It can feel easier to leave things unspoken than to find the right words to explain ourselves. But sooner or later, the things we keep from each other can come to define our relationships. This edition of Modern Love features a playlist of three of our favorite episodes about secrets, read by Danielle Brooks, Cynthia Nixon, and Uma Thurman.
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
Modern love. The podcast is supported by.
produced by the island at W B. You are
the.
Oh the from the New York Times and W B- U R Boston. This is modern. The stories of love loss and redemption. I'm your host magnetron puberty, the modern love will be back with brand new episodes. In two weeks
Today, we're bringing you some of our favorite past episodes we put together
a playlist, featuring three stories about the secrets that can define a relationship, starting with
Essay by Amelia blend Kara about a secret. Her father tried to keep
Daniel Brooks, is best known as tasty. On the Netflix Series, Orange is the new black which recently released its sixth season on Netflix. She
The millions essay about that Russell in the bushes
When my sister Ardell first told me about the binder, I could feel my body tense
a younger version of me would have immediately dialed my father and confronted him, because
Who would believe that my seventy seven year old Father Google Stocks, my boyfriend,
and keeps a binder of his salvage details and opinions for reference. But years if there
we taught me to wait ten seconds before automatic.
exploding with anger. So in this case I was
able to keep cool long enough to decide to bring it up later with him in person. If you were to look at the term, helicopter parenting in the Wikipedia of Mine
You would see a picture of my parents.
It would be the ones in the healing the
is military chopper used in the Vietnam WAR.
noisy and clunky. My parents made their presence known.
My childhood house. They read mail address to my siblings in me,
it's through drawers and open doors without knocking it was the norm.
them to be invasive and their lack of respect for people
The sea annoyed me
although my siblings weren't, as forthcoming with my parents, about their lives. I always
Then the truth it took me a while to figure out
if they didn't want a true retelling of events, but the one that fit the fiction of how they thought my life should be
My parents were more attuned to the upbeat experiences. The rough patches were harder for them to process.
Not long after. I learned about the binder my father asked about the man. I was then dating a newscaster
I decided to play it cool to see if he would come clean about it. That guy
was all over the media, my father
need to look very hard to find him later when visit
in my appearance for the holidays, my father asked.
Don't know he used to be married.
I used to be married to I said
yes, but you have no idea why he got divorced. My father tried to
Find me for more information.
But the newscaster had told me what I needed to know, and that was good enough for me by the way
moving closer to where he was sitting at his desk.
how do you know he was divorced, is on the internet? He said innocently smiling as if to do
use, the mounting tension.
Our dynamic has always been tumultuous. We
argue a lot men in the past,
I have told me. I have a tone that sarcastic and marking a tone that Brad,
cast to the receiver. I think you're, an idiot
my mother doesn't have this voice. I must mimic my father,
I know about the binder dad and finally said
Bell told me, show it to me what
I don't know what you're talking about. He said I
All told me that you have a binder with information on the people. I've dated he squirmed, but
No confession:
did. He believe he wasn't doing anything wrong.
I was calling his bluff
do I need to ask mom, I said to their credit. My pair
act as a unit.
Even if one of them has a wacky idea, they always back each other up.
Mom. Can you show me the binder? I shouted into the other room. Did you ask
Father she shot back. I don't know what.
Talking about
It was obvious she knew she's. A terrible liar.
I looked at my father, he Smurf
a and then blurted out
How am I going to protect you all? He is
physically, agile and mentally acute for a senior citizen.
he is not in any shape to be a vigilante on my behalf. His world view too, is a bit skewed.
He delights in news stories about corruption, scandals and suspicious activities. Some
about doomsday movies play hates him
whereas my mother used to take my siblings in me to see the latest Disney found. My father said with us in front of the television to watch soil and green and blade runner among others.
the apocalypse came. He wanted us to be ready,
My father's mentoring, I understood
that the world wasn't cuddly and charming, but dark and sinister.
It wasn't that my father was trying to frighten or upset my siblings in me. Rather,
I think he was showing us through the movies, never to accept life at face value, as
adult I chose sunny and sweet
It just seemed less
anxiety provoking that way. I buy
the room to see if my father had the audacity to keep my dating binder on the shelf. With his other records, he kept files on
all his doctors each two inch.
plastic binder, bind labeled with the physician,
his name written on surgical tape with a black sharpie marker other than details about my father's specific ailments. Each doctors binder contained
Print out of whatever personal and professional information, my father could assemble. If nothing else, he was a meticulous record keeper
but he wouldn't give up my binder. So you know
gonna. Let me see it asked. I don't know what you're talking about it.
father hadn't, become an engineer. He would have made
a great spy they. He tried to contain his obsessive worry after I left for college, but every so often he would show up
And there would be again
like the time he visited my Brooklyn apartment and insisted on buying me. Electrical outlet covers, as if I were still an infant who might stick a fork into the socket,
his concerns abated when I was married, because there was another person to worry about me, but his protective instincts came back
Triple strength after I was divorced in the moment,
here's what I knew he had a binder my mother denied it. My sister had seen it yet my phone,
wouldn't confess because he knew his actions were overstepping my boundaries
Did he really think I can take care of myself that offended me
in years past. His constant second guessing escalated into blowouts.
I was shouting matches had made us both feel terrible afterwards,
this time around. I wasn't going to let it reach that level. I knew I could take care of myself
Even if some of my previous relationships hadn't worked out, I still trust
my judgment I was willing,
to take on the risk. My father just needed to tell me the truth about the binder. Well, if you're gonna keep a file
I said at least let me help you pick out the articles. My father turn on his computer and we scroll through various articles written by the.
castor, not a Google stalker, myself
we've seen what came up
his writing was informative and smart. The video clip showed his sense of humor.
There definitely was enough material for a private investigator to find this guy. He was hiding
in plain sight at this point I thought my father would cracked
but he stubbornly held his ground. Obviously this was his.
To reinsert some control into my world even
If he wasn't around to witness it, I thought I could handle a small bit of intrusion.
needed to negotiate and understanding you,
research, the men I'm dating I offered, but I don't want
You tell me what you find unless the guy has a criminal record, I like to know that, but nothing else, okay. He said turning back to
computer. He was doing his best to hide his anxiety, but
all the sighing and loud typing betrayed him. His fears were so
he would need to learn to manage for himself and then,
felt something a hand before regarding his overbearing ways. Tenderness, it felt oddly
comforting to know that my father has my back in his
paranoid way
since I don't have children, I asked my brother Arturo what he thought, as the parent of two pre teenage daughters,
would he behave in the same way? I think
need to control their lies will diminish as they age he said, but
weight gain in resurgence as I age
he offered this sanguine observation
trying to stay in touch and be involved, I'll be
in a covert manner. True
so I've decided not to fight it anymore, but
I intend to warn any love interest not to post anything on my facebook wall, because my personal private
investigator is only a click away and anything suspicious is
take me to go on his permanent record
Danielle Brooks reading Amelia Blank Harris Essay about that rustle in the bushes.
This is usually when we hear from the author who wrote the story you just heard, but where
sad to say that Amelia bunk.
A died unexpectedly in March of two thousand seventeen due to complications from hypertension. She was just
forty seven years old, her father, are
RO and sister Ardle agreed to tell us more about Amelia and they were thrilled to
you're that her modern of peace was being shared on the pod cast, a thinking,
that has been really
excited and really pleased that her work was being valued.
That's ardelle, who told us that writing was actually Amelia's third career. She worked in publishing,
and then spent twelve years as a lawyer before in ruling in Colombia, as Emma Fade Nonfiction programme, raining was self fulfilling to her and
She was just a very generous student and a very just
generous human being and was very thoughtful in the classroom. Amelia
so taught workshops and led student writing groups at Columbia, and why and all olive her students have
able to send us condolences
what an sharing
she had and she created this atmosphere
within the classroom that enable people to feel vulnerable and to feel safe
in sharing their writing
Amelia knew this vulnerability. Well, her modern love
this was one of many personal essays. She had published.
didn't show the essay to her father before exposing his google stocking ways to millions of readers, but Arturo
didn't deny a word of it
I know more than she knows about your dates because I go there,
When you went to school
amber and a protective birther see Arturo is
eighty four years old and lives in Florida with Emilius, mother Fleur de Lis. He no longer,
as Amelia's binder, but he does.
You'll have the ones he created on his sons, wives, but didn't know it. They don't know. Now they do that.
don't you think it's a little bit crazy to
actually create like a dossier on every single person.
and that your children has ever dated
there had her Amanda interest in
I'm just too.
Ok see if you're in
you use your head, but you don't use your mindset so have to
do behind your have to be like it but love. She thanks dad,
We just need your decision, that's all Amelia
did the deciding for herself in her own life from romance to career, to travel. She spent
am in Brazil, Spain and the Philippines, where her family is from
Oakland. She became deeply involved in her community garden and in the Brooklyn Queens Land Trust
she used her law degree to create sustainable legal structure for the organization and that
or a combination of her
of gardening and her legal background and the rating
was common eating in a proposal for a book that she had had a working title of citizen gardener and was about the fight to
New York, city's community gardens from development
citizen gardener was Amelia's thesis project at Columbia. Ardell.
excepted Amelia's MF on her behalf last month and she's
with Amelia's professors to find a way to finish the project Arturo
told us that Amelia's wide network of students, classmates and gardeners has made the impact of her loss even greater
it remembered.
they soon minute. They burn she's, happy contributing open,
and I learned a lot from her. You must give birth to other peppers to touch. What is it?
pick you up. I miss her laugh. I miss. Currently,
I miss her her wit and I keep
wanting to continue on her work and her spirit, embittered good book to help my daughter,
man, my wife,
love her and we her so much
our two Rubin Kara
I love Emilia Kara. We also
heard from Amelia sister Ardell Jolo,
see pictures of Amelia and her family on our website. W B, U R, DOT, Org, slash, modern love
the
the
as editor of the modern love column for the New York Times, Daniel Jones
gets to know these stories inside out
news of Amelia. Sudden passing gave him a different perspective on her essay. It's tempting to look
at an essay, that's taken from a life as this complete peace, but they aren't.
set pieces and the lives go on
and things change, and this is a piece that just takes
whole new meaning and a whole new resin
and just a tragic,
All of how protective love
can really only go so far. You know you can't it's just such a parent's nightmare to think you've,
children out into the world- and you have to
go of them, and you think
they're going to be okay, everybody's going to be okay, that's just the way that it works out and
hollows you out to think of this story,
in that context of a father who cared so deeply
tried so hard,
In this way, it really young affects you.
more stories about secrets. After the break.
I love, spelling my boyfriend and I often play spelling bee together by together I mean sitting next to each other playing individually and not cheating. Sometimes, when I open up spelling bee- and I see- but you have completed a few words on your own, I feel a little betrayed in sorry. It may have happened again today. I have one friend who I will send screenshots from spelling bee of inappropriate words that I always get nervous that I sent it to my parents or something like that when my dad was like the first time together- and I always took it out- I think I got it see it J, a c k, P, o t jack. We hit the jackpot, panicked, yeah, Elrond nice, I'm same as earth's sky. The digital pulses editor for the New York Times. You can try spelling bee in all our games at n, one times dot com, slash games, do
and children ever stop getting to know one another Mary Alice Hostile.
all of her substance to the test Tony
Ford when her Cynthia Nixon reads: Mary Alice S, a dear dad, we ve been gay
for a really long time. The
letter was not mine, although my
Their charms- and I had spent so much time talking about it- that I
some ownership. I was
San Francisco for the Thanksgiving Holiday- and we
Read and re read the letter he was planning to send to my father changing.
word here and there
arranging sentences. I
yesterday he replaced gay with homosexual the word
My father was more likely to have heard
usually in the same sentence with
abomination from the pulpit of the Mennonite
church, he and my mother had attended for decades. I was supportive of my brother respected his car.
and was flattered that he valued my opinion about something so important, but I didn't
I understand
you really think he needs to know. I asked how is this going to help him? It's not for him Charles said
I'm doing this for me
I'm over sixty years old and he still say
I'll get married. If I find the right woman, it's not like he's her
What did you? I said he
the sun rises and sets on his doctor. Sons,
I don't know what he'll do with this
but I need him to know who I am. I told my partner later
Charles is obsessed with that letter seems
important to him for your father to know she said,
our fathers doing the best he can. I said he never
and beyond eighth grade and he spent a farmer his whole life, his worlds, pretty
narrow, he's ninety five, something like this,
no telling how he'll take it
you may as well. Let it go. She said.
the next morning my brother asked if I wanted to walk with him to the mailbox
and was glistening off the buildings on the San Francisco skyline against a brilliant blue sky. We walk to Filmore and I watched him drop the letter into the mailbox slot there. It goes. He said
no taking it back now, I said,
took the long way home.
through Alamo Square Park, the iconic
painted ladies lined up in the morning light. I wonder, who'll visit
first after he gets the letter, my brother said who get to process it with him.
Two of our eight brothers live near his nursing home in Pennsylvania and checked in on
every week. I know
it goes every Wednesday afternoon. I said, and I think I goes on Friday
hey. This is psychiatrist Ike
I heard farmer and Mennonite Deacon. There are
All of us, siblings, altogether doubted
get there by Wednesday. My brother said.
my partner and I flew back to Virginia and the busy.
If catching up at work and preparing for the holidays distracted me
from wondering when the news would hit the family grapevine, it didn't take
before the report started trickling in each tidbits. So from Portugal I began to keep a record, so I wouldn't forget Ike, the farmer brother was the first one. My father showed the letter to. Did you notice, my father asked everyone pretty much knows it. I sure didn't
father said: had no idea by the following Wednesday, when aid visited, my father had more questions.
How does this happen? Abe said
seem. Some people are just born that way, aura
out of the board that way,
about one in ten. They estimate well, if it's how people are born
It sure doesn't seem like something that should tear families apart that proclamation
rippled up and down the family, great fine and at sea
did, should echo down the halls of Fairmont Nursing Home,
the nurses stations and across the fields to the plain brick mennonite churches.
after my father received and processed my brother's letter, he seemed to spend
a good deal of time. In his sunny room contemplating
this new reality
It was clear he gave some thought to the one in ten theory
and from his vantage point overlooking the nursing home entrance, he counted
Visitors wondering heat,
to visiting family members
unmarried relatives neighbors
when my younger brother Sanford visited my father said you know, I've been thinking about Eli
Eli was an amish neighbor.
Those years he worked at farm by himself.
I remember when he was younger. He dated girls, but it
work out for him. I wonder if
was the story with eli- makes me feel bad.
never found someone and then
question started about me
makes me wonder about Mary Alice. My father said what about her.
I guess you should ask her Sanford said.
Of course, my father wasn't going to
It wasn't the sort of thing we would talk about. When said,
told me about the conversation I knew
was time to clear things up to. Let my
father know that I was part of the one in ten. I could have
patched sibling to deliver my news. I could have
how did it to my hearing, impaired Father over the phone or on my next visit, a letter seemed like the most reliable way to communicate.
After my brother's courageous letter,
I knew mine would be anticlimactic not only because my brothers came first, but also because I was one of four daughter
and in our family, especially from my father's point of view, nothing about being a daughter
appeared to have the same import as it would have from a son.
So I wrote my letter and sent it, but during
My next visit, the subject never came up.
My father was as welcoming to my partner in me, as he always had been.
I considered asking him about the letter, but never did
had my mother's still been alive,
The conversation would have been outsourced to her. They
I lived at the nursing home together for a couple of years before she died at ninety five. Just a few
ex after they celebrated their seventy fourth anniversary. For you,
after she died, my father glanced,
with her chair when he needed to tell her something and I'm sure he would have liked to know
she thought of the letters I can only.
Hope she would have been as understanding as my father was, but I'll never know.
The nursing home where my parents lived was run
I conservative Mennonites and was
instantly, recognized for the quality of its care and its cleanliness.
Any of the staff members considered their work, a religious calling.
A steady stream of volunteers, cleaned the residents eyeglasses shine
the shoes, massaged feet and filled the halls and chapels with music
my father ate his meals in the main dining hall, but in
stood on a full size refrigerator in his room to store
Is Turkey Hill Black Cherry ICE cream, which my brothers,
make sure he always had he kept the
and spoke in the refrigerator, along with pretzels and pink mince for the children,
he served himself a snack each evening as one of
a handful of men in the nursing home, my father
much sought after by the widows he made it
that he had no intention of re marrying, but he did
invite some of them over for a bowl of ice cream now and then.
His vision of heaven included, reuniting with our mother.
although he was longing for that time. He first wanted to live.
to be one hundred or at the very
at least live long.
More than his older brother, who had
I just short of ninety nine. In time my father's
focus on who was or wasn't gay abated the re.
but a blend it into the landscape of carefully tended farms stretching as far as he
see from his nursing home window.
Sometimes I liked to imagine him sitting in the sun room with the three other men in his wing, all of them hard of hearing,
Shouting and
I have two children who are gay. What do you make of that.
My father died ten years ago, a week short of his hundredth birthday.
I think it gave him peace knowing all twelve of his children,
I found someone with whom to share their lives
If he's with my mother in Heaven, I hope
he's brought her up to date on family news. If he's
in the light of their his amish neighbour. I expect he's told him
how sorry he is that he had to work the farm by himself, all those years recently
Many of the Mennonite churches in Lancaster County Pennsylvania decided to
split from Mennonite Church USA
which has chosen to allow openly gay members the only
as important as church to my parents was family.
I'm glad they didn't live to see this time with church or family win win. My
father speak up against his church to tell people it's not the sort of thing,
to tear families apart last
after eighteen years together, my long time
partner and I married- I don't know what my parents would have made of that, but I wish they could have been there.
Cynthia Nixon
reading Mary Alice hostages, essay dear dad, we've been gay
for a really long time
the.
Mary Alice was lives in Charlottesville Virginia with her wife. Terry
she says she never realized how important it was to come out to her father until she did
and while the letter never came up in conversations, she assumes he read it because he never again.
and asked her siblings about why she wasn't married just recently,
He was cleaning out some files on her computer and ran across the letter. She read some of it to us. I have a great deal of respect for Charles in his courage. To be honest with you, I also have a great deal of respect for the way in which you have responded
that honesty, if all parents, whereas understanding as you, it would make the world a better place for people like
who so many want to judge and persecute. I appreciate the example you have given us and accepting people for who they are.
And in honoring family, no matter what our differences might,
Mary Alice says her father was a simple man, a farmer he was also deeply religious. I think his response came from a place of
Sort of very simple basic, practical thinking,
if someone says that's how you're born, then it doesn't make sense to make a deal out of it. It's just who you are
so, I think sometimes there's a great deal of wisdom and in that low
I simplicity, and that is where his response came from. She says
bulk of the responses to her essay were positive and she's thankful for that, but it was the act of
Wishing these words that made this a transformative experience when I
call the article in the times the essay
Of course, I had moments of disbelief. There would have been a time in my life that nothing
would have been more unlikely than that
of honesty, even
among
people I know fairly well, so seeing it there in the New York Times was
remarkable and made me feel so so I don't want to say powerful, but something
like powerful, the Alice Ellis. She lives in Charlottesville Virginia and is currently writing a memoir about her life growing up in a mennonite community.
Dan Jones. Is the editor of modern love for the New York Times. He says over the past
Thirteen years submissions to the column have mirrored societal change. How come
out when this column started her coming out as gay just for the average person could,
still be a story than it quickly.
not a story, but the start of this delayed effect.
Depending on the community, urine and typically
it is a good example and Marianne S a story that the people are
much older? You know they ve been together for decades in some cases, so
this is a case where coming out you know
Two thousand and sixteen when this
He ran is still a story in certain communities and a very moving one, and it made-
this idea of social change like it. It really just makes you think that it's dominoes being knocked over and
the very last one is knocked over like it's, not something that goes to a certain point and then stops.
Dan manages the modern love Facebook page so keep up with his musings throughout the week by checking out facebook dot com.
flash modern love since
Nixon says the stoicism of the father in this piece appealed appeal to her
my mother's mother's family is from Missouri
and I always remember when my mother
it seeing a man that she was eventually with her almost thirty five years. Who is jewish when she talked to her great
Who was like a second mother to her she
curious to know whether
my great aunt would have any negative reaction to that and my
and Edna sort of scrunched up her face and said,
oh they're, so much more important things than that kind of thing to worry about and that
My great ants attitude and her proclamation to me echoed the patriarch,
a sentiment, and I think there is running through a Middle America that kind of love people make
up their mind and not making a fuss and having what we would consider it
degree of enlightenment, but it's just practical common sense.
two. Why would we worry about such a thing
again to Cynthia Nixon she's currently running.
For governor of New York after the break with
the.
I love spelling my boyfriend and I often play spelling bee together by together I mean sitting next to each other playing individually and not cheating. Sometimes when I open up spelling bee- and I see, but you have completed a few words on your own, I feel a little betrayed in sorry. It may have happened again today. I have one friend who I will send screenshots from spelling bee of inappropriate words that I always get nervous that I sent it to my parents or something like that when my dad was like the first time together and I was out- I think I got it- see it J, a c k, P, o t jack. We hit the jackpot, panicked, yeah, Elrond nice, I'm same as earth's sky. The digital pulses editor for the New York Times. You can try spelling bee in all our games at n, one times dot com, slash games.
I found the driver's name from a police report.
I ve been filed in Florida. Seventeen years before the report was torn increased and incorrect.
It said a boy was crossing the street on his bicycle, but there
In two boys in the road that day and no bike
it said the boy was hit and his body was thrown nineteen yards, but he wasn't thrown. He was dragged that far.
caught in the dangling chains of the landscaping trailer hitch to the truck. It said
someone fled. The scene
that someone was my older brother Alex and he didn't flee. He draw
the bucket of fish he and Jonathan, had caught and rushed
virtuous friend, but the boy was already dead.
Alex had just turned fifteen. This is the day
We never spoke about
Thurman reading, an essay by Jessica, sensing and Rica's. It's called the accident,
no one talked about
we were born one year and three months apart, but look
like twins with our rules
but lips and irish blue eyes.
For the accident we were inseparable
we had our own rooms, but often shared my bed when we were little when we got
I big for that Alex
started, sleeping on my bedroom floor in the dark. We joke about
of the things we could buy
if someday, we won the lottery House made of pizza for him
and an island full of monkeys. For me,
Alex told me go stories until I was too scared to fall asleep. He would
reach up from the floor. To hold my hand,
letting go somewhere between midnight and morning after the accident,.
Alex, never slept in my room again.
On the way to the funeral,
And told him that what had happened was God's will that this was part of a much bigger plan.
On the way home as a
slept. They told me that maybe it was better if we didn't bring it up again.
So when I heard Alex crying in his room at night, I,
aid, where I was wrapped in my comfort her and I didn't bring it up.
When Alex was nineteen, he dropped out of college.
even though he had always been the smart one.
Honor roll son and I didn't bring it up at twenty three
when he was first arrested on charges of driving under the influence and it twenty four when he went to jail for reckless driving and a two thousand five hundred and twenty six,
and twenty seven when he was getting high in the morning and drunk at night. I never brought it up instead
my parents posted his bail. I paid off his credit cards.
and if you needed a ride or rent money, one of us came through
when none of that work to change him. I took a different tack
I started yelling at him to grow up. Take risks
civility, stop drinking start working and go back to school
then I would soften and say how much I loved him and how proud of him I was when he got a job waiting tables,
and yes, I would help
culinary school and yes, he his
girlfriend could stay with me whenever they visited New York City and no
there was nothing. I wanted more than to see him happy again when none of that worked
I still didn't bring it up,
until one night, when we were thirty and thirty one
And I offhandedly and uncomfortably asked
for dinner, if you ever thought about the day, Jonathan died. Oh now,
to talk about that, he shot back with a laugh.
and in that moment I felt his fear
over our silence, you
need to worry about it. Now
had been communicating before we could even speak
This conversation, we didn't have words for.
Do you remember, I asked him,
seven and you got that awful haircut
and then I begged mom for a matching mullet. He smiled but said nothing
and how much you like swing dancing when we were kids. So I let you
Act as all those dips and throws on me, even though I knew I would end up on the ground,
did that for you. He said you liked swing. Not me.
The point I wanted to make.
I didn't know how
was that I missed sharing a life with him
Later we both went home and let the silence continue to grow. I was desperate to reconnect
I'm convinced that the only way to do so was to get as close as I could to the
when his life split into a before and an after,
I needed to talk to someone who knew what Alex knew, who had seen what Alex had seen
I searched the online archives of our hometown newspaper and scrolled for hours. Until I found Jonathan's name in a write up about the accident
After a dozen phone calls, I tracked down the police report.
They couldn't mail me a copy, but said I was welcome to come to the station, see it for myself.
so, not long after I flew to Florida.
And did just that
sitting on a swivel chair in the police stations, cramped archives office.
I ran my finger over my brother's sloppy teenage script.
signature underneath his witness statement
I read. I could almost hear his voice.
traffic was speeding up. There wasn't enough time.
Reached the sidewalk first and when
Turned around Jonathan was
In the middle of the road.
I saw him get hit.
when the ambulance came. I had to go across
ST and tell his mother.
I wrote down the driver's name and later found his phone number listed online.
The time I was back in New York. I had thought of one hundred
Reasons not to call, but I had to he knew what Alex had been through on the sixth ring. He picked up yeah
hello, please don't hang up. I said.
I told him my name and explained that I wanted to know about an accident. He was involved in back and ninety ninety nine too
Boys were crossing the street and I was the sister of the boy who lived there.
Choice was the hardest I ever made in my life. He said.
told me that by the time he saw both boys in the road he was already too close
we swerved onto the sidewalk he would hit Alex if you didn't, he would hit Jonathan.
All I know is there, were two boys
in front of me, he said.
I had to decide in that very moment.
It was so fast I
It was not to hit your brother that day. What kind of choice is that
I pinched the place between my four finger and thumb a trick. I picked up in
college to keep from crying.
I said there were questions. I wanted to ask, but it was all
If you didn't remember, every detail
It was a long time ago. Not for me. He said
I
for three hours. He spoke about his pain,
frustrations with his family when they didn't understand,
about his lost jobs and addictions,
about how he never married or had children
into him felt like the closest I could come to holding Alex's hand again.
I told him, I wanted to find a way to take away my brother's pain. You can't he said,
But if you want a lesson it,
got to listen.
What, if he won't talk to me, ask again he said.
he'll come round and once those words start coming, you'll realize that asking was the easy part. Listening is the hard part.
And that's what you have to do.
I hung up the phone but didn't stop there. I tracked down the
witnesses who testified in court? The on scene, paramedic,
the emergency room doctor and the nurse who sat with Jonathan's mother at the hospital.
Were I heard the more
Alex's story became defanged.
A year after that first phone call I met with my brother and told him about it
people I had spoken to and what they had said and his ears.
it was to confirm and correct each detail. That was my opening and his.
Later I was able to ask, but no one in our family ever had
You just start at the beginning and tell me everything and he did.
when I see Alex today at thirty three.
I no longer see someone who is stuck in one memory? I see a
father to two beautiful little boys and a committed partner
Woman, he will one day marry
I see a man who works harder than anyone. I know waking up to
The restaurant on holidays and weekends,
because he no longer needs or wants the kind of help I offered
before. I learned that asking and listening by the
most valuable of all the Uma Thurman reading the
Sid and no one talked about by Jessica.
Since in Henrik is Jessica,
is that she still feels guilt and shame about the silence that grew around this incident. For so long I felt
that I wasn't strong enough to stand up and say what's wrong. Can I help I'm here? I care
You know those words are so powerful and
as a young girl I didn't
stand quite yet the power that they had, and
so to sit there night after.
Night and listen to him cry and know that he was suffering and feel so hopeless, I think I feel a little bit
still a little bit of shame about that period, but you know what
same time. I am very forgiving to my younger self and that's taken a lot of time to learn,
She remains profoundly moved by her conversation with the driver who hit Jonathan and she's
is that when they spoke, she didn't anticipate that the driver would open up to her lay he did or that is
Experience would sound so much like her brothers,
there was so much similarity. There was a
and there was losing jobs. There was relationships that didn't work out. There was alcoholism. There was you no just this pain. This pain that rippled, through the
every life that I saw rippling through my brother's life and limb
to the driver. Tell his story, it was just so
well for me, because I was
adding to it as though it was my brother speaking, but a few days
After that conversation Jessica got a call from the driver sister
she was very angry because her brother had come
Her in so much pain, telling her about this phone call and what had happened, and it just stirred all of these things back up for him.
and in that moment, when she was
Letting me know what she thought of me:
All I saw was.
that she was a woman who was a sister and she
Doing or attempting to do exactly what I had done
She was trying to protect her.
and she was trying to take away all of his pain.
And so at the end of that phone call, she said, do not count,
text him again and
I had to say you're right and then I ll
both know. I assured them that I would step back Jessica,
Jonathan's mothers are still friends and
book says she thought deeply about the impact that telling this story might have on their family? I
we battled with the idea of how much should people have to relive
You know just writing the opening scene. I I was only thinking of her if
ever reads this will
it will this be more painful for her to read than it has to be.
I'm not sure had the family responded. They ve not reached out to me. I have not heard a response from them by I'm. Ok
with the idea of somebody being silent and that
necessarily being a negative thing, and how is
Alex doing now
is beautiful. He is
my favorite person in this world and
has two little boys and he's such a good father
he's such a good brother and he's just a good man, and I know that
that has not come easily for him, and I
I'm completely aware of the fact that he will always have he will always
have to try harder than other people to be ok,
Jessica also knows that nearly two decades later Alex is burdened by what happened that day when it comes
it's trauma.
There is no end, it is part of you
and it doesn't go away even when it's faced, it doesn't disappear.
Experience still exist
in him, and
I think the idea of removing it or trying to get to the point where your quote quote over it. That is a r
impossible aim,
six says that the accident and her face.
his response to it has helped
the way she's raising her own son.
And she's learned one overarching lesson. If you love someone, you have to ask what
and when they say nothing nothing's wrong. You have to ask again
and if, for whatever reason, you stop asking
a conversation will never happen
those conversations this conversation in this story, it has the power to heal.
it doesn't have the power to change history. It doesn't have the power to take away. What is
what happened. It has the power to heal, moving forward
ask Jessica in Henriquez she's, a writer
Living in New York, city and working
her first memoir the hears Uma Thurman.
I feel that this is a beautiful essay about healing and about love,
and I think this writer.
She has an enormous courage and obviously very deep love for her brother
I think this is a story about how you can can.
can you to heal throughout your life in a
mostly significant ways with
an open heart.
The thanks again to Uma Thurman for reading this week's essay. The Dan Jones says he published this essay because it explores the consequences of ignoring trauma in a way. It's a vindication of it's like never too late to talk about
these are the sort of long buried pains.
from childhood, and it took it's a real lesson in as difficult
Those conversations are as much as you don't want to have them as much as you want to think you're, fine and just move on how
Wouldn't those conversations are and how important asking questions of
a kid who's who's
For the traumatized mm
Man. I want to answer the questions, but you gotta keep asking you gotta, give him a given the chance to talk through all that differ.
Material, modern love is a production of the New York Times and W B you are Boston. Npr station is produced
directed and edited by Jessica, Albert Caitlin, O and John Parodi
sound design and original scoring by Matt Reed
is Louisa judge the
yeah for the modern love podcast was conceived by LISA Tobin
This add those are executive producer. Daniel Jones is the editor of modern love for the New York Times and adviser to the show music for the part
ass. The courtesy of a p m I made
Chakrabarti, we'll see you next week. The.
Transcript generated on 2022-04-16.