WEBVTT - The Perfect Happy Family 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:02.719 Family Secrets is a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:07.280 --> 0:00:10.120 Most people in our community have no idea what's been 0:00:10.160 --> 0:00:13.440 going on with Danny. For years, we've brushed off the 0:00:13.520 --> 0:00:16.960 questions about what he is doing, where he is, He's 0:00:17.000 --> 0:00:21.880 in school, he's finding his way. My parents were resolute 0:00:21.920 --> 0:00:26.720 about preserving Danny's privacy. This is no one's business. We 0:00:26.760 --> 0:00:29.960 don't want people to look at Danny that way. It'll 0:00:29.960 --> 0:00:31.760 get better, and we don't want it to be held 0:00:31.760 --> 0:00:38.200 against him. Over time, people stopped asking. Years from now, 0:00:38.280 --> 0:00:41.240 it will be impossible not to question the real purpose 0:00:41.360 --> 0:00:47.479 our secrecy served. Who was protecting whom and why? Of course, 0:00:47.600 --> 0:00:50.720 we were worried about how people saw Danny. But were 0:00:50.720 --> 0:00:51.400 we keeping the 0:00:51.400 --> 0:00:52.880 Secret for ourselves too? 0:00:53.920 --> 0:00:57.680 In choosing silence? Were we also protecting our family from 0:00:57.680 --> 0:01:01.680 the stigma of mental illness? Were we hiding from our 0:01:01.720 --> 0:01:04.399 own shame and grief that a member of our quote 0:01:04.480 --> 0:01:09.360 unquote good family was so broken and lost? And what 0:01:09.440 --> 0:01:12.760 was the cost of our silence to Danny? What was 0:01:12.800 --> 0:01:15.240 it like for him to know that his life was 0:01:15.280 --> 0:01:16.920 a secret. 0:01:19.240 --> 0:01:23.800 That's Julie Fingersh, journalist and author of the recent memoir Stay, 0:01:24.319 --> 0:01:28.679 A Story of family, love and other traumas. Julie's is 0:01:28.720 --> 0:01:32.480 a story of not one, but two happy families. But 0:01:32.640 --> 0:01:36.240 coming from a happy family does not protect us from loss, 0:01:36.560 --> 0:01:40.640 from grief, from trauma so intense that it becomes buried 0:01:40.680 --> 0:01:43.920 within us. All we can do is attempt to make 0:01:44.000 --> 0:01:47.520 meaning out of what life hands us. And by the way, 0:01:48.160 --> 0:02:03.240 that's a lot. I'm Dani Shapiro, and this is family secrets, 0:02:03.640 --> 0:02:05.960 the secrets that are kept from us, the secrets we 0:02:06.040 --> 0:02:11.240 keep from others, and the secrets we keep from ourselves. 0:02:14.200 --> 0:02:20.320 I grew up in Prarie Village, Kansas, in a Jewish 0:02:20.320 --> 0:02:25.119 community within a very non Jewish community, and. 0:02:25.919 --> 0:02:29.120 The landscape, the real landscape for me, was 0:02:30.600 --> 0:02:36.959 Just one of love and community and safety. My parents 0:02:37.720 --> 0:02:42.240 had and have a wonderful marriage. My dad was a lawyer, 0:02:42.320 --> 0:02:47.200 he worked very hard. My mom was a homemaker if 0:02:47.240 --> 0:02:50.760 they called it back then. And I was the middle 0:02:50.880 --> 0:02:54.640 child with an older brother, Paul, and a younger brother, Danny. 0:02:55.520 --> 0:02:59.000 It was a much simpler life than our kids have today. 0:02:59.280 --> 0:03:05.680 It was just homework and play and family time and 0:03:05.960 --> 0:03:11.080 friends time, and a very idyllic life in most ways. 0:03:12.480 --> 0:03:14.880 Paul's three years older than me, and Danny's was three 0:03:14.960 --> 0:03:18.200 years younger. Than me, and so I think part of 0:03:18.280 --> 0:03:21.680 what became so much part of the story was that 0:03:22.040 --> 0:03:24.400 Paul was the cool kid who was off doing his 0:03:25.200 --> 0:03:27.880 cool things with his cool friends. And Danny and I 0:03:27.960 --> 0:03:33.000 were very much a team and partners in play and 0:03:33.280 --> 0:03:37.600 always spent a lot of time together. Danny was the 0:03:37.640 --> 0:03:43.480 beautiful boy. He was shy. He had what I always 0:03:43.480 --> 0:03:45.840 think of as planet white eyes. He had these big 0:03:45.880 --> 0:03:52.000 brown eyes and bushy brown hair, and his physicality is 0:03:52.040 --> 0:03:52.960 so vivid. 0:03:52.720 --> 0:03:53.400 In my mind. 0:03:53.520 --> 0:03:59.760 He was always tan, he always was very lean, and he. 0:03:59.880 --> 0:04:04.400 Was just very sweet. He was very sweet, and we 0:04:04.520 --> 0:04:09.280 used to call him the noticer. He just noticed everything. 0:04:10.200 --> 0:04:14.240 We spent a lot of unstructured time together. We would 0:04:14.240 --> 0:04:17.600 often on weekends come together and be like what. 0:04:17.560 --> 0:04:18.039 Should we do? 0:04:18.120 --> 0:04:21.479 And we'd rip up little pieces of paper and write 0:04:21.600 --> 0:04:25.719 things like all the different ideas like lemonade stand and 0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:29.400 picnic in the park, and riding our bikes around the 0:04:29.400 --> 0:04:33.320 neighborhood and judging the houses of deciding which ones we'd want. 0:04:33.160 --> 0:04:33.640 To live in. 0:04:34.279 --> 0:04:37.520 We were really close and I think an anchor for 0:04:37.600 --> 0:04:42.360 each other. You know, have school and you go out 0:04:42.400 --> 0:04:44.800 into the world into school, and even though it was 0:04:44.839 --> 0:04:49.160 a small school and it was a Jewish day school actually, 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:53.159 and reported to be very community oriented. There's still just 0:04:53.200 --> 0:04:57.440 the usual dynamics of classes and hierarchies and all that, 0:04:57.640 --> 0:05:00.679 and it was like always for me. I think about 0:05:01.200 --> 0:05:04.799 how coming home opening my front door. I can still 0:05:04.960 --> 0:05:07.440 hear the sound of my front door closing, and it 0:05:07.560 --> 0:05:11.279 was like you were home. It was a sanctuary and 0:05:11.400 --> 0:05:13.320 Danny was a part of that sanctuary for me. 0:05:13.960 --> 0:05:15.720 We just could be totally ourselves. 0:05:16.960 --> 0:05:20.719 I think as a kid, you're not really aware so 0:05:20.960 --> 0:05:25.040 much of all the dynamics the social stratus. 0:05:25.400 --> 0:05:29.960 But I was always very clear that. 0:05:29.880 --> 0:05:33.800 My family was part of a very strong and loving 0:05:34.040 --> 0:05:39.280 and safe community. My dad came from very modest beginnings 0:05:40.000 --> 0:05:43.840 and he became a very accomplished lawyer, and what I 0:05:43.880 --> 0:05:47.040 can remember, I would go to his office, his law 0:05:47.120 --> 0:05:50.559 office on weekends often, and one summer I worked there. 0:05:51.240 --> 0:05:54.760 And he was just very revered in our community and 0:05:54.800 --> 0:05:59.279 still is is just known to have a lot of integrity. 0:05:59.360 --> 0:06:02.960 He's just very honest and very straight up. And my 0:06:03.040 --> 0:06:08.480 mom is beautiful. She's beautiful, and she's dynamic, and she's 0:06:08.480 --> 0:06:11.960 a magnet for people. So in my mind, my parents 0:06:11.960 --> 0:06:15.880 were like giants in our community and whenever we were out, 0:06:16.040 --> 0:06:18.640 they would just be approached and it was just clear 0:06:18.760 --> 0:06:22.480 they were beloved. My family was really, I think, one 0:06:22.520 --> 0:06:24.640 of the families that was in the center of that 0:06:24.760 --> 0:06:27.360 Jewish community in lots of different ways. 0:06:31.600 --> 0:06:34.040 When Julie is a senior in high school, Danny is 0:06:34.080 --> 0:06:37.520 a freshman, their older brother, Paul is a junior in college. 0:06:38.520 --> 0:06:42.480 What's happening to Danny around this time? Begins? As Julie 0:06:42.480 --> 0:06:44.200 calls it, like a whisper. 0:06:45.560 --> 0:06:50.680 It was very subtle. As I remember it, everything changed 0:06:51.240 --> 0:06:56.560 when he changed schools and we all had gone to 0:06:56.600 --> 0:06:59.560 a Jewish day school and then we all transferred to 0:07:00.520 --> 0:07:04.640 a private high school. We were very much minorities in 0:07:04.720 --> 0:07:07.560 terms of our Judaism, and we really were from a 0:07:07.560 --> 0:07:10.120 different world. So we really were kind of worked out 0:07:10.160 --> 0:07:14.400 of a cocoon and thrown into this very status oriented, 0:07:14.520 --> 0:07:20.680 wealthy elitist place where socially it was really rough. And 0:07:20.920 --> 0:07:24.360 I would say it wasn't that rough for Paul. It 0:07:24.480 --> 0:07:26.600 was rough for me, and I think it was really 0:07:26.640 --> 0:07:29.880 rough for Danny. So what I recall the way it 0:07:29.920 --> 0:07:35.320 started was he started at the school and it was 0:07:35.480 --> 0:07:39.320 hard to distinguish. I think we all would assume that's 0:07:39.360 --> 0:07:41.960 a hard transition to make, but it was almost like 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:43.440 he wasn't able to make it. 0:07:44.040 --> 0:07:45.120 He became with. 0:07:45.080 --> 0:07:49.000 John and all the things that he and I used 0:07:49.000 --> 0:07:52.200 to do together. We would often after school, we'd come 0:07:52.240 --> 0:07:55.800 together and just go take the dogs for a walk 0:07:56.000 --> 0:07:59.280 or hang out in the library. He didn't want to 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:01.920 do those things anymore. And so I think at the 0:08:02.000 --> 0:08:05.640 time we thought, well, it's the new school, and then 0:08:06.080 --> 0:08:08.600 he's been not a lescent. This is just a hard time, 0:08:08.640 --> 0:08:11.480 and I certainly had a hard time, and I think 0:08:11.640 --> 0:08:14.000 then he just gradually retreated. 0:08:14.920 --> 0:08:18.720 Yeah, it's the old sort of frog and boiling water 0:08:18.760 --> 0:08:20.120 in a way exactly. 0:08:20.640 --> 0:08:24.720 It was absolutely that, And I think that's an apt 0:08:25.040 --> 0:08:29.760 description because for so long we did not understand the 0:08:29.880 --> 0:08:36.280 line between adolescens and something much bigger. 0:08:39.200 --> 0:08:41.679 After she graduates from high school, Julie goes off to 0:08:41.720 --> 0:08:45.360 Swarsmore College, following in the footsteps of her older brother Paul. 0:08:46.480 --> 0:08:50.280 Now Danny is the only child at home. Julie doesn't 0:08:50.280 --> 0:08:52.800 share her worries about Danny with her new college friends, 0:08:53.400 --> 0:08:57.560 not because it's a secret, but because it's private. The 0:08:57.640 --> 0:09:00.240 men and women in Julie's family have different ways of 0:09:00.240 --> 0:09:03.280 dealing with the crisis. Julie and her mom do talk 0:09:03.320 --> 0:09:05.800 about it all the time, keeping it in the family. 0:09:06.520 --> 0:09:09.920 Julie's dad and Paul tend to keep their feelings to themselves. 0:09:10.640 --> 0:09:14.800 This split screen existence in Julie's early college life exacts 0:09:14.840 --> 0:09:17.520 a cost, and Julie begins binge eating. 0:09:19.320 --> 0:09:23.199 What's interesting is that at the time, we would never 0:09:23.240 --> 0:09:28.160 have considered it a secret. I think I was really 0:09:28.280 --> 0:09:33.800 raised in a culture of privacy, so that on one hand, 0:09:33.920 --> 0:09:37.319 we were very as a family, were outgoing and warm 0:09:37.360 --> 0:09:41.480 and embracing. But then there's a line. There's a line, 0:09:41.520 --> 0:09:45.200 and I think that when Danny started to retreat and 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:49.040 really started to struggle, it was really intuitive to us 0:09:49.120 --> 0:09:52.480 that it just wasn't anyone's business and why would we 0:09:52.559 --> 0:09:54.960 share that, Like he wouldn't want that to be shared. 0:09:55.840 --> 0:09:59.280 And I think it's again, it's the frog in the 0:09:59.320 --> 0:10:03.120 boiling water. It's like along the way, it went from 0:10:03.480 --> 0:10:05.120 privacy to secrecy. 0:10:05.760 --> 0:10:07.360 And I almost don't. 0:10:07.080 --> 0:10:10.880 Know, I can't pinpoint when that happened, but I think 0:10:10.920 --> 0:10:16.760 it was probably when things went from just retreating to 0:10:17.920 --> 0:10:22.360 he was having a really hard time and things started 0:10:22.559 --> 0:10:27.920 happening and the binge eating. At the time, I had no, 0:10:28.240 --> 0:10:31.160 I made no connection between that and what was going 0:10:31.160 --> 0:10:34.040 on in home at all. And then in terms of 0:10:34.040 --> 0:10:37.679 the gender and the family dynamics, I think it was 0:10:37.720 --> 0:10:41.800 an extension of who we are as people. My mom 0:10:41.840 --> 0:10:45.800 and I are loquacious and we are big processors, and 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:49.280 we spoke to each other about it primarily because we 0:10:49.280 --> 0:10:53.480 were preserving the family's privacy, and my dad and my 0:10:53.600 --> 0:10:58.000 brother they aren't big talkers about struggle at all, and 0:10:58.040 --> 0:11:03.640 so it was this natural rift between how we coped differently. 0:11:04.240 --> 0:11:05.880 And then in time, I think. 0:11:05.760 --> 0:11:09.800 The secrets and the privacy starts to do its insidious work. 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:18.080 Danny's condition worsens. There are some good periods, bringing the 0:11:18.080 --> 0:11:21.840 family a modicum of hope, but the stretches of stability 0:11:21.880 --> 0:11:24.679 are rare, and in the wake of this hope comes 0:11:24.720 --> 0:11:29.160 fear and defeat. Danny decides to visit Israel, a huge 0:11:29.160 --> 0:11:31.559 relief to the family that he's up for such a trip, 0:11:31.920 --> 0:11:35.200 but it's also laced with dread. They all hold their breath, 0:11:35.240 --> 0:11:38.160 wondering is this going to help? Is he going to 0:11:38.160 --> 0:11:38.640 be okay? 0:11:39.559 --> 0:11:40.240 And he isn't. 0:11:40.960 --> 0:11:43.439 He comes home and starts exhibiting new levels of out 0:11:43.480 --> 0:11:49.560 of control destructiveness, smashing windows violent episodes. These episodes signal 0:11:49.640 --> 0:11:52.960 to the family that maybe his condition will require some 0:11:53.000 --> 0:11:57.600 sort of medical intervention. He does get medically assessed, but 0:11:57.720 --> 0:12:02.440 receives no diagnosis, aren't sure how to diagnose him. And 0:12:02.480 --> 0:12:08.280 then graduation comes along. High school graduation typically a joyous affair, 0:12:08.960 --> 0:12:11.640 but for Danny and his family, not so much. 0:12:13.600 --> 0:12:19.040 He walked across the stage with his gown unzipped, unlike 0:12:19.080 --> 0:12:22.760 anybody else, and with kind of the frozen look on 0:12:22.840 --> 0:12:26.960 his face. It was like this sense of foreboding of 0:12:27.000 --> 0:12:30.760 the future. Graduation is supposed to be this moment where 0:12:31.240 --> 0:12:34.120 you're there, you did it, You're ready to jump into 0:12:34.200 --> 0:12:37.600 the rest of your wonderful life that you've been working for. 0:12:38.400 --> 0:12:43.320 And the way that ended, where when we went back, 0:12:43.480 --> 0:12:45.600 when they filed off stage and all the parents and 0:12:45.640 --> 0:12:49.560 families got together to await the arrival of the graduates, 0:12:50.120 --> 0:12:54.080 and I'll just never forget that sense of dread and 0:12:54.400 --> 0:12:55.319 almost denial. 0:12:55.720 --> 0:12:57.199 Is he really not coming? 0:12:57.320 --> 0:13:01.079 Is he really And just that failing of he didn't 0:13:01.080 --> 0:13:02.960 come and what did that mean? 0:13:03.360 --> 0:13:06.439 What did that mean? Where did he go? And what's 0:13:06.480 --> 0:13:08.160 going to happen next? 0:13:08.520 --> 0:13:11.800 It was this feeling of the hope that he was 0:13:11.880 --> 0:13:14.800 able to do these things, and then there would be 0:13:15.120 --> 0:13:20.280 like a dive that was deeper than where it had started. 0:13:21.040 --> 0:13:24.160 And it just was like this cycle of hope in 0:13:24.360 --> 0:13:27.319 psyching ourselves up, like he's going to be okay, and 0:13:27.520 --> 0:13:30.559 he went to Israel, but he'd made it through his graduation, 0:13:30.720 --> 0:13:33.680 and then when he didn't show up, there was just 0:13:33.800 --> 0:13:35.960 such a sense of I. 0:13:35.960 --> 0:13:37.960 Think fear, honestly fear. 0:13:39.200 --> 0:13:42.000 I think we all were just afraid of what that 0:13:42.320 --> 0:13:45.760 meant for all of us and for him, mostly in 0:13:45.760 --> 0:13:46.400 his future. 0:13:47.400 --> 0:13:54.960 And then that fear is just exacerbated dramatically when he 0:13:55.000 --> 0:14:00.800 gets into an altercation with your father. Your father characteristically 0:14:00.880 --> 0:14:06.080 loses his temper and out of just parental fear and 0:14:06.559 --> 0:14:12.480 huge worry for Danny, and Danny grabs a knife. 0:14:12.720 --> 0:14:16.559 It was surreal that could happen in our kitchen, which 0:14:16.679 --> 0:14:21.840 was the center of our home. My mom is an 0:14:21.880 --> 0:14:27.320 amazing cook. We all spent so much of our time 0:14:27.400 --> 0:14:33.680 in our childhoods around the family table, have bought holidays, 0:14:35.040 --> 0:14:39.960 doing arts and crafts together as kids, doing our homework, 0:14:40.720 --> 0:14:42.960 and the fact that we could be in that same 0:14:43.080 --> 0:14:44.800 space and that could happen. 0:14:52.480 --> 0:15:14.080 We'll be back in a moment with more family secrets. 0:15:15.080 --> 0:15:20.760 Danny continues to spiral and is admitted to Meninger Psychiatric Hospital. Julie, 0:15:20.840 --> 0:15:24.360 in the meantime, is trying to reconcile her two realities, 0:15:25.000 --> 0:15:29.560 her brother's deteriorating health and her own bright future. She 0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:32.800 graduates from college and gets a job as an editorial 0:15:32.800 --> 0:15:36.560 assistant at BusinessWeek. She moves to New York City, meets 0:15:36.560 --> 0:15:39.560 the man who will become her husband, and locks into 0:15:39.600 --> 0:15:43.200 the beginnings of a rich and dynamic life, a burgeoning 0:15:43.240 --> 0:15:47.360 career as a journalist, a wonderful partner, and yet the 0:15:47.440 --> 0:15:50.760 other reality of her brother's condition is something that continues 0:15:50.800 --> 0:15:51.440 to plague her. 0:15:53.720 --> 0:15:58.080 On one hand, it was this double life of and 0:15:58.240 --> 0:16:02.160 in New York City, I'm living a dream. I'm going 0:16:02.200 --> 0:16:05.760 to be a journalist. I really just I just had 0:16:05.760 --> 0:16:08.880 that sort of naive idea of I'm just going to 0:16:08.960 --> 0:16:12.120 do it and I'm going to be successful, and it's 0:16:12.600 --> 0:16:16.120 that was the dream before going into it. And at 0:16:16.120 --> 0:16:20.600 the same time this was happening with Danny, and so 0:16:20.720 --> 0:16:24.120 there was just that double life. And then there was 0:16:24.160 --> 0:16:27.120 the double life of my life in front of the 0:16:27.200 --> 0:16:32.200 people I was living among and with, and then my 0:16:32.360 --> 0:16:35.120 life behind the scenes on the phone all the time 0:16:35.240 --> 0:16:38.760 with my mom and Danny and my dad and Paul too. 0:16:39.600 --> 0:16:41.960 That it was like there were these two double lives. 0:16:42.000 --> 0:16:47.640 And in some ways it was a refuge to be 0:16:47.720 --> 0:16:49.800 able to be out in the world and not have 0:16:49.960 --> 0:16:52.440 to have the people in my life know what was 0:16:52.480 --> 0:16:56.200 going on behind. There was a relief in that, but 0:16:56.600 --> 0:16:59.640 there was a cost to it too, and in many ways, 0:16:59.680 --> 0:17:04.000 like the artist part, I think for siblings, when there's 0:17:04.000 --> 0:17:07.439 a sibling that struggles, is that it's just impossible to 0:17:07.560 --> 0:17:12.240 believe that your life going well is not making their 0:17:12.280 --> 0:17:16.840 life worse. It was just impossible to not draw that line. 0:17:16.920 --> 0:17:19.200 And so in the back of my mind that pulled 0:17:19.400 --> 0:17:20.760 and pulled at me, and. 0:17:20.760 --> 0:17:22.240 It was like every success. 0:17:22.320 --> 0:17:26.320 I can remember my first National byline, I don't even 0:17:26.400 --> 0:17:26.760 know that. 0:17:26.840 --> 0:17:29.600 I want to tell Danny it was like he was 0:17:29.640 --> 0:17:30.520 in a mental. 0:17:30.200 --> 0:17:33.439 Hospital, and I want to say too, you include in 0:17:33.480 --> 0:17:37.160 your book some of Danny's notes and letters to you, 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:43.119 and he was like, so your cheerleader and so seemingly 0:17:43.160 --> 0:17:46.080 without a malicious or envious bone in his body. 0:17:46.600 --> 0:17:47.080 You're right. 0:17:47.400 --> 0:17:51.520 So this wasn't coming from the kind of sibling thing 0:17:51.600 --> 0:17:53.800 where it might be like, oh, you're getting all the 0:17:53.800 --> 0:17:57.040 good stuff and look at me. It was the opposite 0:17:57.080 --> 0:18:01.840 of that, when there's that terrible cat of if this 0:18:01.960 --> 0:18:03.719 is going to be good for me, then somehow that 0:18:03.760 --> 0:18:04.680 means it's going to be. 0:18:04.640 --> 0:18:05.199 Bad for you. 0:18:06.400 --> 0:18:10.199 I think that the phrase the terrible calculus is so 0:18:10.440 --> 0:18:14.720 apt because in some ways to me, it was even 0:18:14.800 --> 0:18:20.240 more painful that he never led on that he was jealous, 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:23.960 or that he looked at my life with envy, and 0:18:24.040 --> 0:18:26.960 that was such a reflection of him and how good 0:18:27.000 --> 0:18:30.119 he was and how sweet he was, And that just 0:18:30.160 --> 0:18:33.080 made it worse to me because I knew, or I 0:18:33.160 --> 0:18:36.879 thought I knew that. How could it not The contrast 0:18:36.920 --> 0:18:40.240 between our lives was just getting greater and greater. 0:18:43.760 --> 0:18:47.720 After a year's stay with no improvement at Menninger, Danny's 0:18:47.720 --> 0:18:53.760 doctors decided to try ECT electroconvulsive therapy, and scary as 0:18:53.800 --> 0:18:58.080 this is, there is again that hope that maybe this 0:18:58.359 --> 0:19:03.440 will be the thing that helps. Unfortunately it doesn't. Danny's 0:19:03.440 --> 0:19:10.800 deterioration accelerates. Now it's May fifteenth, nineteen ninety six. Julie 0:19:10.800 --> 0:19:13.560 and Dave are married and living in New York. They 0:19:13.600 --> 0:19:16.840 don't have kids yet. The phone rings at one in 0:19:16.880 --> 0:19:19.240 the morning and it's Julie's brother Paul. 0:19:22.280 --> 0:19:25.560 At this point, Danny had been struggling since he was 0:19:25.640 --> 0:19:34.879 fourteen and now he was twenty seven. And so at 0:19:34.920 --> 0:19:37.200 the time, I was on the phone with a friend 0:19:37.240 --> 0:19:42.200 of mine late and it was call waiting back then, 0:19:42.960 --> 0:19:45.200 and I saw it was my brother's number, and I thought, 0:19:45.400 --> 0:19:47.520 oh my god. I mean, it was like I just 0:19:47.840 --> 0:19:50.159 there was nothing else that could have been. And I 0:19:50.240 --> 0:19:53.080 think that's one of those moments in your life where 0:19:53.640 --> 0:19:56.280 it's like a before and after and you just go 0:19:56.400 --> 0:20:00.840 into this state of unreality. And I clicked over and 0:20:00.880 --> 0:20:05.720 my brother told me, just like that, Danny's going to die. 0:20:05.920 --> 0:20:09.800 And I can just remember people talk about out a 0:20:09.880 --> 0:20:13.199 body experience, and that is how it was, and this 0:20:13.280 --> 0:20:16.720 feeling of my mind refused to hold it, even though 0:20:16.800 --> 0:20:20.320 in some ways it was like your nightmare coming true 0:20:20.359 --> 0:20:24.679 and all those years of imagining it and like suddenly 0:20:24.720 --> 0:20:25.560 you're standing in it. 0:20:26.240 --> 0:20:27.160 And yeah. 0:20:27.240 --> 0:20:30.640 We talked for a few minutes, and I asked where 0:20:30.680 --> 0:20:35.360 my parents, like if they knew what had happened, And 0:20:35.960 --> 0:20:38.240 what I remember is just that he said. 0:20:38.080 --> 0:20:40.600 You got to convince them not to go there. 0:20:41.520 --> 0:20:43.840 At that time, he was at a halfway house and 0:20:43.920 --> 0:20:46.480 he actually was doing really well. He had a job 0:20:46.800 --> 0:20:50.600 and he was really optimistic and things were looking up. 0:20:51.840 --> 0:20:56.240 And he came home one day and greeted the guys 0:20:56.760 --> 0:20:59.359 that he lived with and said, I in it hanging 0:20:59.400 --> 0:21:02.959 to go upstairs and take a shower before dinner. And 0:21:03.000 --> 0:21:09.399 he went up and what the fireman said was, you know, 0:21:09.440 --> 0:21:12.840 he shared a bathroom and there was an aerosol can 0:21:13.320 --> 0:21:16.360 Deodora and Danny had always I mean, it was sort 0:21:16.400 --> 0:21:19.400 of poetic because he had always played with fire. He'd 0:21:19.440 --> 0:21:22.760 always been fascinated with that. It was something like we 0:21:22.880 --> 0:21:23.760 did as kids. 0:21:23.880 --> 0:21:25.320 We would use. 0:21:25.160 --> 0:21:28.720 Magnifying glasses in the sun and burn sticks with it. 0:21:28.880 --> 0:21:33.200 And then later on there was that Saint Elmo's Fire, 0:21:33.320 --> 0:21:38.400 that movie that you may remember where Rob Low sprays 0:21:38.600 --> 0:21:40.240 aerosol and then lights it. 0:21:40.560 --> 0:21:43.000 And so what happened was Danny was playing with. 0:21:42.920 --> 0:21:47.000 It and he lit it with a lighter and the 0:21:47.119 --> 0:21:50.359 cant exploded and because it was. 0:21:50.280 --> 0:21:52.760 A spray, it just exploded on him. 0:21:52.960 --> 0:21:57.040 And what the fireman said is that they didn't think 0:21:57.080 --> 0:21:59.399 it was a suicide. They didn't think he could have 0:21:59.480 --> 0:22:02.399 known that was going to happen. But I think that 0:22:02.600 --> 0:22:07.399 for us there was some comfort in that but I 0:22:07.400 --> 0:22:09.800 think there was also or I'll speak for myself, not 0:22:09.800 --> 0:22:12.080 my rest of my family. It was a feeling of like, 0:22:12.720 --> 0:22:15.080 I know that in some recess of his mind, and 0:22:15.119 --> 0:22:20.040 particularly since he had attempted taking his life before that, 0:22:20.160 --> 0:22:23.720 in some recess of his mind, that he was capable 0:22:23.760 --> 0:22:27.240 of that and certainly capable of tempting it, and I 0:22:27.240 --> 0:22:31.080 think had attempted it, and that day it was a calculation. 0:22:31.280 --> 0:22:35.320 I think he couldn't have known. But he was taken 0:22:36.080 --> 0:22:39.520 to the hospital and he said to the guys that 0:22:39.640 --> 0:22:42.880 were his housemates were out there with them, and he 0:22:42.920 --> 0:22:45.440 was still conscious, and he said, oh, hey, we'll see 0:22:45.440 --> 0:22:46.040 you guys later. 0:22:46.720 --> 0:22:49.120 He didn't think he was going to die. 0:22:49.600 --> 0:22:52.000 And I think that once he got to the hospital 0:22:52.000 --> 0:22:54.320 it was clear that the Barns were too severe to 0:22:54.400 --> 0:22:57.240 save him. 0:22:57.280 --> 0:23:02.200 Described to me the landscape of the family that you 0:23:02.240 --> 0:23:10.879 and Dave made together in those years following this staggering loss. 0:23:11.240 --> 0:23:17.480 So we had moved, we'd moved from Boston to San Francisco. 0:23:18.600 --> 0:23:22.760 Dave was doing a fellowship to be a doctor, a specialist, 0:23:23.119 --> 0:23:25.760 and it was supposed to be for a year, and 0:23:26.320 --> 0:23:31.560 Danny had died three years before, and it was before 0:23:31.600 --> 0:23:35.640 our daughter was born that he died, so our daughter Jesse. 0:23:36.640 --> 0:23:38.640 When we moved it was a year and a half, 0:23:39.800 --> 0:23:45.040 and I would say, for me the landscape, the feeling 0:23:45.160 --> 0:23:51.639 I had was I came to California giddy, Yes, so 0:23:51.880 --> 0:23:56.240 happy to be somewhere new, and happy to be somewhere 0:23:56.600 --> 0:24:02.560 exotic and foreign and beautiful. Most of all, happy to 0:24:02.640 --> 0:24:06.480 move to a place where no one knew about Danny 0:24:07.240 --> 0:24:12.960 or what had happened. And it was an amazing relief 0:24:13.240 --> 0:24:16.560 and joy to start our family, to grow our family there. 0:24:17.280 --> 0:24:21.280 And it's crazy because when I line my childhood up 0:24:21.320 --> 0:24:24.800 with our kids, it's so much the same. It was, 0:24:24.880 --> 0:24:29.480 though idyllic. We just had so much fun. Our son 0:24:29.600 --> 0:24:33.320 Sam was born three years later. We ended up staying. 0:24:33.760 --> 0:24:35.720 In part it was supposed to be for a year, 0:24:35.920 --> 0:24:39.800 but I think we ended up staying because life was 0:24:39.880 --> 0:24:44.240 so joyous there, and I'm sure no small measure, because 0:24:44.280 --> 0:24:50.000 it was light without history, without other family there as 0:24:50.000 --> 0:24:53.360 a reminder or as just a network. It was just 0:24:53.440 --> 0:24:56.640 like we were reinventing ourselves. But it was so much 0:24:56.680 --> 0:24:59.879 the same in the sense of what a loving and happy, 0:25:00.640 --> 0:25:05.240 an idyllic childhood our kids had and we had as 0:25:05.320 --> 0:25:07.320 new parents and young parents. 0:25:08.080 --> 0:25:09.119 That was a landscape. 0:25:09.119 --> 0:25:17.000 It was just a happy, safe, revelatory, light, beautiful life 0:25:17.080 --> 0:25:19.280 we created as a young family. 0:25:25.920 --> 0:25:29.920 Though Julie relishes in this revelatory and beautiful family life, 0:25:29.960 --> 0:25:33.920 she also runs up against feelings of despair, wondering if 0:25:33.960 --> 0:25:36.240 she did the right thing by choosing to stay home 0:25:36.280 --> 0:25:39.760 when her kids were born. She writes, I've been spearheading 0:25:39.800 --> 0:25:43.919 community projects, meeting with CEOs, sharing an events stage with 0:25:43.960 --> 0:25:47.719 Secretary of State Colon Powell, fielding questions from the press. 0:25:48.320 --> 0:25:51.080 And now now I sat cross legged in a circle 0:25:51.119 --> 0:25:54.040 of new mothers, singing, ring around the rosie, with a 0:25:54.119 --> 0:25:57.560 drooling baby on my lap. Now I was Jesse's mom, 0:25:58.040 --> 0:26:01.520 walking around with little cascades of dry vomit down my shirt. 0:26:01.960 --> 0:26:06.560 It was clear before I was many things. Executive director, writer, 0:26:06.760 --> 0:26:12.119 strategic partner, program developer, fundraiser, community leader. Now I was 0:26:12.200 --> 0:26:14.960 one thing. I lived in, a seven day a week 0:26:15.040 --> 0:26:19.680 world of sing songy, high pitched tones. Conversations were limited 0:26:19.720 --> 0:26:23.399