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When Your Life Changes Forever: with NYT Best Selling Author Tembi Locke (Netflix from Scratch) · QUESTION EVERYTHING

0:04
Speaker 1: Big things happen when you're pretty, pretty bold, pretty clever,
0:08
Speaker 1: pretty strong. I'm Danielle Robe, and each week my guests
0:12
Speaker 1: and I have conversations that put a new spin on pretty.
0:17
Speaker 1: This is pretty smart. I've always thought a lot about
0:21
Speaker 1: big love. You know, those people that you see that
0:24
Speaker 1: just have the thing, that undeniable, magnetic soul connection, a
0:30
Speaker 1: relationship rooted in ultimate freedom and respect and support, the
0:35
Speaker 1: kind of connection that vibrates. Today's guest found it, and
0:44
Speaker 1: then she lost it. I'll let Temby Locke tell her
0:48
Speaker 1: own story, but let me just set the stage. It
0:52
Speaker 1: was love at first sight when actress Temby Locke met
0:54
Speaker 1: professional chef Soto on a street in Florence in her
0:57
Speaker 1: early twenties. There was just one problem. Sado's traditional Sicilian
1:01
Speaker 1: family didn't approve of his marrying a black American woman. However,
1:07
Speaker 1: the couple, heartbroken but undeterred, forged on. They built a
1:10
Speaker 1: happy life. They built a happy life in Los Angeles,
1:13
Speaker 1: with fulfilling careers, deep friendships, and the love of their lives,
1:17
Speaker 1: a baby girl they adopted at birth. Eventually, they reconciled
1:21
Speaker 1: with Sodo's family just as he faced a formidable cancer
1:24
Speaker 1: that would consume all of their dreams. He passed away
1:27
Speaker 1: in twenty twelve, when their daughter was just seven. Temby
1:31
Speaker 1: detailed her story in her memoir From Scratch, which she
1:34
Speaker 1: says she just wrote to try to heal. Her story
1:38
Speaker 1: was so puncturing it became a New York Times bestseller
1:40
Speaker 1: almost immediately, and soon after Reese Witherspoon's production company, Hello
1:45
Speaker 1: Sunshine picked it up, and together they executive produced a
1:48
Speaker 1: series based on her life story, premiering on Netflix on
1:52
Speaker 1: October twenty first. Zoe Saldana is playing Temby. Temby Locke's Light,
1:59
Speaker 1: Honesty and Love story is the kind of stuff that
2:02
Speaker 1: makes you stand taller and inspires you to put one
2:05
Speaker 1: foot in front of the other, no matter what you're facing.
2:11
Speaker 1: So Temby, there are so many entry points into your life.
2:17
Speaker 1: I think I want to start with the quote at
2:20
Speaker 1: the beginning of your book. It really touched me. I
2:22
Speaker 1: almost cry every time I read it. So it says,
2:25
Speaker 1: think not, you can direct the course of love. For
2:27
Speaker 1: love if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
2:31
Speaker 2: When I came across that quote, the book was written,
2:35
Speaker 2: completely written, and I had a quote to open the book.
2:39
Speaker 2: And then my editor there was an exercise she asked
2:42
Speaker 2: me to do or I remember it was too long.
2:44
Speaker 2: There's something about publishing rights, blah blah blah. It was
2:46
Speaker 2: too long. So fate again fate, And so I said, okay,
2:51
Speaker 2: let me look around. And when I don't know what happened.
2:55
Speaker 2: I've had this. I've had the book, so it's kayo gbron.
2:58
Speaker 2: I've had the book for forever. My mother gifted it
3:01
Speaker 2: to me in high school. And something made me circle
3:04
Speaker 2: back to this book because I thought, this is a book.
3:06
Speaker 2: If a book has been with me since I was
3:09
Speaker 2: eighteen years old, if it went in my suitcase to
3:11
Speaker 2: college and it's lived with me through you know, moves, homes, motherhood,
3:18
Speaker 2: ill like, if it's still about then there's something in
3:21
Speaker 2: this book. Let me start there. And when I read
3:24
Speaker 2: the quote my like, my heart cracked open. I thought,
3:29
Speaker 2: oh my gosh, it's been with me the whole time.
3:32
Speaker 2: The message has been with me the whole time, and
3:37
Speaker 2: my life has been directed by love. It wasn't me
3:42
Speaker 2: directing love, I care, it was me being open to it.
3:47
Speaker 1: Yeah. I just read A Return to Love by Maryann Williamson,
3:52
Speaker 1: and people have been telling me to read it for
3:54
Speaker 1: years and I never have. I don't know why I
3:56
Speaker 1: had resistance to it. But she says that there are
4:00
Speaker 1: two existential questions we're all trying to answer, which is
4:03
Speaker 1: who am I? And what is my purpose? What am
4:06
Speaker 1: I here for? And she says, I'm here to be
4:09
Speaker 1: love and I'm here. Yeah, I am love, and I'm
4:14
Speaker 1: here to spread love, to share it. And when I
4:19
Speaker 1: read your book, that's how I felt. You have given
4:23
Speaker 1: so much of yourself to so many people and still
4:26
Speaker 1: somehow remained Holy you.
4:29
Speaker 2: Thank you. No one has said it in that way,
4:31
Speaker 2: so I appreciate you saying it that way. And I
4:33
Speaker 2: want to just take a second to take that in
4:36
Speaker 2: because I don't think I ever intended. I mean I
4:38
Speaker 2: intended to share the book. I certainly intend to be
4:41
Speaker 2: me every day I wake up and not you know,
4:44
Speaker 2: but I hearing what you're saying is the way I
4:49
Speaker 2: have and do strive to always come back to my
4:52
Speaker 2: most authentic self. Right that in the sharing which a memoirs,
4:58
Speaker 2: that's what we do. We go I can, and we
5:01
Speaker 2: explore what we've lived. We filter it through a prism
5:06
Speaker 2: of our own creativity to offer it back up that
5:11
Speaker 2: it might be guide instructive, a lesson to the reader
5:17
Speaker 2: for things that they may relate to in the book, right,
5:20
Speaker 2: And that's that's why I read memoirs, why I love
5:22
Speaker 2: memoir and certainly when I set out to write my book,
5:24
Speaker 2: I thought, the mark of a great memoir is if
5:27
Speaker 2: it can do that. So that's my that's what I'm
5:28
Speaker 2: going to strive for every day. I don't know if
5:30
Speaker 2: I'll get there, but that's what I'm going to strive
5:32
Speaker 2: for every day when I sit down to write. And
5:35
Speaker 2: that ultimately on the page, I had to be super
5:40
Speaker 2: authentic and super real and super grounded and transparent and
5:45
Speaker 2: with all the flaws and all my you know, all
5:48
Speaker 2: the things that are uneven about me and contradictory, I
5:51
Speaker 2: had to just say, that's me because if it's me,
5:54
Speaker 2: it's also you. Because there's nothing uniquely special about me, right, Like,
5:57
Speaker 2: I'm just one of millions of people about or built
6:00
Speaker 2: on this planet trying to sort of make my way,
6:03
Speaker 2: and we all have these qualities, and so I do
6:08
Speaker 2: try to lead with that as a storyteller, but as
6:12
Speaker 2: a person and as a mom, I didn't whant I
6:13
Speaker 2: talk to my daughter. I'm like we had a conversation
6:15
Speaker 2: last night, and I was like, I think I'm missing
6:18
Speaker 2: this one up, Like I don't know what I'm saying,
6:21
Speaker 2: and I think i'm you know, all the things. She's seventeen,
6:23
Speaker 2: so you can imagine. But I said, you know, I
6:26
Speaker 2: could either like go quiet and fold in, or I
6:31
Speaker 2: could just pony up to her and say, I don't
6:36
Speaker 2: know what I'm doing, but this is what I'm attempting
6:40
Speaker 2: to do. But it may be coming out wrong, and.
6:42
Speaker 1: It's really hard as a parent.
6:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I just say, like that i've gotten older,
6:47
Speaker 2: it's kind of easier.
6:49
Speaker 1: So for people who have not read the book yet,
6:51
Speaker 1: I want to note that first, it's got picked up
6:54
Speaker 1: for a series, so Reese Witherspoon's production company is producing it.
6:59
Speaker 1: Zoe Saldana is playing a version of you, which we'll
7:02
Speaker 1: talk about after we talked about the book. But for
7:04
Speaker 1: people who haven't read it yet, can you start with
7:08
Speaker 1: where you meet your late husband?
7:11
Speaker 2: Yes, So the book opens, I'm in Florence. I am
7:19
Speaker 2: an exchange student on my junior year abroad to study
7:22
Speaker 2: our history. And I am walking down the streets of
7:25
Speaker 2: cobblestone streets of Florence, and I round a corner and
7:30
Speaker 2: I bump into the man who would change the course
7:34
Speaker 2: of my life. And I say that with that is
7:38
Speaker 2: not hyperbole. That is just a fact that faded destined
7:44
Speaker 2: chance meeting a literal collision, not like, oh, we passed
7:48
Speaker 2: each other, but like we bumped into each other. My
7:51
Speaker 2: life bent a new way from that moment on. And
7:53
Speaker 2: that's where I dropped the reader in. That's the beginning,
7:56
Speaker 2: that's the origin story. That's the moment when everything changed.
8:00
Speaker 2: And then the book marches not forward in time, because
8:04
Speaker 2: the book is told in a mosaic, so it sort
8:06
Speaker 2: of flashes of memory, but you begin to sort of
8:09
Speaker 2: track this relationship as it grows through dating and the
8:14
Speaker 2: marriage and moved to La professional ups and downs, challenges
8:20
Speaker 2: with his family, and then he's diagnosed. Our life bens
8:25
Speaker 2: yet in a new way. We become parents. I'm his caregiver,
8:31
Speaker 2: and then we say goodbye.
8:32
Speaker 1: And So when I was reading about your meeting, you
8:36
Speaker 1: just said it was destiny. It was a literal collision.
8:39
Speaker 1: I'm thinking people go their whole lives looking for this love,
8:44
Speaker 1: this electric magnetism. I think so few people actually find it.
8:49
Speaker 1: Even I know that you have found new love in
8:52
Speaker 1: your life. But it felt to me like almost like
8:56
Speaker 1: this cruel joke that here it is, you found it,
8:59
Speaker 1: and then it's such a young age. It was being
9:00
Speaker 1: taken away from you as you're moving through his diagnosis
9:04
Speaker 1: and being his caretaker. How did you reconcile that?
9:07
Speaker 2: Let me say that I always knew I had a
9:11
Speaker 2: great relationship and a great marriage, Like I was one
9:14
Speaker 2: of those people that was like I got lucky, Like
9:17
Speaker 2: I get it the facts. Notwithstanding chef Italy, you know,
9:22
Speaker 2: delicious food meeting in Florence, Okay, great, great headlines to
9:27
Speaker 2: talk about a relationship, but I mean beyond that, like
9:30
Speaker 2: we were each other's person, right, no doubt about it.
9:33
Speaker 2: I don't know how and why life faded me with
9:37
Speaker 2: that connection, but it did. And we both committed to
9:40
Speaker 2: staying open to that and to like building on that
9:43
Speaker 2: and to deepening that. And when he was diagnosed, our marriage,
9:49
Speaker 2: our relationship faced a new inflection point right which I
9:55
Speaker 2: often described it at that time as like a third
9:58
Speaker 2: entity had entered into our marriag. You know, it wasn't
10:02
Speaker 2: an affair. It was a diagnosis that at its core
10:07
Speaker 2: had to change the both of us. So then it
10:09
Speaker 2: became about are we going to and can we find
10:12
Speaker 2: our way with this new challenge we have in front
10:16
Speaker 2: of us, And our marriage deepened, We became better friends,
10:21
Speaker 2: we became more in love, and we didn't know it
10:26
Speaker 2: when it was first starting to happened. We just were scrambling,
10:29
Speaker 2: trying to survive and trying to sort of piece it
10:31
Speaker 2: together and figure out put one foot in front of
10:33
Speaker 2: the next. But over time we realize, Okay, those vows
10:40
Speaker 2: that we said, they're taking on a whole new quality now. Yeah,
10:44
Speaker 2: And so in a way, I see, and I can
10:46
Speaker 2: really say this deeply, with much hindsight, with much lived experience,
10:51
Speaker 2: with much grieving, and much reflection, that his diagnosis was
10:57
Speaker 2: a gift to both of us in interesting and different ways,
11:00
Speaker 2: but it was definitely a gift to our marriage. We
11:05
Speaker 2: had a good, solid marriage that borderedline up great and
11:09
Speaker 2: then it went into extraordinary.
11:12
Speaker 1: When you say his diagnosis was a gift to you,
11:15
Speaker 1: what do you mean by that, Well.
11:17
Speaker 2: I was thirty one when he was diagnosed, so I
11:19
Speaker 2: had no clue about one how to be a caregiver.
11:23
Speaker 2: We were newly married ish, you know, so I had
11:26
Speaker 2: to grow into myself quickly. And then in ways I
11:30
Speaker 2: didn't expect. I had to reprioritize things, meaning I had
11:34
Speaker 2: a career, had still have a career as an actor.
11:37
Speaker 2: And at that point in my life, I thought like,
11:40
Speaker 2: I've got my husband, Like, sure, it's great and wonderful.
11:43
Speaker 2: I made these wonderful meals and we're building a life
11:45
Speaker 2: together and I have my career, and I was like,
11:47
Speaker 2: those are my focuses. I'm good. Eventually we'll have kids,
11:51
Speaker 2: you know, but I'm good. This is like sort of
11:53
Speaker 2: the landscape of my life. And when that diagnosed has happened,
12:00
Speaker 2: and suddenly I couldn't work in the same way and
12:03
Speaker 2: he couldn't work.
12:04
Speaker 3: So I was like, oh, okay, that's that's different. That
12:07
Speaker 3: feels not like what we signed up for, not what
12:10
Speaker 3: we did, not what we expected. I spent a lot
12:13
Speaker 3: of time journaling and writing and asking myself what am I?
12:17
Speaker 3: How am I going to meet this moment? And how
12:20
Speaker 3: am I a partner to someone who doesn't recognize himself,
12:23
Speaker 3: let alone himself inside of this marriage?
12:27
Speaker 2: And yet I'm still his partner and his wife and
12:30
Speaker 2: his best friend. I'm his lover, right, so we have
12:33
Speaker 2: to find a way to be together. And what that
12:34
Speaker 2: meant for me was over time, I was refining the
12:40
Speaker 2: way and how I wanted to be in the world,
12:42
Speaker 2: and so I worked, but maybe I worked differently and
12:45
Speaker 2: I worked less, and that didn't always feel great because
12:47
Speaker 2: they were had friends who were like their careers were
12:49
Speaker 2: like skyrocketing. But I was a caregiver. And I learned
12:54
Speaker 2: during that time that much of life we are on
12:58
Speaker 2: a need to know basis?
13:00
Speaker 1: What do you mean by that?
13:01
Speaker 2: What I mean by that is one, I can't know
13:03
Speaker 2: what I don't know yet. I haven't lived it. I
13:05
Speaker 2: don't know it, so I can't know it. But also
13:09
Speaker 2: when you're dealing with illness, and specifically a kind and
13:12
Speaker 2: quality of illness that is mercurial, as in cancer, you
13:15
Speaker 2: don't know how it's developing. It's unfolding, what's happening. You're
13:17
Speaker 2: always at the behest of the next scan, did this
13:22
Speaker 2: treatment work? I can't plan two years out, six months out,
13:27
Speaker 2: sometimes next week, sometimes not even until tomorrow. I am
13:31
Speaker 2: on a need to know basis, So right now? What
13:35
Speaker 2: do I need to know right now? That informs this
13:38
Speaker 2: moment that allows me to be the most grounded and
13:40
Speaker 2: present that I can be because I cannot know what
13:43
Speaker 2: is coming next? And to live your life every day
13:46
Speaker 2: like that for years on end makes you bow down
13:51
Speaker 2: to the uncertainty, to the vulnerability that is life. And
13:57
Speaker 2: I only know that in the way that I know
13:59
Speaker 2: it now because of his illness. Now, I might have
14:03
Speaker 2: learned it in another way, in another form of life
14:06
Speaker 2: had he not been diagnosed. This is the path that
14:09
Speaker 2: my life took.
14:10
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that anybody can actually understand that unless
14:14
Speaker 1: you've been through something in your families, like somewhere really
14:18
Speaker 1: closely that just unearths your whole vision of life.
14:24
Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely, absolutely, And what I had the idea to
14:28
Speaker 2: write a book, and I understood that there were these
14:31
Speaker 2: big inflection points in my life, right the meeting which
14:34
Speaker 2: we talked about on the streets of Florence, but that
14:36
Speaker 2: diagnosis was another big inflection point. Yeah.
14:39
Speaker 1: And the iterations of your relationship with him felt like
14:43
Speaker 1: those to me, like I love when you talk about
14:45
Speaker 1: your honesty with one another. That you got to a
14:48
Speaker 1: point where you were saying things you never thought you
14:51
Speaker 1: would say out loud.
14:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, we realized very quickly that if we bullshitted each other,
14:59
Speaker 2: we were actually undermining the bedrock of our relationship. So
15:07
Speaker 2: what I had to learn was I needed to say
15:11
Speaker 2: what I needed to say how I felt, but I
15:15
Speaker 2: couldn't do it as like I'm just gonna go dump
15:20
Speaker 2: all this on you, right, right. So what I found
15:25
Speaker 2: was I was blessed to have people in my life
15:30
Speaker 2: that I could take certain things to. First, I would
15:33
Speaker 2: vomit out all the stuff, all the shadow, all the hurt,
15:37
Speaker 2: all the anger, the resentment, all the things, and so
15:40
Speaker 2: in the vomiting it all out, I could sort of
15:43
Speaker 2: like sift through it and go, Okay, well, this is
15:44
Speaker 2: actually really the nugget that is Germane that I actually
15:48
Speaker 2: need to take back to him to really talk about.
15:50
Speaker 1: Right, instead of like exploding all this and exploding on.
15:53
Speaker 2: Him because what is he He's in chemotherapy, he's going
15:54
Speaker 2: through everything like that's not gonna help anyone, and so
16:00
Speaker 2: sort of being judicious. It wasn't that I wasn't going
16:03
Speaker 2: to talk about the other stuff. I might get to that,
16:05
Speaker 2: but what is really what do I need? What do
16:06
Speaker 2: we need to talk about today? Like what's the most
16:09
Speaker 2: today for us to be the most present we can
16:12
Speaker 2: be today? I need to say I am frightened, and
16:17
Speaker 2: that frightened looks like this looks like I need to
16:21
Speaker 2: be away from you for a day to just find
16:23
Speaker 2: out who I am again so that I can come
16:25
Speaker 2: back and be present. He in return, could be honest
16:29
Speaker 2: with me and say it feels shitty to be your
16:33
Speaker 2: husband right now because I feel like I'm letting you
16:35
Speaker 2: down in every way possible, and that it's hard for
16:38
Speaker 2: me to look you in the eye. So that kind
16:41
Speaker 2: of honesty. We're in the same space, like I know
16:44
Speaker 2: where you are, you know where I am, and now
16:46
Speaker 2: this is our starting point. And then we would give
16:48
Speaker 2: each other the grace for me to go take the
16:51
Speaker 2: walk or you know, go to a movie, or like,
16:57
Speaker 2: can I just like bury my head in a book
16:59
Speaker 2: and not you know, gather myself a little bit first, right,
17:03
Speaker 2: I need a bit of reprieve. And we got to
17:06
Speaker 2: that place, we didn't start there.
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18:45
Speaker 1: How are you able to prioritize your feelings when your partner,
18:50
Speaker 1: the love of your life is going through the worst
18:51
Speaker 1: thing in the world.
18:52
Speaker 2: I didn't always. I tend to, and have tended to
18:57
Speaker 2: for the majority of my life prioritize others feelings over mind.
19:02
Speaker 2: Now one would say part of the sort of spiritual
19:05
Speaker 2: journey I've been on caregiving is one of those paths
19:10
Speaker 2: has been about inviting me to learn to also prioritize
19:17
Speaker 2: my feelings. And it doesn't mean that mine have to
19:18
Speaker 2: leap frog in front of someone else's, but they can
19:20
Speaker 2: certainly sit on an equal playing field. So I didn't
19:23
Speaker 2: always do that with him, and in fact, I felt
19:26
Speaker 2: guilty that I had feelings that were shadow or maybe
19:31
Speaker 2: weren't supportive, or maybe didn't feel like they were enthusiastic.
19:35
Speaker 2: I didn't know what to do with those feelings and
19:38
Speaker 2: how to talk to him about it, even though he
19:40
Speaker 2: was my best friend and my lover and the person
19:42
Speaker 2: that if anything else was going on in my life
19:44
Speaker 2: I talked to him about, but suddenly there was this
19:46
Speaker 2: thing I couldn't talk to him about. But I had
19:50
Speaker 2: a few folks again in my life, and I talk
19:53
Speaker 2: about the tribe right, And I had one person in particular,
19:56
Speaker 2: my dear friend Julie Ariola. I shout he up all
19:59
Speaker 2: the time, and then about her in the book, who said,
20:01
Speaker 2: You've got to check in with yourself, because if you
20:03
Speaker 2: don't have you, then he doesn't have you. And then
20:06
Speaker 2: the thing you think you're doing, which is caregiving, you're
20:09
Speaker 2: not actually doing because nobody's present for any of it.
20:12
Speaker 1: How About when your friend said, like, don't you just
20:15
Speaker 1: want to get in the car and drive away sometimes?
20:17
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, when she took me to the ivy. We
20:20
Speaker 2: were at the ivy. I will never forget this. She
20:22
Speaker 2: took me on a wonderful lunch and I thought, we're
20:23
Speaker 2: gonna have like a girlfriend lunch and like, give him
20:26
Speaker 2: me a break from caregiving and you know, rationing out
20:30
Speaker 2: pills and anti nausea medication, and let's go to the
20:33
Speaker 2: ivy and have a girl's lunch. And I was all
20:35
Speaker 2: for it. And we got there and within short order,
20:37
Speaker 2: I think the waiter left the table, and she was like,
20:39
Speaker 2: so here's the deal. If you're going to do this,
20:44
Speaker 2: then you got to really do it, and you got
20:45
Speaker 2: to be whole, and you've got to find a way
20:48
Speaker 2: to be whole, because not only are you not serving him,
20:52
Speaker 2: you're not serving yourself and you're not serving your marriage
20:54
Speaker 2: if you're not and she said, or if you don't
20:57
Speaker 2: want to do all that, you can leave. That's a choice.
21:00
Speaker 2: People make it all the time. People leave if it's
21:04
Speaker 2: not what you signed up for, it's okay. And it
21:07
Speaker 2: was blunt and it was on the table and like
21:10
Speaker 2: I couldn't. I was like, I can't digest my food
21:12
Speaker 2: after this conversation, what are we gonna do? Like what?
21:14
Speaker 2: And yet it was the greatest gift she ever gave me.
21:17
Speaker 1: Because I shouldn't honesty.
21:20
Speaker 2: And if I left angry, I left mad.
21:22
Speaker 1: I left feeling like, oh.
21:23
Speaker 2: My god, I thought we're gonna have like this girlfriend
21:25
Speaker 2: lunch and like it turned out to like you were
21:27
Speaker 2: just you served up honesty in a real way. And
21:30
Speaker 2: I now I can't unring the bell and I've got
21:33
Speaker 2: to really choose who do I want to be? And
21:36
Speaker 2: I chose what I chose, which is to stay and
21:38
Speaker 2: be present, but also be present for me. So I
21:41
Speaker 2: signed up for writing classes, I did things that could
21:45
Speaker 2: fill me up while I was giving to something else.
21:50
Speaker 1: You made sure that your life didn't totally pass you
21:52
Speaker 1: by during those years, which is easy to do. I'm
21:55
Speaker 1: really interested in how friends can support people and hard times.
22:00
Speaker 1: I've heard you talk about how you wish you would
22:03
Speaker 1: have asked somebody to just come in and fold your laundry,
22:05
Speaker 1: that you had this pile of laundry.
22:08
Speaker 2: The pile of laundry was a metaphor for so much, right,
22:11
Speaker 2: but yes, on the most practical, like if we're just
22:14
Speaker 2: going to go to like the basic basic things you
22:17
Speaker 2: can do. Caregiving is a slog. It is taxing, and
22:22
Speaker 2: it is draining everything that you have to uphold your life,
22:25
Speaker 2: and then you're also doing it for another human being
22:27
Speaker 2: while you're also working full time. That is the story
22:31
Speaker 2: of most women who are caregiving in America and men also.
22:35
Speaker 2: Maybe to date, there are something like sixty three million
22:38
Speaker 2: family caregivers. And I'm not talking about people who are
22:40
Speaker 2: professional caregivers who are paid and on a payroll to
22:43
Speaker 2: do it. I'm talking about the paid labor that we
22:46
Speaker 2: are doing in the care of someone else. And so
22:49
Speaker 2: for me, what that looked like was like, Okay, I'm
22:52
Speaker 2: thinking about the organic meals, I'm thinking about the medicines.
22:55
Speaker 2: I'm thinking about how to get to and from treatment.
22:57
Speaker 2: I'm trying to sort of problem solve. Problem solve very
23:00
Speaker 2: good at managing low level or big crises all the time, right,
23:07
Speaker 2: which puts you in a kind of a hyperdrive. But
23:09
Speaker 2: then you have laundry and you have things like that.
23:11
Speaker 2: And so the story you're talking about is a friend
23:14
Speaker 2: came over and I was asking one thing of her,
23:16
Speaker 2: but I had the door like kind of semi shut
23:19
Speaker 2: or you know, to the guest room which had the
23:21
Speaker 2: pile of laundry that I just could not get to
23:24
Speaker 2: because I was so tired at the end of the day.
23:25
Speaker 2: The last thing I'd want to do is now let
23:27
Speaker 2: me go to another hour plus of labor. And my
23:30
Speaker 2: friend passed the room and she was, what is that?
23:34
Speaker 2: And she knew it was unlike me, And.
23:36
Speaker 1: I was like, say that that you could say that, you.
23:39
Speaker 2: Could say that type a type with soft edges. I guess,
23:43
Speaker 2: I don't know, you know. But nonetheless, she basically like
23:46
Speaker 2: kind of pushed the door open and was like, we're
23:47
Speaker 2: doing this. That's the thing I came here to do,
23:49
Speaker 2: So that's what I'm going to do. And it was
23:51
Speaker 2: very vulnerable to me to let someone literally full into
23:54
Speaker 2: like she was full of the underwear, right. But I
23:57
Speaker 2: felt so grateful, I felt so seen, I felt so supported.
24:03
Speaker 2: I wanted to cry. And it was something I never
24:05
Speaker 2: could have asked. I never could have articulated that as
24:08
Speaker 2: a need because it had become so normalized to me
24:11
Speaker 2: that I didn't even see it anymore as a need.
24:15
Speaker 2: And that was a friend saying I can do this,
24:19
Speaker 2: and then she did whatever else she also came to do.
24:21
Speaker 2: And I say to people who are the friends of
24:23
Speaker 2: so you can do those things like go get the groceries,
24:26
Speaker 2: go wash the car, go mow the lawn, go take
24:28
Speaker 2: the bit. Don't ask like how can I help.
24:31
Speaker 1: You today, initiative? Just do just do it, Just do it.
24:35
Speaker 2: I mean even things like I have friends who live
24:37
Speaker 2: far who would say, right now, there's an Amazon gift
24:42
Speaker 2: card landing in your email box. I don't know what
24:45
Speaker 2: you need from Amazon, but I'm sure there's something you need.
24:48
Speaker 2: Open it, click and go, or create a wish list
24:51
Speaker 2: and I'll buy it and have it shipped to you,
24:53
Speaker 2: So it's like containing the ask, giving it structure because
24:58
Speaker 2: caregivers are a problem solving and you get decision fatigue
25:02
Speaker 2: throughout the day all the time. And I had so
25:05
Speaker 2: much decision fatigue. But then when you would ask me
25:07
Speaker 2: what can I do for you? I would flatline if
25:09
Speaker 2: it's okay with you.
25:11
Speaker 1: In most of the interviews i've heard you do you
25:13
Speaker 1: take people through this story and I want to jump
25:16
Speaker 1: ahead actually to present days. So your husband passes and
25:23
Speaker 1: there's of course so much grief. My guess is like
25:27
Speaker 1: some relief in some way just because of your caregiving.
25:32
Speaker 2: Oddly, I didn't feel it as I felt as though
25:36
Speaker 2: I'd lost a whole part of my identity. I was
25:38
Speaker 2: a caregiver for ten years. I was used to waking
25:40
Speaker 2: up and saying, Oh, I need to do this, this
25:42
Speaker 2: and this, and suddenly I didn't have I had my
25:45
Speaker 2: daughter to care for, but that was a different kind
25:48
Speaker 2: of care. So I felt a loss of identity more
25:51
Speaker 2: than relief. In time, I began with distance to see that,
25:58
Speaker 2: oh I have more capacity, there's more to my day.
26:03
Speaker 2: I didn't still think of that as like relief. Yet
26:05
Speaker 2: I just felt like, oh, and I think it was
26:07
Speaker 2: about two years after he passed. I was like, I
26:10
Speaker 2: first it was almost like like looking in my rear
26:13
Speaker 2: view mirroring what did I just lift through? What like
26:16
Speaker 2: the specter of it had lifted just it took two years, though,
26:19
Speaker 2: to lift enough for me to see. Oh, I was under.
26:23
Speaker 1: The weight of that for a long time when you
26:26
Speaker 1: started replaying things, because I think that's just so normal
26:30
Speaker 1: to do. Is there anything you look back and wish
26:34
Speaker 1: had gone differently?
26:35
Speaker 2: Well? Yes, not at the top of mind, because in general,
26:38
Speaker 2: I'm sort of one of those people that you know,
26:40
Speaker 2: as I said, I make the best decision I can
26:43
Speaker 2: with the information I have right in front of me,
26:45
Speaker 2: and then I let it go, and I truly don't
26:48
Speaker 2: second guess it.
26:49
Speaker 1: That's amazing.
26:50
Speaker 2: I may spend a lot of time perseverating on making
26:53
Speaker 2: that decision, but once I made it, I'm like, well,
26:55
Speaker 2: I did the best I could. If I could have
26:57
Speaker 2: done better, I would I would have right. So, But
27:01
Speaker 2: there is one thing, and it comes to the care
27:05
Speaker 2: around the end of life. I wish I had been
27:07
Speaker 2: more aware of I wish I had been more informed
27:15
Speaker 2: about what care and what the path might look like
27:22
Speaker 2: for us when treatment wasn't an option, and because I'd
27:26
Speaker 2: never given really any thought or space to that, because
27:31
Speaker 2: we were in the fight, we were in the challenge,
27:33
Speaker 2: we were in the treatment, we were in the next
27:35
Speaker 2: clinical trial. I think we could have saved ourselves some
27:45
Speaker 2: of the critical up and down literally eer moments in
27:50
Speaker 2: the last months of his life had I known about
27:54
Speaker 2: palliative care sooner. So palliative care is care that I
27:58
Speaker 2: think every American should about first of all. So you're
28:01
Speaker 2: going along and there's hospice care, which we sort of
28:04
Speaker 2: kind of know about and we know is like, okay,
28:06
Speaker 2: that's when someone has said you are terminal, and now
28:09
Speaker 2: we are going to prepare you to die. Basically, palliative
28:13
Speaker 2: care can come before that and can sit right beside that,
28:17
Speaker 2: which is to say, you're not doing treatment anymore. We
28:20
Speaker 2: don't know exactly when and how. It's may not be
28:24
Speaker 2: imminent that you're passing, but you need holistic comfort care.
28:29
Speaker 2: And palliative care looks at the whole family, It looks
28:33
Speaker 2: at the ecosystem that the patient lives within, and it's like,
28:37
Speaker 2: how can we give you the best quality of life
28:40
Speaker 2: for the time that you do have. And that would
28:44
Speaker 2: have been a game changer for us.
28:46
Speaker 1: Thank you for sharing that.
28:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, I hope if go google it, learn about it,
28:50
Speaker 2: ask about it for your ones, for friends, for colleagues,
28:53
Speaker 2: for anybody.
28:54
Speaker 1: So you're in grief yourself, and then you have this
28:58
Speaker 1: amazing daughter. Sheastic, She seems fantastic. I love when you
29:04
Speaker 1: post about her on Instagram because I can.
29:06
Speaker 2: Tell you she doesn't like it so much.
29:08
Speaker 1: I don't do it, but none, that's true. I hate
29:10
Speaker 1: when my mom posts me on Instagram and she's listening
29:14
Speaker 1: to this. So sorry, Mom. But my biggest question to
29:18
Speaker 1: you is how you were able to move through your
29:21
Speaker 1: own grief. To me, that feels like on the kitchen floor,
29:27
Speaker 1: just wailing, no sense of what this future looks like,
29:32
Speaker 1: and at the same time be a pillar of strength
29:36
Speaker 1: for your daughter.
29:37
Speaker 2: This is such a big question, and thank you for
29:39
Speaker 2: asking it. And I'll do my best to be as
29:42
Speaker 2: frank and honest and tell you what it looked like
29:46
Speaker 2: from my side of things. Yeah, there was on the
29:50
Speaker 2: floor in the kitchen that undeniably. So the thing I
29:54
Speaker 2: made the commitment to as a mom was that I
29:59
Speaker 2: would show up or her in the most full way
30:03
Speaker 2: I could because I knew in some sense that if
30:07
Speaker 2: she was good or the best she could be in
30:13
Speaker 2: that moment, that then that would take some of the
30:17
Speaker 2: pressure off of me as a mom. I would grieve
30:19
Speaker 2: a little bit like she was, almost like the only
30:22
Speaker 2: way I'm gonna be able to gasp for air here
30:25
Speaker 2: is if I if I like, let me please take
30:27
Speaker 2: care of this child, Please God, let me show up
30:30
Speaker 2: for her the best I can. And when she goes
30:32
Speaker 2: to school, I'm a hot Christmas mess, as they say,
30:35
Speaker 2: you know. And I allowed myself that I gave myself
30:37
Speaker 2: the grace of that, and then I would say, Okay,
30:41
Speaker 2: it's time to get in the car, It's time to
30:42
Speaker 2: go pick her up. And it wasn't that I shielded
30:45
Speaker 2: her from my pain or that I withheld how I
30:48
Speaker 2: felt or tears from her. But I knew that at
30:51
Speaker 2: seven she could not she could not go forward having
30:55
Speaker 2: lost a dad and then also have a mom who
30:59
Speaker 2: was completely am I in And the part of me
31:02
Speaker 2: that is a caregiver is a mama bear, just like
31:06
Speaker 2: I psychically prioritized her over me, you know, to a
31:10
Speaker 2: large degree. And I knew I had to be a mom.
31:13
Speaker 2: But what the only way that could happen is I
31:14
Speaker 2: had to have moments when I didn't have to be
31:16
Speaker 2: a mom, when I could just be tenby the wife
31:19
Speaker 2: who'd lost the love of her life. And so it
31:21
Speaker 2: was very important that I have people in my life
31:25
Speaker 2: who could shore her up be care for her when
31:29
Speaker 2: I couldn't be present. That was the contract I made
31:32
Speaker 2: with the people in my life and with myself. So
31:35
Speaker 2: when I would feel it coming on like I can't,
31:38
Speaker 2: I had a short list of people local and far
31:42
Speaker 2: who I could call. And when I say people were far,
31:44
Speaker 2: I'd be like, Okay, this requires maybe like I need
31:47
Speaker 2: a week, and so can someone come stay with us?
31:49
Speaker 2: Or can she go? And you know it's spring break?
31:51
Speaker 2: Can she be with the grandparents?
31:53
Speaker 1: You know?
31:53
Speaker 2: And that week, I'm not changing up pajamas, I'm not
31:57
Speaker 2: getting off the cow. Like I need to just be yeah,
32:00
Speaker 2: allow my grief to breathe. I need to understand this experience.
32:06
Speaker 2: I need to just feel into my heart. If I
32:09
Speaker 2: want to just play sad songs all day or whatever,
32:12
Speaker 2: or take a trip, I need to be able to
32:14
Speaker 2: do that. It was a balance. It was a delicate
32:16
Speaker 2: dance between her needs and my needs. And it wasn't
32:19
Speaker 2: like I'm going to push my needs aside and only
32:21
Speaker 2: focus on her because that would not How was that
32:24
Speaker 2: going to serve either one of us?
32:25
Speaker 1: Right?
32:27
Speaker 2: And she taught me a lot about grief, So she
32:31
Speaker 2: gave me permission to grieve in deeper ways because she
32:34
Speaker 2: at seven and eight, which she was seven when her
32:36
Speaker 2: dad passed away. It was very frank and very honest,
32:41
Speaker 2: and she's a very intuitive person, and so witnessing and
32:47
Speaker 2: being present for her grief helped me to see, I'm
32:51
Speaker 2: feeling the same way. We're grieving the same person and
32:53
Speaker 2: we're but we're grieving different relationships, a father versus a husband.
32:58
Speaker 2: But I see her tender, shaky heart, and I got
33:03
Speaker 2: one of those two, and let's have compassion for the
33:06
Speaker 2: both of us.
33:07
Speaker 1: One of the things you taught me is that your
33:10
Speaker 1: grief looked different than hers. So you were grieving memories
33:14
Speaker 1: and this love that had been built, and she was
33:16
Speaker 1: grieving something to happen in the future. Will you talk
33:20
Speaker 1: about that?
33:21
Speaker 2: Sure? I mean one of the things I have learned
33:24
Speaker 2: through therapy and books and researching and talking and just
33:28
Speaker 2: sort of really trying to understand. I was trying to
33:29
Speaker 2: really wrap my mind. I don't have an experience of
33:31
Speaker 2: childhood grief. Both of my parents are blissedly alive. And
33:36
Speaker 2: it was one of the first things she said to
33:38
Speaker 2: me was, you don't know what this feels like. Your
33:39
Speaker 2: dad's in the other room. She was so called it
33:43
Speaker 2: like she was straight to the point, and I said, okay.
33:47
Speaker 2: It was like a page one reaba. I said, okay,
33:49
Speaker 2: this is this is being a mom and a whole
33:50
Speaker 2: new landscape. So if I would go get a book
33:53
Speaker 2: to learn about toddlers, then I'm definitely going to go
33:56
Speaker 2: find the books about children who are grieving, like I
33:58
Speaker 2: have to do the research. Got to learn as a
34:01
Speaker 2: mom what this experience is so that I can meet
34:03
Speaker 2: her where she is to the best of my ability,
34:06
Speaker 2: right And I gave those same books to my sister,
34:08
Speaker 2: to her grandparents and to her teachers, because we all
34:12
Speaker 2: have to be acting from the same playbook. Because if
34:14
Speaker 2: I see something, I need to be able to talk
34:16
Speaker 2: to you about it. If you see something, you need
34:18
Speaker 2: to be able to talk to me about it. Because
34:20
Speaker 2: she's seven, she's not going to sit down and like
34:22
Speaker 2: you know, talk with us for an hour about the
34:24
Speaker 2: depth of her feelings. She's going to act it out.
34:27
Speaker 2: And so one of the things I learned is that
34:31
Speaker 2: children grieve the life they won't have with their parent.
34:38
Speaker 2: So there are the moments, and they're usually developmental markers, birthdays, graduations,
34:43
Speaker 2: first dances, things like that first time in a play
34:48
Speaker 2: where they're going to look up and the parent isn't there,
34:52
Speaker 2: and that is a grief trigger. And often what I
34:56
Speaker 2: have learned is that the grief be begins to show
35:01
Speaker 2: up leading in the days leading up to the event.
35:05
Speaker 2: So I now know I learned then the days leading
35:08
Speaker 2: up to a birthday, the feelings are going to be
35:10
Speaker 2: more intense, Yeah, because she is grieving the loss of
35:15
Speaker 2: her Dad's not there for her when she gets her
35:17
Speaker 2: driver's license. He's not there when she finished middle school
35:21
Speaker 2: and gets to go to the first day of high school.
35:23
Speaker 2: So she's grieving forward and she's looking ahead, while as I,
35:26
Speaker 2: as his wife, I'm looking in the rear view mirror,
35:30
Speaker 2: thinking of, you know, when it's our anniversary, of how
35:32
Speaker 2: much I miss him, or you know. Often her birthday
35:36
Speaker 2: would be a trigger for me as well, but for
35:37
Speaker 2: different reasons, because I'd be remembering, you know, when we
35:40
Speaker 2: shared her first birthday together and he's not here. So
35:44
Speaker 2: the parent and child are grieving the same person, but
35:49
Speaker 2: different relationships and with different points of view, And so
35:52
Speaker 2: I try to look ahead to say, like, oh, the
35:56
Speaker 2: graduation's coming up, let's do things to think about how
36:02
Speaker 2: I can include her dad in her graduation. So we
36:05
Speaker 2: don't pretend like it's not happening, but we try to
36:08
Speaker 2: make a little space for it.
36:10
Speaker 1: What are grief triggers for you? Now?
36:13
Speaker 2: Always in forever, music, always and forever, Getting on an
36:16
Speaker 2: Alitalia's flight and going to Italy photographs for sure. So
36:22
Speaker 2: those are sort of external triggers. Internal triggers are exactly
36:27
Speaker 2: what I just said. My daughter is beginning to conclude
36:31
Speaker 2: her high school career, because it's definitely felt like a
36:35
Speaker 2: career this high school time, and she's gonna be in
36:38
Speaker 2: transition to college, you know, in the year. That is
36:42
Speaker 2: a big trigger for me. And I am imagining and
36:48
Speaker 2: asking what would he think? What would he have we fulfilled?
36:54
Speaker 2: Have I been able to fulfill the dreams that we
36:57
Speaker 2: said when she was in the crib and we were
36:58
Speaker 2: like in deep in the diaper and in all the stuff, right,
37:02
Speaker 2: and we were like, oh, we hope this for her,
37:03
Speaker 2: We hope that for her, Like has that come to
37:06
Speaker 2: pass right. I've done the best I could. But you know,
37:10
Speaker 2: recently I have repartnered and I remarried. The wedding was
37:14
Speaker 2: a trigger. The big trigger. My husband, my late husband,
37:19
Speaker 2: was a part of my marriage to my new husband.
37:21
Speaker 2: He just was. I had him included in the rituals
37:24
Speaker 2: I did around it because he's marrying the totality of
37:28
Speaker 2: my life and I can't extricate, you know, the bigness
37:33
Speaker 2: of what that love was, what that life was, and
37:36
Speaker 2: so you know, I try to fold it all in,
37:39
Speaker 2: but it's a trigger.
37:40
Speaker 1: Do you ever have like emotional moments that don't make
37:43
Speaker 1: total sense to you?
37:44
Speaker 2: Absolutely all the time. I remember saying to my daughter once.
37:48
Speaker 2: I think she asked me something like if when you
37:51
Speaker 2: pass away and you go to heaven, and she said,
37:55
Speaker 2: who are you married to in heaven? Are you married
37:58
Speaker 2: to my dad? Are you married to Robert? And I
38:05
Speaker 2: I said, I want to say that. Yeah, right, So
38:08
Speaker 2: I know, kind of there's the question, and then there's
38:11
Speaker 2: what I assumed, or I presumed might be the question
38:14
Speaker 2: behind the question. So on the one hand, I said, well,
38:17
Speaker 2: in the heaven that I'm imagining, there's space and for
38:23
Speaker 2: all the loves and no love is prioritized over another.
38:27
Speaker 2: It's all a part of this experience that we've had.
38:31
Speaker 2: But I'm also saying because I think they ask the
38:33
Speaker 2: question behind the question was are you still thinking about
38:36
Speaker 2: my dad? Yeah? Or have you forgotten about him? And
38:40
Speaker 2: so the way I answered that was to say, your
38:42
Speaker 2: dad is always with me, because she said, well, why
38:44
Speaker 2: are you wearing two rings? I wear both wedding bands, right,
38:47
Speaker 2: because I've been married twice and I wear both wedding bs.
38:50
Speaker 2: I didn't get divorced. I never got divorced, you know,
38:53
Speaker 2: so I wear them both. And I said, they're both
38:54
Speaker 2: a part of my life. I even have said, you know,
38:57
Speaker 2: I am passing to a friend. I was like, think
38:59
Speaker 2: how it would really like Robert, Like I think they'd
39:02
Speaker 2: be you know, like there's some world in which they
39:04
Speaker 2: would be friends. Yeah. Those are kind of the odd
39:07
Speaker 2: things that only widowed people think about, you know, and
39:10
Speaker 2: they may sound strange to others. But I always say
39:13
Speaker 2: when I say things that, or when people sort of
39:16
Speaker 2: look kind of cock eyed or like, what what you know?
39:18
Speaker 2: I have a friend who was widowed a very long time,
39:20
Speaker 2: and she said, if ever anyone challenges you or asks you,
39:24
Speaker 2: what you mean by that you simply say, when your
39:27
Speaker 2: husband dies, we'll talk about it. Then tell me what
39:30
Speaker 2: you think. And I say it to people, I never
39:34
Speaker 2: say it quite that bluntly, but I'm like, oh, okay, well,
39:37
Speaker 2: you know, when you've walked a mile in these shoes,
39:39
Speaker 2: then we can actually talk about this. But yeah, let's
39:42
Speaker 2: just let's table this conversation.
39:47
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Speaker 1: get at your first six Gobble meals for just thirty
41:02
Speaker 1: six dollars. So a big part of this story that
41:09
Speaker 1: we haven't touched on is the fact that you had
41:12
Speaker 1: a cross cultural relationship and there were a lot of
41:17
Speaker 1: moments with his family that were difficult moments within your
41:20
Speaker 1: own relationship where you were both understanding one another. I've
41:25
Speaker 1: had a few cross cultural relationships and I was thinking
41:28
Speaker 1: about how I value the differences. I think they make
41:31
Speaker 1: things so interesting, and at the same time, no matter
41:35
Speaker 1: how seen I feel, there is a part that I
41:41
Speaker 1: feel like you have to grieve a little bit in
41:43
Speaker 1: that that person will never fully understand.
41:47
Speaker 2: Here's the way I'll say it, as I loved it,
41:49
Speaker 2: as I lived it right. I had to accept fairly
41:55
Speaker 2: early on there were going to be whole part we
42:01
Speaker 2: did not share period, end of story. He did not
42:04
Speaker 2: understand the value of Sunday Night Quiet Storm, which if
42:08
Speaker 2: you know what that is, that is the radio hour
42:10
Speaker 2: when R and B goes real sacram and it is
42:14
Speaker 2: love songs like through And he didn't grow up on
42:16
Speaker 2: R and B love songs. And I'm like, great, then
42:18
Speaker 2: that's mine. I get to keep that. And when I
42:20
Speaker 2: play it, you just like go to another room. But
42:22
Speaker 2: I'm going to do that. Conversely, when I got to Sicily,
42:28
Speaker 2: and I didn't even understand language initially, right Sicilian, and
42:32
Speaker 2: he's with his nuclear family, and there's whole inside jokes
42:35
Speaker 2: and references things that I even if I did understand
42:38
Speaker 2: the language, I would have no context for. I realized, okay,
42:42
Speaker 2: he gets to have that. It had to make a
42:44
Speaker 2: contract that parts of our early experience before we met
42:48
Speaker 2: each other would remain in a kind of invisibility to
42:51
Speaker 2: each other, meaning like I won't know about like I
42:55
Speaker 2: meaning some obscure racing Sicilian racing reference that took. You know,
43:01
Speaker 2: I don't know anything about that. You might not know
43:03
Speaker 2: anything about what it was like to wear air Jordan's
43:07
Speaker 2: in like the nineties when they came out, Like, that's
43:09
Speaker 2: not a thing for you, but that doesn't make or
43:12
Speaker 2: break our relationship, and we can laugh and respect the differences,
43:16
Speaker 2: and that's what we came to. So, you know, I
43:19
Speaker 2: would just say, oh, you're in your family, You're talking
43:20
Speaker 2: about the stuff that I don't know about, and dah,
43:22
Speaker 2: da da dah. I might tune in a little bit,
43:24
Speaker 2: but I'm going to bury my face in a book
43:25
Speaker 2: and read and then you know, we'll check in at
43:29
Speaker 2: the end of the day and I want to hear
43:30
Speaker 2: all about like what that made you remember and how
43:34
Speaker 2: it brought up all these things. Just like when I'm
43:36
Speaker 2: with my family and they are giving you soul food
43:41
Speaker 2: for the fifth day in a row over the holidays,
43:44
Speaker 2: and you're like, Okay, enough with the brisket, enough with
43:48
Speaker 2: the ribs, enough with the you know, mac and cheese,
43:52
Speaker 2: and you just want like a salad with you know,
43:55
Speaker 2: I don't know, like tomatoes, oregano and a little and
43:57
Speaker 2: you're not gonna find it. You got to be okay
44:00
Speaker 2: with that.
44:00
Speaker 1: What about the deeper stuff though, what about the stuff
44:04
Speaker 1: that's like he'll never fully understand what racism means to you.
44:10
Speaker 2: Well, we shared that, so that wasn't a difference for us.
44:15
Speaker 2: So thank you for asking that.
44:16
Speaker 1: Question, because tell me what you mean.
44:18
Speaker 2: What I mean by that is my late husband was Sicilian,
44:23
Speaker 2: and if you know anything about Italy as it has
44:25
Speaker 2: existed and exists today, Italy, not unlike America and many
44:31
Speaker 2: places in the world, has regional and ethnic differences within
44:37
Speaker 2: a nation. He had, as a Sicilian person, been on
44:44
Speaker 2: the receiving end of much discrimination based on language, color
44:49
Speaker 2: of skin, or I should say shade of skin. Right,
44:53
Speaker 2: He was not unfamiliar with being on the blunt end
44:59
Speaker 2: of straight up discrimination. And he was also a very
45:03
Speaker 2: well read person. I think that's a big deal, well
45:08
Speaker 2: read across cultures. And he had been very fascinated by
45:11
Speaker 2: the history American history, so he also really knew American
45:15
Speaker 2: like I could never have been with someone who didn't
45:17
Speaker 2: understand this like that was it would be a non starter. Yeah,
45:20
Speaker 2: So he came to the table with his own lived
45:23
Speaker 2: experience of direct discrimination based on economics and culture and language,
45:30
Speaker 2: where he'd been denied housing in Florence, where you know,
45:35
Speaker 2: he'd been told not to eat here or can't go
45:38
Speaker 2: there these sort of coded things within the culture, right,
45:42
Speaker 2: So he had that lived experience and then he had
45:45
Speaker 2: backed it up with doing the education. So that was
45:49
Speaker 2: a deeper thing that I always felt seen in, Like
45:52
Speaker 2: I could come and talk to him about it, and
45:54
Speaker 2: he was never like, what do you mean, what are
45:55
Speaker 2: you getting at? Or huh or are you sure? It
45:59
Speaker 2: was never that. I was like, Okay, I'm going to
46:00
Speaker 2: hear you for this because you're telling me it's your experience.
46:04
Speaker 1: Right, that's beautiful.
46:06
Speaker 2: On the other end, I had a little more learning
46:08
Speaker 2: to do.
46:09
Speaker 1: Right, it's a little bit more obscure for us to
46:11
Speaker 1: know about it, very much.
46:12
Speaker 2: More obscure for me. I didn't really understand the differences.
46:15
Speaker 2: So I actually was probably more the person who was like,
46:17
Speaker 2: what do you mean, what are you talking about?
46:19
Speaker 1: For real?
46:20
Speaker 2: You know, because I had to do my own learning
46:22
Speaker 2: and educating. And then it became really it became clear.
46:26
Speaker 1: What is your number one piece of advice for people
46:29
Speaker 1: in cross cultural relationships?
46:31
Speaker 2: You've got to be curious. If you are not curious,
46:36
Speaker 2: I don't know how that that boat's not go and
46:39
Speaker 2: sink or I don't mean to me. I got really
46:43
Speaker 2: frank there because here's the thing you don't There's so
46:44
Speaker 2: much you don't know. And if you just go, well,
46:47
Speaker 2: I don't know, so no, that's not going to help
46:50
Speaker 2: a relationship. You have to go I don't know, Okay,
46:52
Speaker 2: let me can I can you tell me more? Can
46:55
Speaker 2: I find out more? Kate? I'm trying to understand why
46:58
Speaker 2: is it that way? So that eastline of curiosity will
47:02
Speaker 2: carry you through the things you don't know. And then
47:04
Speaker 2: the second thing is you have to be willing to
47:07
Speaker 2: build a shared world because the default is when things
47:11
Speaker 2: arise and conflict happens, people default to their culture of origin,
47:17
Speaker 2: their ways of origin. And you've got to be in contract. Okay,
47:20
Speaker 2: you're doing the thing you do that might be the
47:21
Speaker 2: Sicilian thing that you do, but that's not helping us
47:24
Speaker 2: right now, or you're doing the thing ten be that
47:27
Speaker 2: you do, and we have to come back to the
47:31
Speaker 2: shared bedrock that we've created together.
47:34
Speaker 1: I ask everybody three questions at the end of the podcast.
47:38
Speaker 2: Oh I hope, I'm ready. I don't think I've prepared
47:40
Speaker 2: for this, and I'm so bad on the spot, but
47:42
Speaker 2: here goes.
47:43
Speaker 1: These are all very much up your alley. You'll be great.
47:46
Speaker 1: What is one book that everybody should read.
47:50
Speaker 2: Because we've been talking about this today, I will say,
47:52
Speaker 2: there's a book called Final Gifts.
47:55
Speaker 1: Okay, I do a pretty smart I.
47:57
Speaker 2: Love your pretty smart questions. I love those.
48:00
Speaker 1: Okay, tell me when to stop.
48:01
Speaker 2: Okay, stop stop stop?
48:03
Speaker 1: What are you still trying to prove to yourself and
48:06
Speaker 1: other people? You got a doozy. I'm sorry.
48:09
Speaker 2: That is a big one. But I'll tell you what's
48:10
Speaker 2: happening right now and folding in my life is that
48:14
Speaker 2: it is learning to hold my ground in a way
48:24
Speaker 2: that isn't about taking away from someone out you know,
48:27
Speaker 2: anyone else, but it's that my point of view, and
48:31
Speaker 2: I think this is the caregiver piece in me. Prioritizing
48:33
Speaker 2: others over myself is to say, wait, hold on, let
48:36
Speaker 2: me check in with timby what is the younger part
48:39
Speaker 2: of me need, What does the adult in me need
48:42
Speaker 2: right now? And what's going to serve the both of us?
48:48
Speaker 2: And then once I decide what those things are, until
48:53
Speaker 2: I get new information, that's the position I'm going to take.
48:57
Speaker 1: That's a really big one.
48:58
Speaker 2: Mm hm.
48:59
Speaker 1: And I love that you're asking yourself those questions because
49:01
Speaker 1: it's hard to just recognize without those questions, because.
49:05
Speaker 2: I've learned recently the young part of me has to
49:07
Speaker 2: be on board too.
49:08
Speaker 1: Okay, last question, whatever comes to your mind. What is
49:10
Speaker 1: the smartest decision you've ever made?
49:13
Speaker 2: Getting on a plane and going to Italy.
49:17
Speaker 1: Italy is never a bad decision, by the way.
49:20
Speaker 2: You know, at the time, of course, I would know
49:22
Speaker 2: that i'd meet someone, fall in love, and all the
49:24
Speaker 2: things right. I had no way of knowing that I
49:26
Speaker 2: was doing something and no one in my family had
49:28
Speaker 2: ever done. I was taking a leap just for me,
49:33
Speaker 2: not because other people had done it, not because anyone
49:35
Speaker 2: told me to do it, not because I thought something
49:38
Speaker 2: was waiting for me on the other side, but simply
49:41
Speaker 2: because I felt curious and moved to do it. I thought,
49:45
Speaker 2: I'm going to take this leap. I had never had
49:47
Speaker 2: a passport. My family didn't travel internationally growing up, so
49:51
Speaker 2: that was not a thing. Once I had that experience
49:54
Speaker 2: under my belt, I trusted my intuition to do it
49:58
Speaker 2: again around something different, perhaps, but follow follow that and
50:04
Speaker 2: that was the first time that was the smartest decision.
50:06
Speaker 1: It's a bit of a bet on yourself, but it's
50:08
Speaker 1: also this muscle that you were working that created your confidence.
50:13
Speaker 2: Exactly and I didn't know, and of course I was
50:15
Speaker 2: twenty years old then. And what I now understand about
50:17
Speaker 2: the arc of life is those early years when we're
50:20
Speaker 2: really formed, when we're adults information no one's ada. You're
50:24
Speaker 2: not an adult at twenty. You know you're you're moving
50:27
Speaker 2: through this life phase. A part of what you're doing
50:31
Speaker 2: is refining And I've learned this from a beautiful book
50:33
Speaker 2: Quarter Life by Satiya Baiak, which is about she's doing
50:36
Speaker 2: a lot of research on this and that time in
50:38
Speaker 2: life is about refining kind of value systems for who
50:42
Speaker 2: you are. And that was the first occasion for me
50:46
Speaker 2: to say, this is who I am. I'm someone who
50:50
Speaker 2: does things that maybe no one has done before. I
50:54
Speaker 2: take risk. Oh, I don't have all the answers, but
50:57
Speaker 2: I'm still going to try. And that experience encapsulated all
51:02
Speaker 2: of that, and then I've been able to build upon
51:06
Speaker 2: that early muscle, strengthen that muscle over the course of
51:10
Speaker 2: my life.
51:38
Speaker 1: All Right, today is a good day. To have a
51:39
Speaker 1: good day. I'll see you next week.