered Orthodox by most standards, Hasidim would have considered 0:14:28.240 --> 0:14:32.400 them assimilated. The Shapiros and their crowd kept their religious 0:14:32.400 --> 0:14:36.480 practices private. They didn't wear yamakas on the street. They 0:14:36.640 --> 0:14:40.200 ate dairy or fish in regular, non Kosher restaurants. Men 0:14:40.240 --> 0:14:44.200 and women danced together cheek to cheek. Surely and my 0:14:44.280 --> 0:14:47.400 father knew that their parents had met Schneerson and respected him, 0:14:47.880 --> 0:14:50.640 but in turning to him, they were moving outside their 0:14:50.640 --> 0:14:55.000 social circle. Shirley is now seventy four and the grandmother 0:14:55.040 --> 0:14:59.200 of twenty I'm actually going to insert there that Shirley 0:14:59.320 --> 0:15:03.400 is now one hundred and three and the great grandmother 0:15:03.480 --> 0:15:08.800 of countless countless great grandchildren and great great grandchildren. Her 0:15:08.800 --> 0:15:12.320 oldest son is an Orthodox rabbi, and most of her 0:15:12.360 --> 0:15:16.640 male grandchildren wear paeous and dark clothes. I haven't visited 0:15:16.640 --> 0:15:19.640 her often. By the time I was born, my father 0:15:19.680 --> 0:15:22.240 had moved, or perhaps was pushed, away from the Orthodox 0:15:22.280 --> 0:15:25.680 fold as Surely and her family became even more deeply 0:15:25.720 --> 0:15:29.880 involved in it. My father had been divorced, then widowed, 0:15:30.360 --> 0:15:34.400 and then had married a woman my mother who wasn't religious. 0:15:34.720 --> 0:15:37.480 With each move he drifted further away from the Manhattan 0:15:37.520 --> 0:15:40.840 shoals of his youth and the community that went along 0:15:40.880 --> 0:15:44.960 with them. I'm also going to insert here that after 0:15:45.000 --> 0:15:49.160 writing this piece, I became extremely close with my aunt Shirley, 0:15:49.600 --> 0:15:54.440 and have remained so ever since. That day, I took 0:15:54.440 --> 0:15:57.640 a taxi to Crown Heights. Shirley told me I was 0:15:57.680 --> 0:16:00.520 wearing my suit from Sachs, but I was worried that 0:16:00.560 --> 0:16:03.280 I didn't look religious enough to meet the Rebbe. So 0:16:03.320 --> 0:16:05.640 I had the taxi stop at a store on De Lancey, 0:16:06.160 --> 0:16:09.200 and I ran inside and bought a tykel, a black rag. 0:16:09.840 --> 0:16:12.360 I took off my fancy hat and tied the tyrol 0:16:12.480 --> 0:16:17.160 under my chin. When I got to seven seventy Eastern Parkway, 0:16:17.240 --> 0:16:20.160 I was shown straight into the rebby's study. He was 0:16:20.200 --> 0:16:23.640 such a handsome man, with clear, clear eyes and a 0:16:23.680 --> 0:16:28.760 snap brim fedora. His desk was absolutely clean. He sat 0:16:29.080 --> 0:16:32.280 quietly while I told him the story, and when I finished, 0:16:32.320 --> 0:16:34.560 he was quiet for a few minutes, and then he said, 0:16:35.640 --> 0:16:41.560 tell your brother to postpone and postpone. When Shirley got 0:16:41.600 --> 0:16:44.440 back to Beth Israel, prepared to convey the Rabbi's advice 0:16:44.480 --> 0:16:48.280 to my father. There was Dorothy sitting on my father's bed, 0:16:48.520 --> 0:16:52.960 holding his hand, looking incandescent in a coral colored dress 0:16:53.000 --> 0:16:56.080 that set off her dark hair and a black velvet hat. 0:16:56.800 --> 0:17:00.840 Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes shone charl Can 0:17:00.880 --> 0:17:03.480 you imagine I was trying on my wedding veil when 0:17:03.520 --> 0:17:07.280 I heard Paul was in the hospital. My father was ashen, 0:17:07.400 --> 0:17:10.679 propped up in bed, still weak from his surgery. His 0:17:10.840 --> 0:17:13.639 head was bowed and he was stroking the inside of 0:17:13.720 --> 0:17:19.119 Darthy's wrist, tracing the map of pale blue veins. Later, 0:17:19.640 --> 0:17:23.560 when Dorothy left, Shirley told my father about Niersen's advice. 0:17:24.359 --> 0:17:28.520 I can't do that to Darthy, he said. I also 0:17:28.560 --> 0:17:33.880 want to add here that surely had the most extraordinary memory, 0:17:34.600 --> 0:17:37.720 her memory of what Dorothy was wearing, her memory of 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:41.040 verbatim of what the rebby had said. I never would 0:17:41.040 --> 0:17:43.840 have been able to write or publish this piece in 0:17:43.880 --> 0:17:48.359 The New Yorker, which is famous for its fact checking process, 0:17:48.680 --> 0:17:53.760 without having had the incredible generosity of my extraordinary aunt, 0:17:54.359 --> 0:17:56.879 who for whom it was not easy to tell this story. 0:17:56.920 --> 0:18:00.600 It was such a painful story for her than for 0:18:00.720 --> 0:18:05.280 everyone who knew my dad. After the wedding, Dorothy said 0:18:05.320 --> 0:18:07.399 she wanted to start a family as soon as she 0:18:07.440 --> 0:18:11.800 felt better. But late that summer she was hospitalized. She 0:18:11.880 --> 0:18:14.719 had a lymph node removed from under her arm, and 0:18:14.760 --> 0:18:18.200 she was treated with mustard gas. When she came home, 0:18:18.240 --> 0:18:21.960 she had weakened considerably. She was no longer able to 0:18:21.960 --> 0:18:24.080 get up in the morning on Shabas to set the table, 0:18:24.560 --> 0:18:27.040 so she did it with Susie's help the night before. 0:18:28.040 --> 0:18:31.359 She never complained, but my father told Susye to be 0:18:31.520 --> 0:18:37.560 especially gentle with Dorothy. She wasn't feeling well. Just before 0:18:37.600 --> 0:18:40.119 the high Holidays, my father and Dorothy moved into an 0:18:40.119 --> 0:18:43.879 apartment at fifty Plaza Street, on the same floor as 0:18:43.960 --> 0:18:47.560 Dorothy's parents. It was an apartment big enough for a family, 0:18:48.080 --> 0:18:50.639 and it had views of Grand Army Plaza and the 0:18:50.640 --> 0:18:54.960 Brooklyn Museum. For Dorothy, it was an exciting new beginning. 0:18:55.560 --> 0:18:59.960 She began to furnish the apartment lovingly, ordering curtains, sofas, 0:19:00.600 --> 0:19:03.760 rolls of wall to wall carpeting. But for my father, 0:19:04.359 --> 0:19:08.080 being near Dorothy's parents probably meant that he'd have more 0:19:08.119 --> 0:19:12.720 help with Dorothy when the time came on Roshachana morning, 0:19:13.280 --> 0:19:16.919 Dorothy and her sister Grace were dressing for shul in 0:19:16.960 --> 0:19:20.840 their old girlhood bedroom. Dorothy was wearing an ivory silk 0:19:20.920 --> 0:19:25.639 blouse with silk covered buttons. Suddenly she sat down on 0:19:25.680 --> 0:19:31.160 the bed, her face white, the black circles appearing. I'm 0:19:31.200 --> 0:19:33.919 too sick to go to shool, she whispered. Then she 0:19:34.080 --> 0:19:38.960 unbuttoned her bouse with shaking fingers. Grace, will you wear 0:19:39.000 --> 0:19:42.000 this to shool for me? That way, at least part 0:19:42.040 --> 0:19:45.919 of me will be there. As Grace was putting on 0:19:46.040 --> 0:19:49.080 Dorothy's blouse, Susy came bouncing into the room in a 0:19:49.119 --> 0:19:52.320 new dress, excited about going to temple, wanting to see 0:19:52.359 --> 0:19:56.119 what was taking so long. Susy, I can't go to shool, 0:19:56.200 --> 0:19:58.919 Dorothy told her, But will you say a prayer for me? 0:20:00.440 --> 0:20:03.480 You can't say a prayer for another person, Susy replied, 0:20:03.840 --> 0:20:10.399 you have to pray for yourself. In October, on Sioux Cote, 0:20:10.640 --> 0:20:14.280 the holiday that celebrates the autumn harvest, Dorothy was in 0:20:14.359 --> 0:20:17.800 bed reading a magazine when she began to have trouble breathing. 0:20:19.040 --> 0:20:22.960 My father sent Susy outside to rollerskate. He called an 0:20:23.000 --> 0:20:27.440 ambulance and Dorothy was taken into Manhattan to Memorial Hospital. 0:20:28.480 --> 0:20:31.480 My grandfather came up from Virginia when he heard the news. 0:20:31.920 --> 0:20:34.280 He stood in the doorway of the waiting room and 0:20:34.359 --> 0:20:38.440 looked at Shirley through his ponsnez. He was an imposing man, 0:20:38.720 --> 0:20:42.360 portly and bald, and most people's first reaction to him 0:20:42.560 --> 0:20:48.400 was fear. What's wrong with Dorothy? He asked. Shirley looked 0:20:48.480 --> 0:20:52.880 up at him, shaking her head slightly. The word cancer 0:20:53.440 --> 0:20:59.480 was never uttered. She's very, very sick, dad. My father 0:20:59.720 --> 0:21:03.159 led me my grandfather into Drothy's room. She was popped 0:21:03.240 --> 0:21:07.600 up in bed and there were tubes and wires everywhere. Finally, 0:21:08.040 --> 0:21:10.639 she looked every bit as sick as she was. She 0:21:10.760 --> 0:21:15.240 was drawn and thin, and her eyes were sunken. I 0:21:15.320 --> 0:21:18.040 wanted to say this in front of you, Dad, she 0:21:18.119 --> 0:21:22.280 said to my grandfather, I want to thank Paul for 0:21:22.320 --> 0:21:29.120 giving me the happiest six months of my life. Afterwards, 0:21:29.320 --> 0:21:32.360 when it was all over, my father returned to the apartment, 0:21:32.960 --> 0:21:36.040 stepped over the still rolled up carpeting Dorothy had ordered 0:21:36.080 --> 0:21:39.800 only weeks before, and headed down the long corridor into 0:21:39.800 --> 0:21:44.040 their bedroom. There on the bed was the magazine she 0:21:44.080 --> 0:21:46.760 had been reading just before she was taken to the hospital. 0:21:47.920 --> 0:21:53.040 It was open to an article about Hopkins lymphoma. After 0:21:53.080 --> 0:21:55.920 the ambulance came and took Dorothy away, I didn't see 0:21:55.960 --> 0:21:59.080 Dad for two weeks, Susy says, as we sit in 0:21:59.080 --> 0:22:02.760 her East village apart. He called me every night, and 0:22:02.880 --> 0:22:06.320 every night I'd ask him where he was, and he'd 0:22:06.320 --> 0:22:10.160 say where do you think I am? And I'd say 0:22:10.359 --> 0:22:14.479 the hospital, And then I'd ask how Darthy was, and 0:22:14.520 --> 0:22:18.600 he'd tell me she was resting. He picked me up 0:22:18.640 --> 0:22:21.200 on a Wednesday night, after those two weeks had gone by. 0:22:22.040 --> 0:22:24.399 He looked like hell, and he was quieter than usual. 0:22:25.080 --> 0:22:27.560 We were in a taxi going through Central Park on 0:22:27.600 --> 0:22:30.280 our way to Grammy and Grampy's when I asked him 0:22:30.359 --> 0:22:33.800 how Darthy was, and he told me that Darthy had died. 0:22:34.880 --> 0:22:37.879 She had died a week before. They had the funeral, 0:22:38.440 --> 0:22:44.119 buried her sat Shiva, all without telling me. I am 0:22:44.160 --> 0:22:49.480 going to interject here that all these many, many many 0:22:49.640 --> 0:22:55.560 years later, Susie and I have virtually no relationship, and 0:22:55.800 --> 0:22:58.040 a big part of the reason that we have no 0:22:58.119 --> 0:23:01.800 relationship is all a thing history, all of this pain, 0:23:02.440 --> 0:23:06.960 all of this unnecessary secrecy, They were very much people 0:23:07.000 --> 0:23:10.159 of their time, and their time was a time in 0:23:10.200 --> 0:23:13.200 which you didn't say the word cancer, and you didn't 0:23:13.200 --> 0:23:17.760 tell children when someone had died, and the children didn't 0:23:17.800 --> 0:23:20.520 come to the funeral and were never able to have 0:23:20.560 --> 0:23:24.840 any closure and carry that pain with them throughout their 0:23:25.000 --> 0:23:30.800 entire lives. And reading this all these years later, reading 0:23:30.800 --> 0:23:34.080 this out loud for all of you, is a very 0:23:34.119 --> 0:23:38.199 emotional experience for me, and a very moving one. My 0:23:38.359 --> 0:23:47.440 father was an extraordinary man, extraordinarily brave and kind, and yeah, 0:23:47.760 --> 0:23:53.080 I'm just going to keep reading. My parents kept secrets, 0:23:53.960 --> 0:23:58.040 Dorothy was only one of them, to which I really 0:23:58.200 --> 0:24:04.520 need to interject here, no shit, sorry. My mother's first marriage, 0:24:04.880 --> 0:24:09.280 an aunt's nervous breakdown, an uncle's attempted suicide, all were 0:24:09.359 --> 0:24:14.280 kept secret. On the surface, everything seemed perfect. But why 0:24:14.359 --> 0:24:17.800 was my father so unhappy all the time? Why did 0:24:17.880 --> 0:24:23.400 my mother seem so constantly on edge? Here I will 0:24:23.440 --> 0:24:28.760 also interdict, I didn't have all the information, and all 0:24:28.760 --> 0:24:31.200 the information I did have, and everything that I wrote 0:24:31.280 --> 0:24:35.600 in this piece was in fact completely true, it just 0:24:36.400 --> 0:24:40.000 wasn't the whole truth. I didn't know all the secrets. 0:24:43.640 --> 0:24:45.879 Some of the friction between my parents had to do 0:24:45.960 --> 0:24:50.320 with my father's strict religious beliefs. My mother was fun 0:24:50.359 --> 0:24:54.880 loving and glamorous, the head of her own small advertising agency. 0:24:54.960 --> 0:24:58.520 When she met my father. She had no idea that 0:24:58.600 --> 0:25:01.879 becoming Orthodox meant more than keeping a kosher home and 0:25:01.960 --> 0:25:06.000 going to school on holidays. Orthodoxy was its own universe, 0:25:06.600 --> 0:25:09.159 a universe as suspicious of her as she was of it. 0:25:10.440 --> 0:25:13.439 As the years went by, we rarely saw my father's family, 0:25:13.960 --> 0:25:16.960 and when we did, they seemed foreign to me, with 0:25:17.040 --> 0:25:20.520 their yamukas and thick glasses. They were pale and wan 0:25:20.920 --> 0:25:25.200 with something called yeshiva pallor. On our way home from visiting, 0:25:25.600 --> 0:25:28.480 my mother would make fun of them, and my father 0:25:28.680 --> 0:25:34.320 would become even quieter than usual. I grew up in 0:25:34.359 --> 0:25:37.720 a house full of fear. We were protected by three 0:25:37.720 --> 0:25:41.400 different kinds of alarm systems, pads on the floors under 0:25:41.400 --> 0:25:45.520 the rugs, a motion detector, and panic buttons that could 0:25:45.520 --> 0:25:48.960 be pressed in an emergency. I wasn't allowed to run 0:25:49.000 --> 0:25:52.560 barefoot on the lawn. I was slathered with sunlation year round. 0:25:52.960 --> 0:25:55.520 If a bee buzzed near me, my mother would swoop 0:25:55.560 --> 0:25:58.320 down and rush me into the house. I never had 0:25:58.400 --> 0:26:02.120