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Family Secrets is a production of I Heart

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Radio. Warning.

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This episode contains discussions of suicide.

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Listener discretion is advised. If

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you are a loved one is struggling with suicidal thoughts,

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please call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline.

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At I

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think I was old enough to think, not like, oh my god,

0:28

she lied to me. I can't believe she did that. But I

0:30

think I had the thought, well, there must be a reason she lied

0:32

about it. There must be a reason she didn't

0:34

want me to know. I think

0:36

I was worried about like upsetting her, or

0:39

I wouldn't say I was scared. I was more nervous

0:41

to say anything. So I just that's kind

0:43

of my m O, like nervous.

0:46

Sometimes if I'm scared or nervous to do something, I

0:49

just don't do it, or I put it off. I'd

0:51

procrastinate it. That's

0:56

Lindsay Romer. And this is

0:58

a story of a layer to see grit, the

1:00

kind that begins in childhood and moves through

1:03

life in various ways, sometimes

1:05

so subtle that we don't even know what's

1:07

happening. We just have a faint whiff

1:10

of something not quite adding up, not

1:13

quite making sense. And

1:16

as always when the secret is finally

1:19

spoken, fully revealed, Finally,

1:22

though it may be shocking, finally

1:24

we understand. I'm

1:38

Danny Shapiro, and this is family

1:40

secrets, the secrets that are kept from us,

1:43

the secrets we keep from others, and the

1:45

secrets we keep from ourselves. I

1:56

grew up in Baltimore County, Maryland,

2:00

was born there, and I

2:02

really have nothing but positive memories

2:05

of my childhood, even

2:07

with you know, my parents got divorced when

2:09

I was I think, maybe like three,

2:11

but I still everything. I think it's when

2:13

you're a child, you kind of see everything with

2:16

rose colored glasses. I guess that makes

2:18

sense. It was just kind of normal.

2:21

There were kids that I went to school with her that I

2:23

knew that seemed to have a whole lot of

2:25

things, things that they did in their lives,

2:28

sometimes like more than I guess what I felt

2:30

like I had. But I never felt like I was missing anything.

2:33

My mom was always very loving

2:35

and caring and

2:38

a cute little house in Baltimore County, and it

2:40

was me and my brother and

2:42

your brother is he's three years

2:44

younger than me. Do you have

2:46

memories of that

2:48

really early childhood time. I

2:51

know your father died when you were five.

2:53

Do you have memories

2:56

of him? He was

2:58

actually a magician. Um.

3:00

He used to, you know, do shows all over

3:03

the place and would always do my birthday parties.

3:05

And I just remember him as like a happy,

3:08

just kind of glowing, magical person. I

3:10

don't ever remember him seeming or being

3:12

sad or upset. Do you

3:14

have any memories of his performing

3:16

at your at your birthday parties? I

3:19

do. There's one in particular. It's just kind of like a

3:21

flash of a memory. Sitting in

3:23

front of the bay window at our old

3:25

house, and maybe it was

3:28

probably a small party, maybe I had like

3:30

seven or eight friends over, and

3:32

he did you know, it, was doing some magic tricks. And

3:35

it was this combination of so excited

3:37

and happy that he was performing for us, and also

3:39

like very proud, you know, thinking

3:41

like, oh my god, my friends must think this is so

3:43

cool. My dad's a magician. And maybe cool

3:45

wasn't the word I used, but oh my god, my dad's a

3:47

magician, Like this is kind of as

3:50

good as it gets for a tiny kid.

3:53

I remember being at one of his magic shows in

3:55

the theater, and I was either in the front

3:57

row or pretty close to the front row and I

4:00

had I remember these sun kissed

4:02

fruit snacks that my mom used to buy, and they

4:04

were a little little like pellet shaped

4:06

things, and I would wash them onto my fingernails and pretend

4:08

that I had pretty fancy lady

4:10

nails. And I remember watching one of his magic

4:13

shows while sitting doing that with my nails

4:15

in the audience. After my

4:17

parents separated, he had

4:19

um, you know, obviously his own place,

4:22

and it was just decorated with so much magic stuff.

4:25

I remember there was a slot machine that took dines,

4:27

and he would just have this unlimited

4:29

supply of dimes and would just let me play on that.

4:32

Did your mom work as well? She

4:35

did. She still has the same job she had. Um

4:37

Out of school, she went to Micah and she's

4:39

an interior designer. Tell

4:42

me a little bit more about your mother. My

4:45

mom, she's somebody I hold as

4:47

you know, Like I said, my brother is one of my best friends,

4:49

I hold my mom just as close. She's

4:52

someone over the years that I

4:56

have grown to develop just so

4:58

much respect for and how much

5:00

love. And I've always loved her. I've never there's never

5:02

a point in my life and I was like, you know, my Mom's

5:04

the meanest other than probably when I was going through puberty

5:07

and she told me I couldn't go to the movies

5:09

or something. But she

5:11

is someone that I now have two

5:14

step daughters that are nine and eleven, and

5:16

there's so many times that I will call her a text

5:18

her and be like, oh my god, one of them just did

5:20

something to me that really upset me or hurt my feelings.

5:23

And I know I did the same thing to you, and I'm so sorry,

5:25

And you know, this gives me this whole new level

5:28

of respect for her. I think is a parent. And

5:30

one thing that always stuck out to me is

5:33

when we were kids, you know, we weren't

5:36

wealthy by any means, but

5:38

she never, if you know, me and my brother would

5:41

ask for a million things as kids do, whether

5:43

we were at the grocery store, towards r US or

5:45

wherever, and she would never say we

5:47

can't afford that. She would just say we don't need that.

5:50

And that was something that looking back as an adult,

5:52

I think was just um a wise,

5:54

I guess way of saying that to us and

5:57

kind of helped me, I guess as I grew up as an adult

6:00

valuate you know, do I need this?

6:02

No, I don't need this. Maybe I just put it back on the shelf.

6:04

I shouldn't get it today. Right,

6:06

that's so interesting. So it wasn't coming

6:08

from a place of scarcity,

6:10

but from like a value judgment or

6:13

weighing what's necessary

6:16

or what we need and what we don't. M

6:18

hm. So

6:25

Lindsay's dad is a magician. Really,

6:28

this has got to be like hitting the parental jackpot.

6:31

Well, maybe astronaut or

6:34

owner of a candy factory. It's

6:36

been a couple of years since her parents marriage

6:39

ended. Her parents now share custody,

6:41

and Lindsay's father is supposed to be picking Lindsay

6:44

and her brother up for their time with him.

6:46

But on this particular night, he never

6:48

shows. It was

6:50

a Tuesday night and my mom was out

6:53

of town and my grandmother was staying with

6:55

us, and he just didn't

6:57

show up. But I remember like looking

6:59

out the window and it just got later and later

7:02

and later, and he just never arrived. My

7:04

grandmother and then she was like, you know, it's too late,

7:06

you guys have to go to bed. Let's just go to bed. And

7:10

the next day my mom came back from her

7:12

trip early. I

7:14

wasn't expecting her that early, and there were all these people

7:16

in our house and I couldn't find my mom.

7:19

They're just I kept being like, where's my mom, where's

7:21

my mom? And I remember people being leave your mother alone.

7:23

She'll she'll be down in a minute, and leave your mother alone.

7:26

But I just had this very vivid memory of

7:28

being in that house and just seeing, you know,

7:30

as short as I was at five years old, just seeing all

7:32

these legs everywhere. And then

7:34

I finally went up and found

7:36

her in her bedroom and she sat me

7:38

down and was like, I have to tell you something. Daddy

7:41

died in a car accident. And

7:44

I don't think at that age I really quite understood

7:47

what death was. We had

7:49

had a dog that died, but I don't think that was ever.

7:52

I knew the dog just wasn't coming back. She but just

7:54

wasn't coming back anymore. But I don't think I quite

7:57

understood. But I do remember sitting on her

7:59

bed and crying because I think I knew death

8:02

was like I knew she

8:04

been net wasn't coming back so then, and my dad wasn't

8:06

coming back. And

8:08

I'm assuming your brother wasn't there

8:11

for that conversation because he was too little. Oh

8:13

yeah, he was so little. I mean he was I

8:16

guess a little over

8:18

too. I don't know what kind of conversation

8:21

my mother had with him, or

8:23

how she said it or what she said, but I'm

8:25

sure something simple was communicated

8:27

to him.

8:32

So Lindsay grows up having been told that her

8:34

dad died in a car accident. She

8:37

was also told that the accident was due

8:39

to carbon monoxide poisoning. As

8:42

children, we tend to take what we're told at

8:44

face value, and yet at the

8:46

same time, if it doesn't make sense,

8:48

we puzzle over it, or we get

8:51

nervous about it. We can't quite let

8:53

it go. We create our own

8:55

narratives, as Lindsay does. Here,

8:58

remember asking, and my

9:00

mom said something along the lines of if he's stay

9:02

in your car for too long with the windows

9:04

rolled up, carbon monoxide can get

9:07

in your car and it can kill

9:09

you. So the way that was explained

9:11

to me, I didn't quite get it. So, like when I was

9:13

a kid, at red lights in the car, I

9:15

would crack my window a little bit because I was afraid

9:17

that would happen if we sat at a red light for too

9:19

long with our windows rolled on. Does

9:22

your mom me Mary? She did,

9:24

Yeah, when I was about ten, How

9:26

did you experience

9:29

loss of your father, Like, how did you internalize

9:32

it? And how did you think about

9:35

him as you were growing

9:37

up, as you got a little bit older, as

9:40

your mom remarried, as you got to middle

9:42

school, high school, how did

9:44

that sit inside of you? First

9:47

and foremost, I just I missed him,

9:50

But I think I always felt like I didn't know anybody

9:52

else to my age whose father had

9:54

died, So I guess it made me feel really left

9:57

out sometimes. Or if I would go to a friend's house

10:00

and see them, like, you know, their father hug them,

10:02

or their father be there at dinner, or their father take

10:04

them somewhere or take us somewhere, that was

10:07

always like a reminder I don't have that.

10:09

I don't have a my biological dad

10:12

here anymore. It wasn't

10:14

something I think I thought about twenty four

10:16

hours a day, but I would notice it in moments

10:18

like that, and it just made me feel kind of left out

10:20

or mothered, or it made

10:22

me feel sad. How

10:26

old are you when you learn

10:30

that there's more to the story than carbon

10:32

monoxide poisoning. As

10:34

I grew up, I would see

10:37

very sele sporadically, not often,

10:39

but once in a while I would see somebody

10:42

it portrayed in like a TV show or a movie where

10:44

somebody would get in their car and attach to you

10:46

know, regular car up so that that would

10:48

happen, and I remember thinking,

10:50

that's weird. And I remember hearing carbon

10:52

monoxide said out loud in at least one

10:55

or two of these shows or movies, and I was like, Oh,

10:57

that's weird. That guy did it on purpose.

10:59

I was told it was an accident of what happened

11:01

to my dad, that it wasn't on purpose. And

11:05

when I was in high school, my stepdad.

11:08

My stepdad has two brothers. One

11:10

it's awesome and we see him all the time at

11:13

holidays and whenever our families get together. And the

11:15

other one, I think has struggled with

11:17

mental illness his whole life, and

11:20

he would do odd things. And there

11:22

was one time when I was in high school and he called our

11:24

house and I answered that I happened to

11:26

be the one to answer the phone, and

11:29

you know, maybe we had call her. I d then, I

11:31

don't know, it was like the house phone and

11:34

I just said hello, and he said Lindsay why did your dad

11:36

kill himself? And I was like, okay,

11:39

Mom, Jack's on the phone, like,

11:41

what what is this? You know?

11:44

She took the phone and I guess they had their conversation,

11:46

and then when she hung up, I told her what he said,

11:49

and she said, oh, he's crazy. Don't listen to him. That's

11:51

not true. I was like, Okay,

11:54

he had done some had

11:56

some kind of erratic and odd behavior in the past,

11:58

so I didn't think to like question

12:01

um what she said. And then when

12:03

I was I was like twenty two or

12:05

twenty three, I had gotten accepted

12:07

into an AmeriCorps program. We're

12:10

just kind of like Peace Corps, but in America, and

12:13

I needed my birth certificate or

12:15

a copy of my birth certificate for it.

12:17

And I was always I'm embarrassed

12:19

to admit that I was such a snoop when I was

12:21

a kid. It's always like going through stuff

12:23

in my house that was not mine. But

12:26

this wasn't even like intentional snooping.

12:28

I really I knew we had this file cabinet in the

12:30

basement that had documents in it, and

12:33

I don't know if my mom wasn't home or if I just didn't

12:35

want to bother her and I went looking for

12:37

my birth certificate and I found my dad's

12:39

death certificate, and I remember it was a

12:41

plain, simple piece of paper and

12:44

there were different options like natural

12:47

causes illness, a

12:49

few other things in suicide, and I just remember

12:52

there's a big typewriter looking

12:54

X next to suicide, and

12:56

I was like, whoa it.

12:59

You know, was the first time I guess it was really

13:02

confirmed for me. And I

13:04

think in the back of my mind, I think

13:06

I knew that's what it was, even though my mom

13:08

told me it wasn't. It was based

13:10

on those depictions that I had seen in TV shows

13:12

and movies, and I think I just didn't want

13:14

to really accept that as

13:17

the truth. And then I didn't really have a choice but

13:19

to accept it when I saw it on the paper.

13:23

You know, it's so interesting when you when you bring up

13:25

snooping, because that's such a

13:28

theme, was people who

13:30

have had secrets kept from them.

13:32

I think we so often become

13:36

these little slews

13:38

or snoops, you know, without

13:42

having any idea why, but

13:44

it becomes this like little obsessive behavior.

13:48

It was kind of it's funny that you said that it was sound

13:50

was like a little private investigator. Yeah,

13:53

I guess that now here you say that that makes

13:55

a lot of sense to me. I don't think I could

13:57

have put into words before. I think I think

13:59

I was thought I was just like a rude little kid. It's

14:02

like, I'm going to find some things out that I'm probably

14:04

not sopposed too. If

14:07

you can call it back to mind, what did

14:09

it feel like that moment that

14:11

you saw that X next to suicide. I

14:15

think physically the feeling I felt

14:17

was like my stomach dropped. But then

14:19

in my mind I almost said to myself, Duck,

14:22

you've known this. Jack said it, You've

14:24

seen this in movies. You just weren't letting

14:26

the puzzle pieces all get

14:28

pushed together in the right arrangement.

14:31

I think I kind of didn't want to believe

14:33

it, so I didn't believe it, but then I

14:37

had to when I found that paper. We'll

14:44

be back in a moment with more family secrets

14:54

now. Lindsay knows unequivocally

14:56

that her mother has actively kept from her

14:59

the fact of her other suicide. She

15:01

had directly asked, and her mother had said,

15:04

and I quote, no, no, that didn't

15:06

happen. She sits on this

15:08

information for a little while wrestling

15:10

with it privately. She also doesn't

15:12

want to cause her mother pain. Sometimes

15:15

it's easier not to say anything at all.

15:22

I think I was old enough to think, not like, oh my god,

15:24

she lied to me. I can't believe she did that, But I

15:26

think I had the thought, well, there must be a reason she lied

15:28

about it. There must be a reason she didn't want

15:30

me to know. I think I was worried

15:33

about like upsetting her, or I

15:35

wouldn't say I was scared. I was more nervous

15:37

to say anything. So I just that's kind

15:39

of my m O, like nervous.

15:42

Sometimes if I'm scared or nervous to do something, I

15:44

just don't do it, or I put it off, or I procrastinate

15:46

it. So it wasn't until a couple

15:48

of months later when I was actually away.

15:51

I was in Denver, Colorado,

15:53

at a training for my Americorp program,

15:56

and one night, I'm really not sure what inspired

15:59

me to do it, I just called her. I just

16:01

was like, I'm going to do this now. And I called her and

16:04

told her what I found. And I just remember

16:06

hearing this, not an

16:08

angry sigh, not a sad sigh,

16:11

just a I don't know if it was relief

16:13

or if it was worried or if I don't know what

16:15

it was, but she just kind of sighed

16:18

and said, yeah, yeah, that's

16:20

what happened. And I remember asking

16:22

her, like, you know, why didn't you tell me? And

16:26

her response was just, you know, when

16:29

should I have? There never was a right time.

16:31

Just I didn't know how to tell a five year old little

16:33

girl that, and when do I

16:35

do it when you're ten, when you're fifteen, eighteen

16:37

twenty one. There never was a right

16:39

time, and I just never knew when to drop that bomb.

16:42

And you know, I was like, I get that, that's

16:44

kind of a nice kind of the way I operate. If I'm scared

16:47

or I don't know how, I just don't do it. I

16:50

think I remember being a little bit like you lied to

16:52

me? Why you lied to me? And

16:54

I think her response was just kind of I panicked.

16:56

You know, I didn't expect Jack to call and say anything

16:59

like that to you. That's not you know, if you ever were to know,

17:01

that's not the way I wanted you didn't find out. I

17:04

wasn't mad or anything, but I

17:06

was grateful that we had that conversation and that

17:08

she did open up about it, And

17:11

did she give

17:13

you any sense of the

17:16

reason for or the motivation

17:18

behind your father's suicide.

17:21

Did she talk about his

17:24

being in any way unstable or mentally

17:26

ill or depressed? Not

17:29

really. It was kind of like my whole

17:31

life. She didn't speak highly

17:33

of him, but she also didn't speak poorly of him.

17:35

She just didn't really speak about him much

17:38

at all. And I noticed, you

17:40

know, throughout my life if I had a question about

17:42

him, where I brought him up, it almost

17:44

seemed like she kind of like winced or like her

17:46

body tense stuff. And that communicated

17:49

to me like maybe I shouldn't bring

17:52

him up too often because it just seemed like uncomfortable

17:56

or maybe painful for her. She

17:58

just said, and that conversation when I was in

18:00

Denver just that he was very

18:03

he was very depressed. He was having

18:05

on her time. But she really

18:07

didn't give me any kind of details

18:09

about anything, you know. It's it's

18:11

also so interesting I think when

18:15

as children or in

18:17

families, when we sense that a subject

18:20

is painful or

18:22

off limits, or you know, you describe

18:25

your mother as wincing, that serves

18:27

to keep

18:29

us quiet. It serves to

18:32

you know, like, not want to cause pain,

18:34

not want to rock the boat in any way.

18:37

I think it too was like my mother. I've always just

18:39

seen her as perfect and strong, and

18:41

I didn't want to do anything to make

18:44

her not feel like that or upset her, don't make

18:46

her feel sad. Lindsey

18:54

grows up to be a successful adult with a

18:56

great job. She has the whole

18:58

story. She knows all there is

19:00

to know about how she lost her father. She's

19:02

moved on. If you were to come across

19:05

her Facebook page, you'd see whatever

19:07

she had made public on social media, perhaps

19:09

a few photos and posts, the

19:12

information that you worked for a nonprofit and

19:14

it graduated from Villanova. You

19:17

know, so many family secret stories

19:19

would not have come to light if not for social

19:22

media, and what you're about to hear next

19:24

is one of them.

19:28

Yeah, I think with my early thirties, I've got the Facebook

19:30

message from a man named Brian

19:33

um Because, a very handsome older

19:36

man with gray hair and like a gray goatee,

19:39

And this message said I

19:41

knew your dad and I knew your grandmother. We

19:44

were friends. It looks like you live a really great

19:46

life right now. I think your dad would be very happy

19:49

to see that, and when I first

19:51

read it, it caught me off guard because

19:53

that my father just wasn't spoken of

19:55

often really, even between my brother and I that much.

19:58

UM and we didn't see my father there's

20:00

side of the family very often either, So

20:02

it just wasn't a topic that came up a lot. I thought

20:04

about it a lot, but it wasn't something that was

20:06

like spoken about a lot. So to have this, you know,

20:10

essentially a stranger send me this message, you

20:12

know, part of it was just it just really caught me off guard,

20:15

and I didn't really know how to respond

20:17

to it, so I didn't. And then

20:19

I asked my mom about

20:21

the name, and she said, yeah,

20:24

you don't really have to respond to that person, like you didn't

20:27

show any kind of emotion in her face, didn't

20:29

just was like, ah, yeah, that might have been

20:31

someone from your day's pass and now you don't have to respond

20:33

to him. I was like, all right, So

20:36

your mother says, no need to get

20:38

back to him, so that door gets closed.

20:41

And then what happens, Well,

20:43

I guess fast forward maybe like five

20:45

six, seven years, and generally

20:48

the education and training programs

20:50

that I do are around Baltimore City,

20:53

UM in Baltimore County. But one of my co

20:55

workers who lives on the eastern shore

20:57

of Maryland and she you know, does education

20:59

around there. She was out

21:01

on medical weave and she had this

21:04

class that she did at facility

21:07

in Delaware that supports folks who

21:09

are in recovery from drives and alcohol. And

21:12

my supervisor was like, hey, listen, I know this

21:14

is super far away. It's just once a month.

21:16

Can you cover these until your coworkers

21:18

out of medical agnostic? Sure, no problem. And

21:21

I had just started to get into listening to podcasts,

21:23

and I was like, amazing, I've got like a two

21:25

plus hour drive, you know,

21:27

five probably five hours round trip. I was in my car

21:29

that day and I think that around

21:32

the times when I stumbled on your

21:34

podcast Family Secrets, and

21:37

I found myself so immersed

21:40

into the episodes and

21:42

they made the drive feel like it was twenty minutes.

21:45

And I remember pulling up to the facility on the

21:47

first class that I did there, and I was like,

21:49

I wish I wish the driver longer. Um,

21:53

you know, totally enjoyed my class with them, and

21:55

then I was really excited to get back in the car

21:57

and listen to more and I found myself

21:59

really eating with a lot of the guests that you had,

22:01

and I thought to myself, Wow, we had

22:04

a family secret, but I already figured mine

22:06

out, you know, finding my father's death

22:08

certificate. And it started to

22:10

make me think, as I heard some

22:12

of your guests say, sometimes when they

22:14

found out the secret that was within their family, the

22:17

secret keepers had had passed away and

22:19

they were not able to ask

22:21

the questions to those people that they wanted to

22:23

ask. And I'm almost

22:25

finished your book, Dannos, like six

22:27

pages left. I was soping to have it's on before

22:30

I got on the call with you today, but I

22:32

noticed that it sounded like that was something

22:34

for you too. I think that you wish you had been able

22:36

to ask your parents about your

22:39

family secret. So I thought to myself,

22:41

you know, my mom doesn't love to talk about

22:43

my father that much. So I really need to

22:45

start reaching out to people that

22:48

I know and find out some more stories,

22:50

because if I don't find these out, they're gonna

22:52

leave this earth with the people that know them.

22:55

Lindsay is right. That was such a fear

22:58

and preoccupation of mine as well. When

23:00

I first discovered my family's secret. My

23:03

parents were gone, and they had taken it to the grave

23:05

with them, but there was a great sense

23:07

of urgency to identify and find those

23:09

who were still living and might still

23:11

know something. Those people started

23:14

to rise to the surface of my consciousness as

23:16

if they had been there all along, just waiting

23:18

in line for

23:21

some reason. And this message from Brian, like, I never

23:23

forgot about it, I never deleted it,

23:25

but it came back to my mind once in a while, and it

23:28

certainly came back to my mind in those spots,

23:30

and I thought to myself, I should really respond to them.

23:32

I wonder, you know, how he knew my dad

23:34

or what kinds of stories he could tell. So

23:37

I responded to him, and he wrote me back

23:39

almost immediately, and

23:42

I think accidentally tried to call me on

23:44

Facebook audio and remember seeing

23:46

my phone ring, and I was like, oh God, no, I should

23:48

have done this. Look, oh, I don't

23:50

know if I wanted. I'm not ready to speak at what's

23:52

happening. I think the message I wrote him

23:54

was something along those lines and not with

23:57

much detail, but you know, I just wanted to reach out and

23:59

see if you I'd be willing to speak with me on the

24:01

phone. I would love to hear some stories about my father,

24:04

and he was very willing to do that, and so

24:06

we set up a date to talk. And

24:08

it was a date. I think I did this on purpose because

24:11

I was meeting some friends for brunch

24:13

and the place where we meeting was about four minutes

24:15

away from where I lived. So I

24:17

made this date to call him on

24:20

my way out there. And I

24:22

don't want to say anxious was what I felt, but

24:24

it was like when, oh my god, that's gonna happen. What it's going to

24:26

be? And when I called him,

24:29

he sounded kind of slightly out of breath a

24:31

little bit, and I kind of

24:33

gave him like the background that I just gave you,

24:35

you know what prompted me to finally respond to the

24:37

message. He's okay, and you

24:39

know, asked me a few questions about, you

24:42

know, what did you know about your mom and dad's relationship

24:44

and what did you know about your dad? And

24:47

I kind of was like, why is he asking you? I

24:49

just wanted to hear some stories, and

24:52

he, you know, said okay, okay, and he

24:54

said, well, your dad was gay

24:56

and he and I had an affair. And

25:01

there it is the secret that had been lurking

25:03

beneath the secret, the first secret

25:06

suicide, the second secret,

25:09

Lindsay's father's sexuality,

25:11

and then there's more. And

25:13

I said, what did you say? And he repeated

25:16

himself and I was like wow, He goes, did you have

25:18

any idea? And I said, nope, now I didn't.

25:21

He went on to tell

25:23

me all sorts of stories about how they

25:25

met, and there were some

25:28

things that were very heartwarming. There

25:30

were some things that were also

25:32

kind of upsetting and scary, and I

25:34

think gave me a little bit more of

25:37

you into my father's

25:39

mental health. I

25:42

would imagine that being five years old and losing

25:45

your father, one has

25:47

lost someone that one has never really gotten

25:50

to know in a way except

25:52

for these flashes and these childhood

25:54

memories. And so now you're getting

25:57

this avalanche of information,

25:59

right, Yeah, that's agree

26:01

way of saying it. It did feel kind of like an avalanche,

26:03

and it wasn't an unwelcomed avalanche. It

26:05

was like, I was kind of like, wow, Okay,

26:08

this is giving me a much broader picture

26:11

of who my dad was,

26:13

and you know, what he felt like and what he

26:15

went through. And after

26:18

speaking with Brian and you know, I reached

26:20

out to a few other people, and they all said similar things

26:23

that he I don't know that he was ever diagnosed,

26:25

but that he had bipolar disorder.

26:28

I never saw the depressive states,

26:30

I think. I don't know if I saw nannic

26:32

states or if I saw, you know, what he wanted

26:35

me to see or what I wanted to see maybe for that

26:37

matter. But one of the first things

26:39

he said was your father was the most charming

26:41

and charismatic person I've ever met. And he

26:43

said when they met, they had this just instant

26:46

connection. You know, they met, sat in

26:48

his car and talked for like three hours getting

26:51

to know each other. And how did they meet.

26:54

They met at a gym. I didn't ask

26:56

too much too many details on like you know, how

26:59

that interaction or who walked up to who, or how

27:01

that went down, But I guess

27:03

what I pictures. They saw each other and kind

27:05

of their eyes locked and went towards each

27:07

other and just started chatting. But

27:10

of course, even as this beautiful love story

27:12

is playing out, someone is suffering

27:15

terribly because of it, Lindsay's

27:17

mother. That's

27:21

what I think was extremely hurtful

27:23

for my mother is that she didn't know about his

27:26

sexuality and he

27:28

was cheating on my mom with this person. And

27:30

I think after speaking to several

27:33

family members and Brian and eventually

27:35

my mother. You know, it was the eighties,

27:37

and I think he was struggling with his sexuality

27:40

and he was suppressing who he knew

27:42

he was because I think he wanted to have

27:44

this kind of stereotypical life of

27:46

a wife and kids and you know, white picket

27:48

fence. I don't think he necessarily felt

27:50

that in his heart was a pent who he

27:52

was, and that, combined with his mental

27:54

illness, made his internal

27:57

struggle really, really, really difficult. From

28:00

off. I

28:03

think it was hard for him to just come out and be out

28:05

and be who he was, and this was

28:08

what the

28:10

world was extremely homophobic, I

28:12

think back then compared to two thousand

28:15

twenty, when I think folks are a lot more accepting

28:18

than they were, you know, fourty years ago. Did

28:22

his affair, your father's

28:24

affair with Brian have something to

28:26

do with your parents

28:28

divorce? It did?

28:30

Yeah, it was only a couple of

28:33

weeks ago. I finally talked to my mom

28:35

about everything, and I think I was

28:37

kind of trying to gather my facts and

28:39

find my information before I talked

28:41

to her. It was another thing.

28:43

I was just nervous to talk to her about it. We'll

28:49

be right back. A

29:03

long time elapses between the time Lindsay

29:06

reaches out to Brian and learns

29:08

more of the truth about her father and when

29:10

she decides to actually tell her mother what she's

29:12

discovered. A phrase comes

29:14

up. It was never the right

29:16

time. This, you

29:19

might remember, is what Lindsay's own mother had

29:21

told Lindsay about why she never revealed

29:23

her father's suicide. It was

29:25

never the right time. This

29:28

is true of so many families and

29:30

so many secrets. We

29:32

wait, We think that the stars will align,

29:35

that there will be a perfect moment, but

29:37

there never is. I'm

29:41

embarrassed to say it's almost a year and not

29:43

quite but almost a year, maybe about ten months.

29:46

I guess I was nervous. I was afraid of upsetting

29:48

her. I'm so close to her. I hold

29:50

her as like one of my best friends. She's somebody I feel

29:53

very lucky to have that relationship with her, and

29:55

I can talk to her about just about anything.

29:58

But I was really nervous to talk to

30:00

to her about this. I

30:03

think I was afraid of retraumatizing her

30:06

and making her like rehash all

30:08

this. The assumption that I made

30:10

was that this must have been so difficult

30:13

for her to deal with when she found out about his

30:15

affair that she just kind of tucked

30:17

it away in a little box and put it in a closet

30:19

and was like, I'm never going back there again. So

30:21

I was kind of afraid to reopen

30:24

that box for her. And

30:27

the timing was never right. It's like, if I tell her right away,

30:29

I'm going to ruin that. That could ruin that vacation, and

30:31

then all the holidays are coming up. It's going to

30:34

ruin the holidays. And then we

30:36

had a trip that we were my husband and I. My husband's

30:38

family lived with parents I should say live in Florida,

30:41

and he and I and my mom and stepdad

30:43

were going down there for like a long weekend in

30:45

February. And I was like, I was gonna ruin that trip.

30:48

And I was St Patrick's

30:50

weekend. My mom and I were supposed to go up

30:52

to New York to stay with her sister for

30:54

the weekend. It's kind of like a little

30:56

tradition we started, I guess a year ago, and

31:00

you know, to see a show and TUF dinner and

31:02

do New Yorkie things, and we

31:05

had to cancel the trip because of Corona, and

31:08

my plan was to talk to her on the train ride

31:10

home because I was like, oh, we'll have at least three

31:12

hours alone together. That's

31:15

going to be the time that I do it. And then we had to cancel

31:17

the trip and I was like, oh my god,

31:20

we're all quarantined. When am I going to have

31:22

this conversation? Because it was really important

31:24

to me to do it in person. I just felt

31:26

like it would be unkind or

31:28

rude or or mean even to

31:30

just do it over the phone. Um. I

31:32

really wanted to be able to do it in person. And

31:35

then I think when I

31:37

finally got the email from

31:39

your producer to set up a date

31:41

for this call, well, now,

31:44

my my taker, my time is counting down.

31:46

I have to do this before I have this call. Nothing

31:49

like a deadline, right right, Because

31:51

I really didn't feel comfortable

31:54

recording this episode without like speaking

31:56

to her first and making sure that she was okay with

31:58

it, because I guess I kind of that it is this

32:00

is not just my story, this is her

32:02

story. This didn't happen to me, This happened to her,

32:05

or you know, happened to us. One of the

32:07

hot topics that I teach and train about his consent

32:09

and I wanted to make sure that I had her consent

32:12

before I did this. And how

32:14

did she respond? She

32:16

was very surprised. The only

32:18

time I've been out to a restaurant during all

32:20

of the social distancing and its outdoor

32:23

seating, we were the only people there, so it's very

32:25

safe. We went to Lebanese to vernon,

32:27

which is delicious. And she had I

32:29

think, like a chicken swarm, a wrap in one hand and her

32:31

fork in the other hand. And I

32:33

said, I need to talk to you about something. And I saw her

32:35

face kind of drop, as I'm sure any mother would

32:37

when their daughter says that. It's like, oh my gosh, what's going

32:40

to come out of my child's face right now? And

32:43

I gave all these qualifiers, like I was

32:45

nervous to bring this up, and I wasn't sure how to

32:47

do it. I don't want to upset you. I'm

32:49

afraid Joe be mad at me. And

32:52

I talked to a man named Brian. She

32:54

dropped her wrap and she dropped her fork and went, oh

32:57

really, I

32:59

would both had sunglasses on, but she almost

33:01

looked like scared, and that made

33:04

me feel awful because I didn't,

33:07

you know, I didn't want upset or I didn't want to make her mad.

33:10

Kind of jumped in and said, I

33:12

can't imagine what that must have been like for you.

33:14

I'm so sorry that happened to you. You

33:17

didn't deserve it. And I was just wondering if

33:19

we could talk about it, and she kind of like

33:21

I could see her relaxed slightly, and

33:23

then she kind of dropped her guard and really

33:26

just kind of shared everything.

33:29

It sounded like with me with what happened.

33:33

Do you think maybe after

33:37

holding that for so many years

33:40

that there was some relief? Well,

33:43

I asked her that, I mean it turned into a three

33:45

hour lunch and I

33:47

said, towards the end, how are you feeling? How do you feel?

33:49

Do you feel relieved? And she said

33:52

kind of, I feel like I should feel relieved,

33:54

but I don't fully feel that. And I

33:56

was like, oh, no, maybe I shouldn't

33:58

have done this, and she went on to say,

34:01

I don't know if I feel relieved because I don't really

34:03

think about this much anymore. She said,

34:05

I've done a lot of work on myself, and

34:08

I think I've moved past it to the point

34:10

where I don't really think about it much anymore.

34:14

What happened with Brian, You've

34:16

had a you know, an ongoing connection

34:18

with him.

34:21

I think he in

34:23

fact, I was able to share some stories

34:26

and give some insight

34:28

onto who my father was and

34:30

what he was like that I don't know that I would have found

34:32

out otherwise. After I had

34:34

that initial conversation with him,

34:36

I then was like, you know, immediately reached out

34:38

to my brother and he was just kind of what

34:42

what our father to

34:44

my brother was kind of almost like this phantom

34:46

person that he doesn't really remember. And

34:50

after I spoke with him, I reached out

34:52

to my dad's sister and

34:55

we set up a time to speak. And

34:57

I really wish that some of these conversations I

34:59

had had in person, because I kind

35:01

of wanted to see their facial expressions. But I

35:04

was so nervous for all these different conversations with people,

35:07

and come to find out, they were expecting me

35:09

to ask this. So I called my dad's

35:11

sister, you know, so such this time to speak, and

35:13

I again because I was nervous, you know, gave

35:16

all this beginning. So I had a minute,

35:18

you know, kind of doing some finding

35:21

some stories and I told

35:23

her what I found out and she said, Lindsay, I've been waiting

35:25

over thirty years for you to ask me about this, and

35:28

she, you know, shared a whole lot. And then I called

35:30

my godfather, who was good friends with my father,

35:32

and he said something similar. And

35:35

I told my brother about all this, and he said, do you think

35:37

we're the only people in the family that I don't

35:39

know? And I was like, Wow, that

35:41

hadn't occurred to me, but yeah, I think you might be right.

35:45

And my brother was working

35:48

for about six weeks in Fort Lauderdale,

35:50

Florida, and Brian lives in Florida,

35:53

not far from where MITI was working. And

35:56

I'm not sure which one of them got in touch with

35:58

each other first, but and I'm not

36:00

sure who proposed the idea, but they decided

36:02

to meet up in person. And

36:05

MITCHI called me and told me that, and I said, do you

36:07

want me to book a ticket and come with you? And

36:09

he was, this is a really big deal. I said,

36:12

I know, Do you want me to book a ticket and come down?

36:14

And he goes, this is a really big deal and he said, okay,

36:16

I'll book you think getting come down so

36:20

his wife and I flew down and

36:22

we met up with Brian for

36:24

lunch the next day. And

36:27

you know, I shared all of this with my mom. I told

36:29

her everything at the lunch that we had, and

36:32

I think it was hurtful for

36:34

her to hear that. Mitchell and

36:36

I went and met this man that our

36:38

father had an affair on her with. But

36:40

he was so open and so honest and shared

36:43

so many stories. But you know, good and bad.

36:48

Remember, Lindsay's father was a

36:50

magician, and as a magician,

36:52

he had certain tools of his trade, white

36:55

doves and a white rabbit he used

36:57

in his shows. Ryan tells

36:59

Lindsay a story that must have been terribly hard

37:01

to hear about an argument that two of them

37:03

had at one point, one that illustrates

37:06

just how much mental anguish Lindsay's dad

37:08

must have been dealing with. He

37:11

was so angry that he picked up

37:14

his rabbit and he threw it against the wall

37:16

and killed it. I

37:18

don't say that to speak poorly at my father,

37:20

to make him sound like a scary monster person,

37:23

but that was his mental illness acting

37:25

out and making him make that choice. So

37:28

Brian shared things like that with us, but he also

37:30

shared, you know, like your father was so charismatic

37:33

and everyone loved him.

37:35

And Brian even went on to tell us that he

37:37

was actually in a relationship with somebody with

37:40

a man when he met our father,

37:43

and you know, it was also having

37:45

kind of an affair of his own. But Brian said,

37:47

if this speaks anything to the charisma that your father

37:49

had, said, my partner

37:52

even got to be friends with your dad, like your

37:54

dad even won him over, And I was like, wow, and

37:59

it's just kind of surreal. It

38:02

was a meeting that was a

38:04

story I never thought I would hear. I

38:06

feel guilty saying this because I know my mom would

38:08

not like to hear me say this, but I'm grateful for the experience

38:11

and it was just, I

38:13

guess, kind of a beautiful thing to meet somebody

38:16

who knew our dad on such a deep level.

38:19

How do you think that knowing

38:24

all this now impact

38:27

too? Are you glad? You know? I

38:30

am glad. I know I think all

38:32

of the processing and talked

38:34

to some of my friends about the story and my husband, my

38:36

brother. I'm glad that I know.

38:39

And several people have said to me like, are you mad at

38:41

your mom for not telling you? And I said, I'm not

38:43

mad at her at all. I have nothing but admiration,

38:46

if not, you know, more than I had before that she

38:48

went through this, and she gave me her

38:51

version of things. She

38:54

had no idea that anything like this

38:56

was going on. My dad often would say he

38:58

was working late and then would moment

39:00

like three o'clock in the morning, or you

39:02

know, he wouldn't come home at all. She would

39:04

call a hospitals and I seem an accident

39:06

like what happened. She said. He

39:08

took her to see a play and the plot

39:11

of the play was about a man

39:13

and a woman that were married, and the man was

39:15

gay and cheating on her with other men. And

39:18

she said it was at that play that she was like, oh

39:20

my god, oh my god, oh

39:22

my god, this is what's happening in my marriage.

39:24

And she maybe this is where

39:26

I got my private investigation skills from. But she

39:29

she did some snooping up her own and found some

39:31

some things that confirmed us for her, and confronted

39:33

him and said, I want to divorce. I know what's

39:36

going on. This is this relationship

39:38

will go no further. And I

39:41

think just the way

39:43

that she raised us, she didn't she could

39:45

have just bashed him every day to

39:47

us. If she wanted to, she could have put

39:50

awful visions of our father in our heads.

39:52

And she didn't. You know, she just didn't speak about

39:54

it much at all. And she picked herself

39:56

up and she kept going, which

39:58

I think must have been so to be hard to have two

40:00

tiny children and then have your

40:03

husband cheating on you, and

40:06

you know, I have no idea what's going on, and then it's

40:09

I just I can't imagine what that must have been like for her,

40:11

and to have to make that choice of no, we're done, we

40:13

will be no longer. But she just kept

40:16

going. And I told her when we had lunch,

40:18

I said, I have so much admiration for you. You're

40:20

so strong. You could have started

40:22

drinking, you could have started doing drugs, you could

40:24

have done a million things to cope with this. But

40:26

you just got up every day. You got us

40:29

up, every day, you took care of us, you went to work.

40:31

I had no idea that my mom ever went

40:33

through anything like this. There

40:36

were no clues, there were no mutterings

40:39

or utterings of anything along these

40:41

lines. So I said that to her, and she

40:43

said, well, what else was I going to do? I had two

40:46

kids. I needed to focus on the good and I needed

40:48

to move forward and make sure

40:50

you guys were taken care of and

40:52

and raise well. The

40:55

homophobia of the era also played

40:57

a significant part in Lindsay's mom's

40:59

decision not to tell her kids the truth,

41:02

and Lindsay's understanding of the choices her

41:04

mother made and her reasons for them have

41:06

brought the two of them even closer together. So

41:09

ultimately, this is a story that contains

41:12

tragedy, sorrow, secrecy,

41:14

and loss, but also a

41:17

deepening love between a mother

41:19

and a daughter. I

41:21

said to her, why didn't

41:23

you tell us? And I was kind of expecting the same

41:25

answer, as you know, there never was a right time,

41:28

and that's part of what she said. But she also said

41:31

she was worried about telling us the whole

41:33

truth because she was afraid that we would

41:35

get bullied because people were

41:37

not accepting of folks

41:39

in the LGBTQ community then.

41:42

And I was like, wow, that never occurred to me as

41:44

as a reason for why she wouldn't have told us.

41:47

And then I think as time moved forward,

41:49

it was kind of again like when's the right time? How

41:51

do I share this with them? And if she had told

41:53

us when we were kids, we probably would have just accosted her

41:55

every day with like a million and one questions,

41:58

kind of making her relive all

42:00

of this over and over and over again. So I think

42:02

it was a combination of trying to protect us and also

42:04

trying to protect yourself. That

42:07

makes me think of another kind of thematic

42:10

family secrets thing that runs through a

42:12

lot of stories, which is that what

42:14

we find out and when we

42:17

find it out, I have a lot to do

42:19

with how we're going to be able to process or

42:21

how a family is able to process a

42:23

secret having been kept, and that this

42:26

is a secret that came out in the fullness of time,

42:28

kind of when everybody could handle

42:30

everything about it. Yeah,

42:33

that's definitely how I've looked at it, Like I'm grateful

42:35

to to have found out when I did, because I think I'm

42:38

enough of an adult to be able to process

42:41

that in a healthy and normal

42:43

way. I don't know how I would have processed that if I found it when

42:45

I was five, when I was ten, when I was fifteen, you know,

42:47

I don't know how my brain would have handled that. The

42:50

one other thing that occurs to me is, as you're talking about

42:53

your mother is that this is actually

42:55

I mean your your love for her mother is so clear, and

42:58

your respect for her. This is

43:01

a way of actually knowing

43:04

her better and having even more dimensionality

43:07

to her for you. Yeah,

43:09

I think knowing all this and also finally hearing

43:12

her version of everything, it just

43:14

makes me want to cuddle her up and hug her forever.

43:17

You know, when you think you can't love a person more

43:20

and then you find you do. I guess that's kind of

43:22

my reaction to it. And I know it's

43:24

weird for me to say I'm proud of her, but I

43:26

am proud of her. I think for like

43:29

I said earlier, getting up every

43:31

day and keeping a routine and

43:34

raising her kids with love and kindness and

43:37

moving forward in her life. Everybody

43:40

has their own different version of the story and

43:42

different kind of interactions with each other. But

43:45

yeah, I think it gave us kind of a new maybe

43:47

moved us to like a new level in our relationship

43:49

where we can talk to each other about

43:51

this. And it really felt like it

43:54

almost felt like when she when we were at lunch and she was telling

43:56

me everything. We were friends like. It wasn't a daughter

43:58

mother dynamic. It was if we were friends, and

44:01

feeling that didn't make me feel

44:04

nervous or panic to kind of made me feel even

44:06

closer to her that we have not only a mother

44:08

daughter relationship, but also a really strong foundation

44:11

of friendship. Family

44:28

Secrets is an i Heeart Media production. Dylan

44:31

Fagan is the supervising producer and

44:33

Bethan Mcaluso is the executive producer.

44:36

We'd also like to give a special thanks to Tyler

44:39

Klang and Tristan McNeil. If

44:41

you have a family secret you'd like to share, leave

44:44

us a voicemail and your story could appear

44:46

on an upcoming episode. Our number

44:49

is one eight eight secret zero.

44:52

That's secret and then the number zero.

44:55

You can also find us on Instagram

44:57

at Danny Ryder and face

45:00

book at facebook dot com

45:02

slash Family Secrets Pot, and

45:04

Twitter at fami secrets Pot. For

45:21

more podcasts for My Heart Radio, visit the

45:23

i Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or

45:25

wherever you listen to your favorite shows.