Transcript

#56 44 Photos · Heavyweight

0:03
Speaker 1: Hello, Hello, Oh Hello, Do you know who this is? Yes, Stevie, Yeah,
0:11
Speaker 1: you got me.
0:12
Speaker 2: You have a pretty recognizable voice.
0:15
Speaker 1: I have to say.
0:15
Speaker 3: It has sort of like a pleasantly deep registered wow
0:19
Speaker 3: in a nice way, but it makes your voice very distinct.
0:22
Speaker 4: It's funny you should say this because, Yeah, one time,
0:26
Speaker 4: when I was like in middle school, my friend called
0:28
Speaker 4: my house and I picked up the phone and I
0:31
Speaker 4: was like, hello, and she thought it was my dad.
0:33
Speaker 4: She was like, hi, Rob, is Stevie home? And I
0:37
Speaker 4: just pretended that, in fact, I was my father, and
0:41
Speaker 4: I was just like, uh yeah, let me get her.
0:44
Speaker 1: You didn't want to contradict your friend.
0:46
Speaker 4: I think I was just so embarrassed that I could
0:49
Speaker 4: possibly be mistaken for an old man.
0:52
Speaker 5: Well maybe with respect to your dad, he maybe he
0:55
Speaker 5: kind of sounds like little girl.
1:00
Speaker 3: Hello, Stevie Lane, stads speaking.
1:09
Speaker 4: I'm Stevie Lane, and this is Heavyweight Today's episode forty
1:15
Speaker 4: four photos.
1:23
Speaker 1: Right after the break.
1:31
Speaker 4: There are places, according to Celtic folklore, where the boundary
1:35
Speaker 4: between our physical world and the spiritual world is porous,
1:40
Speaker 4: where Earth and the otherworldly are separated.
1:42
Speaker 1: By no more than a few inches.
1:45
Speaker 4: At these places, strange unexplainable things can happen. These places
1:51
Speaker 4: are called thin places, and this is a story about
1:55
Speaker 4: one of them. A few years ago, Jordan Kissner wrote
2:03
Speaker 4: a book about thin places. She wanted to send it
2:06
Speaker 4: to her friend Amy.
2:08
Speaker 2: So it was April seventh, twenty twenty one, and I
2:12
Speaker 2: went to the USPS that was a few blocks away
2:18
Speaker 2: from my apartment at the time.
2:21
Speaker 4: Jordan bought a brown padded envelope, put her book inside,
2:24
Speaker 4: and handed it to the postal worker and that was that.
2:28
Speaker 2: It was a really uneventful post office visit on a
2:32
Speaker 2: pretty normal spring day in Vegas.
2:38
Speaker 6: It was a sunny day in April, and I walked
2:42
Speaker 6: to the mailbox. This is Jordan's friend Amy, which is
2:46
Speaker 6: a really exciting part of my day. I really like mail.
2:49
Speaker 6: And I opened the mailbox with the little key and
2:54
Speaker 6: there's something like stuffed into my box.
2:57
Speaker 4: Something Amy had been expecting the package Jordan sent her.
3:01
Speaker 6: It says, you know, to Amy from Jordan and the
3:05
Speaker 6: addresses Las Vegas.
3:07
Speaker 4: Amy brought the package back to her house and eagerly
3:10
Speaker 4: tore it open. But inside Amy did not find Jordan's book.
3:15
Speaker 4: She didn't find a book at all. Instead, she found
3:18
Speaker 4: a stack of.
3:19
Speaker 6: Photographs, and that's where the mystery begins.
3:29
Speaker 4: Amy didn't recognize anyone in the photos. There was one
3:33
Speaker 4: of a girl wearing a blue T shirt with clouds
3:35
Speaker 4: printed on it, another of three teenagers in caps and gowns.
3:40
Speaker 4: The people were of all different ages and races. Some
3:43
Speaker 4: of the photos were in black and white, some in color.
3:46
Speaker 4: One was a polaroid. Amy counted forty four photos in all,
3:51
Speaker 4: forty four photos of complete and total strangers, And yet
4:02
Speaker 4: the package was labeled to Amy, her name written in
4:06
Speaker 4: ballpoint pen Jordan's return address was scrawled in the upper
4:09
Speaker 4: left hand corner. Struggling to come up with an explanation,
4:14
Speaker 4: Amy wondered.
4:15
Speaker 6: Maybe Jordan sent these by accident.
4:19
Speaker 4: So Amy texted Jordan, telling her she received her package,
4:23
Speaker 4: but rather than a book, found forty four photographs inside.
4:27
Speaker 2: And I was completely confused.
4:31
Speaker 1: I just couldn't.
4:32
Speaker 2: I actually felt like I couldn't totally comprehend the message
4:35
Speaker 2: she was sending me.
4:37
Speaker 1: So Jordan texted Amy back.
4:39
Speaker 6: Wait, Comma, what with two question marks?
4:43
Speaker 5: Two?
4:44
Speaker 3: Yeah? Two?
4:45
Speaker 6: And then photos question mark.
4:48
Speaker 4: Amy sent Jordan a picture of the package and all
4:50
Speaker 4: forty four photographs spread out on her kitchen counter.
4:54
Speaker 6: And she said, what in all caps? I have no
4:57
Speaker 6: idea what those photos are. I don't even I know
5:00
Speaker 6: those people, but that's my handwriting on the package.
5:08
Speaker 4: It was hard to know what to make of the
5:10
Speaker 4: whole thing. It's like Amy expected a book about thin
5:14
Speaker 4: places but got an actual thin place experience instead. Amy
5:20
Speaker 4: can't bring herself to just throw the photos away, so
5:23
Speaker 4: for an entire year now she's kept them by her desk,
5:26
Speaker 4: and for an entire year she's been studying them. There's
5:30
Speaker 4: the one of a new baby sucking on someone's finger.
5:33
Speaker 4: There's a little girl in glasses and a cheerleader's outfit,
5:36
Speaker 4: holding her leg up and smiling confidently into the camera.
5:40
Speaker 4: The more Amy looks at the photos, the more she
5:43
Speaker 4: thinks about the family that's missing them. These people in
5:47
Speaker 4: the photos are nobody's to Amy, but they are somebody's
5:51
Speaker 4: to somebody.
5:52
Speaker 6: Is there a way to find any of these people?
5:55
Speaker 3: Like?
5:56
Speaker 6: Who are they? Do they want their photographs back? Because
5:59
Speaker 6: I would like the photographs to be returned to the family.
6:04
Speaker 6: I feel like people should have their things.
6:07
Speaker 4: A year ago, when Amy first received the package, she
6:11
Speaker 4: and Jordan tried opening a case file on the mysterious
6:14
Speaker 4: photos hoping the USPS could shed light on where they
6:17
Speaker 4: came from, but nothing ever came of it.
6:20
Speaker 2: The mail system, we feel like we understand it, but
6:24
Speaker 2: then when you really think about it, it is this
6:27
Speaker 2: complete mystery. It's like a void into which we send
6:30
Speaker 2: stuff and from which that stuff emerges again. But then
6:33
Speaker 2: when it doesn't emerge, you're like, wait a second, but
6:35
Speaker 2: what is where is it going?
6:38
Speaker 1: What is this system? What don't we know about it?
6:41
Speaker 4: There's a lot that I don't know about it, but
6:44
Speaker 4: Amy and Jordan want my help figuring out how Amy
6:47
Speaker 4: ended up with the photographs and how to return to sender.
6:52
Speaker 4: To get to the bottom of it, I'll have to
6:54
Speaker 4: navigate a mysterious, little understood world that exists alongside our own,
7:00
Speaker 4: a world separated only by an inches wide slot in
7:04
Speaker 4: a metal box. And so I step over the boundary
7:10
Speaker 4: into the world of the United States Postal Service.
7:20
Speaker 1: I start with a.
7:21
Speaker 4: Theory that Jordan, Amy and I discussed on the phone.
7:24
Speaker 4: Jordan had sent Amy the book via media mail, a
7:27
Speaker 4: discounted rate for sending things like books and CDs. From
7:31
Speaker 4: what I read online, it sounds like the Post Office
7:34
Speaker 4: searches media mail packages to prevent people from sending anything
7:38
Speaker 4: they want on the cheap and in fact, Amy noticed
7:41
Speaker 4: that the package had been taped up as though it
7:43
Speaker 4: had been resealed en route. Maybe Jordan's package and the
7:48
Speaker 4: package with the photos were both searched and then accidentally swapped.
7:55
Speaker 4: To test this theory, I call the Postal Inspection Service.
7:59
Speaker 4: It turns out out the post Office as a whole
8:01
Speaker 4: department of inspectors.
8:03
Speaker 1: Are you sort of like the James Bond of the
8:05
Speaker 1: mail service?
8:06
Speaker 5: Actually, it's funny you mentioned that my badge number was
8:09
Speaker 5: double O seven.
8:11
Speaker 4: No really, really, his name is me Halco, Dan Mihalko.
8:23
Speaker 4: He's a US Postal inspector. And what does he inspect?
8:27
Speaker 5: Postal crimes? Theft of mail, mail fraud, prohibited items in
8:31
Speaker 5: the mail such as bombs, narcotics, anthrax, attacks, pornography.
8:40
Speaker 1: I put my theory to Dan.
8:42
Speaker 4: Might the Postal Inspection Service have opened and examined Jordan's package?
8:46
Speaker 5: No, No, we don't do anything like that. The only
8:49
Speaker 5: time would ever inspect mail is if we had a
8:52
Speaker 5: search warrant so that we can't just open up mail. Huh,
8:56
Speaker 5: nobody in a postal service has that.
8:58
Speaker 4: Authority, Dan says, USPS investigators don't inspect packages without probable cause.
9:06
Speaker 5: Here's what it sounds like may have happened.
9:10
Speaker 4: So Dan guesses that somewhere along the way, Jordan's package
9:14
Speaker 4: got damaged and the.
9:15
Speaker 1: Book fell out.
9:16
Speaker 4: Another package carrying the bundle of photos could have also
9:20
Speaker 4: broken open. A postal worker might have seen the loose
9:23
Speaker 4: bundle of photos, thought they belonged to Jordan's envelope, and
9:27
Speaker 4: accidentally switched the packaging. And here's where that switch might
9:31
Speaker 4: have occurred.
9:32
Speaker 5: It used to be commonly referred to as a dead
9:35
Speaker 5: letter office, but now it's I think it's Mail Recovery Center.
9:40
Speaker 4: The Mail Recovery Center, or MRC, is located in Atlanta, Georgia.
9:45
Speaker 4: It's where all undeliverable mail winds up. Some of the
9:49
Speaker 4: stuff they receive is truly strange. An alligator skull still
9:53
Speaker 4: covered in flesh cremation boxes Tom Nissalke's nineteen seventy one
9:58
Speaker 4: NBA championship, which had been stolen from him twelve years before,
10:02
Speaker 4: showing up at the MRC. I don't know who Tom
10:05
Speaker 4: Desalk is, but listeners might. The MRC is also one
10:10
Speaker 4: of the few places where postal workers are actually allowed
10:13
Speaker 4: to open mail to help them look for clues as
10:16
Speaker 4: to where the items or letters belong. Dan says that
10:19
Speaker 4: it's the job in part of the MRC employees to
10:23
Speaker 4: make their best guess about what belongs with what and
10:25
Speaker 4: send it on its way.
10:27
Speaker 5: They have to try to put pieces together. You know,
10:30
Speaker 5: they're kind of sluice in their own way.
10:34
Speaker 4: In their own way, don't condescend to the MRC agent Mihalko.
10:41
Speaker 1: If Dan is right, the.
10:42
Speaker 4: Original package, the photos came in with the original address
10:46
Speaker 4: might still be sitting somewhere at the MRC. So I
10:49
Speaker 4: phone up the person in charge.
10:51
Speaker 5: To ask, this is a manager.
10:56
Speaker 4: Lionel snow, Oh high, Lionel, my name is Stevie Lane
10:59
Speaker 4: and I'm a radio journalist. Do you have a moment
11:02
Speaker 4: so I can tell you why I'm calling?
11:06
Speaker 3: Uh?
11:07
Speaker 7: Not really, I mean I don't have a lot of
11:09
Speaker 7: conversation time to falup with customers.
11:17
Speaker 4: Nevertheless, I tell him about the mix up.
11:20
Speaker 7: Anything could have happened, Anything could have happened.
11:22
Speaker 8: I mean, I can tell you.
11:23
Speaker 4: Lionel tells me that, contrary to Dan Mihalko's theory, Jordan's
11:27
Speaker 4: package likely never made it to the MRC. If it had,
11:31
Speaker 4: it would probably have a special stamp on it, which
11:34
Speaker 4: Jordan's package doesn't. I ask if he has any other guesses,
11:38
Speaker 4: but he just keeps sweeping out his favorite phrase.
11:41
Speaker 6: Anything could have happened, Anything could have happened. I can
11:44
Speaker 6: make an educated guess or or not.
11:46
Speaker 1: When I press, the answer is or not.
11:50
Speaker 7: Anything could have happened.
11:55
Speaker 4: Jordan had likened the mail system to avoid into which
11:59
Speaker 4: we send stuff and from which that stuff emerges. But
12:02
Speaker 4: it appears it's also a void into which I send
12:05
Speaker 4: my questions and from which nothing emerges. Over a number
12:09
Speaker 4: of weeks, I reach out to more people at the USPS,
12:13
Speaker 4: in the Communications Department, the Historian's office, even the Postal Museum.
12:18
Speaker 3: It is a mystery.
12:19
Speaker 5: I can't really guess.
12:20
Speaker 9: You have one hundred and sixty million addresses in the US.
12:24
Speaker 6: It could have come from any one of them.
12:26
Speaker 1: Nobody is able to help.
12:32
Speaker 4: I've hit a dead end with the post Office, so
12:35
Speaker 4: I turn to the only other information that I have,
12:38
Speaker 4: the photos themselves. Is there a way to identify the
12:42
Speaker 4: people in these photographs? There's a photo of someone's pet cat,
12:46
Speaker 4: but it doesn't have a collar.
12:48
Speaker 1: With a tag.
12:49
Speaker 4: There's a graduation, but it doesn't show the name of
12:51
Speaker 4: the school. There's one photo of a man sitting in
12:55
Speaker 4: a restaurant pulling up a signed headshot of what looks
12:58
Speaker 4: like a younger version of himself. The headshot is signed
13:02
Speaker 4: doctor Pedro something MD, but after hours of photoshop sharpening,
13:07
Speaker 4: I still can't read what that something is. For every photo,
13:12
Speaker 4: I'm just one small piece of information away from cracking
13:16
Speaker 4: the case. Every photo except for one. The photo is
13:23
Speaker 4: the oldest in the bunch, a creased and faded polaroid.
13:27
Speaker 4: In it, a man crouches in the grass supporting a
13:30
Speaker 4: baby in plaid overalls, barely old enough to walk. The
13:34
Speaker 4: baby is looking down at a dog rolling over on
13:37
Speaker 4: its back playfully while the man pets its stomach. No
13:41
Speaker 4: one is aware of the camera. It seems to be
13:44
Speaker 4: capturing a private moment. And when you flip the photo
13:48
Speaker 4: over there's something written on the back Dalln Kelly and Queenye.
13:53
Speaker 4: It says, in all caps at grandparents Coxes Kelly nine
13:59
Speaker 4: and a half months Dallen Kelly and Queenee grandparents Coxes.
14:27
Speaker 4: After googling around, I find a number for a Dallon
14:30
Speaker 4: Cox in California.
14:35
Speaker 1: Hello, Hi, is this Jalon I'd called a few days
14:40
Speaker 1: before and left a message.
14:42
Speaker 9: I'm just really curious what this is all about. Honestly,
14:45
Speaker 9: I have no idea how to be involved in anything
14:49
Speaker 9: that you would be looking into.
14:51
Speaker 4: So I explain about the package of photos Amy received,
14:55
Speaker 4: about one in particular of a man with a child
14:58
Speaker 4: and a dog with a inscription on the back, and
15:02
Speaker 4: it says Dallan, Kelly and queenye At grandparents Coxes Kelly
15:08
Speaker 4: nine and a half months.
15:11
Speaker 3: Definitely, that's crazy.
15:13
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's crazy.
15:13
Speaker 5: That would be my dad.
15:14
Speaker 9: Yeah, huh, yeah, it sounds like it might be of
15:18
Speaker 9: my dad and my sister Kelly.
15:20
Speaker 1: Dallan's dad is Dalan Senior.
15:23
Speaker 4: Dallan suggests I give him a call to see if
15:26
Speaker 4: the photo belongs to him.
15:30
Speaker 5: Hello.
15:31
Speaker 4: I tell Dalan Senior all about the photo of him
15:34
Speaker 4: and his daughter Kelly. Then I texted over to him,
15:38
Speaker 4: all right, here it comes.
15:42
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm a beet daughter. Wow.
15:46
Speaker 8: That would have been from nineteen sixty seven, probably sixty eight.
15:51
Speaker 7: She'd have been about nine months old, I would say
15:53
Speaker 7: at that time obviously is standing up a little bit,
15:56
Speaker 7: but she walked at early age like that, So yeah,
16:00
Speaker 7: that's really something.
16:02
Speaker 8: No, I don't have that picture in my collection. In fact,
16:04
Speaker 8: I don't recall ever having seen it before. Kelly was
16:09
Speaker 8: born in sixty seven, in June of sixty seven, and
16:12
Speaker 8: she actually she passed away in March of last year.
16:21
Speaker 4: Kelly died on March thirtieth, twenty twenty one. The package
16:25
Speaker 4: with Kelly's photo was postmarked April seventh, twenty twenty one,
16:31
Speaker 4: just one week after she died, so.
16:33
Speaker 8: That just makes it really strange.
16:39
Speaker 4: Kelly died unexpectedly of heart failure at the age of
16:42
Speaker 4: fifty three.
16:43
Speaker 1: It was a shock to her family.
16:46
Speaker 5: Everybody loved her laugh.
16:47
Speaker 9: When she laughed, it was just really unique, an enthusiastic laugh,
16:53
Speaker 9: you know. I remember taking her with me to like
17:01
Speaker 9: one weekend and she learned the water ski and she
17:04
Speaker 9: was having a ball. My dad used to take Kelly
17:11
Speaker 9: at that age, when she was about a year old,
17:14
Speaker 9: down to the lake and they would feed the ducks.
17:17
Speaker 9: He'd take breadcrumbs and they'd throw them to the ducks,
17:19
Speaker 9: and she got so excited to do that.
17:21
Speaker 3: That was her favorite thing to do.
17:35
Speaker 4: Dyllan Senior doesn't recognize the handwriting on the back of
17:38
Speaker 4: the photograph, but he wonders if it belongs to Kelly's mother,
17:42
Speaker 4: his ex wife, Betty. Betty had been sick and unable
17:46
Speaker 4: to make it to Kelly's funeral. Maybe she put it
17:48
Speaker 4: in the mail, hoping it would arrive for the service.
17:52
Speaker 4: When I phoned Betty, she doesn't remember the photo, but
17:55
Speaker 4: she tells me that she did indeed mail a package
17:57
Speaker 4: of photos to her granddaughter, Devin. Devin is Kelly's daughter.
18:06
Speaker 3: This is Devin.
18:07
Speaker 1: So I called.
18:08
Speaker 4: Devan to see if I ended up with the photos
18:11
Speaker 4: that her grandma tried to send her.
18:13
Speaker 3: No, I did get a package of photos from my grandmother.
18:18
Speaker 1: Huh.
18:19
Speaker 4: Devin got the photos from Betty in a package that
18:22
Speaker 4: was firmly sealed, and the photo of Kelly and Dallen
18:26
Speaker 4: that one wasn't in there. Devin says she's never seen
18:29
Speaker 4: it before. As for the rest of the photographs Amy received.
18:34
Speaker 3: I don't recognize any of the people, none of them.
18:38
Speaker 1: Huh.
18:39
Speaker 3: No.
18:41
Speaker 4: Dallan Junior, Dalan Senior, and Betty all said the same
18:44
Speaker 4: thing when I sent them the photos. Somehow, then it
18:48
Speaker 4: seems this photograph, along its journey through the mail, wound
18:52
Speaker 4: up with forty three other images of other random families.
18:56
Speaker 4: Devin can't tell me anything about those other families, but
19:00
Speaker 4: she does tell me about her own. Her mom, Kelly,
19:04
Speaker 4: got pregnant with her when she was in college. Kelly
19:07
Speaker 4: wasn't prepared to take care of a child, and soon
19:09
Speaker 4: after Devan was born, Dallan Senior, Devin's grandfather, took Devon
19:14
Speaker 4: in and raised her as his daughter.
19:17
Speaker 3: I know that my mom had mental health issues, and
19:23
Speaker 3: it took over my mom's life in many ways. There
19:27
Speaker 3: were many instances in my mom's life where she didn't
19:31
Speaker 3: have the power to take care of me. And there
19:35
Speaker 3: were many years that passed by and I had nothing
19:39
Speaker 3: to do with my mom, Like I didn't know where
19:41
Speaker 3: she was. I didn't hear from her. I was unsure
19:46
Speaker 3: if she was even alive. So I've had a hard
19:50
Speaker 3: time growing up believing that my mom loved me.
20:01
Speaker 4: But Devin tells me in the last seven or eight
20:03
Speaker 4: years before her mom's death, that changed. Devin was in
20:08
Speaker 4: her mid twenties, and without explanation, seemingly overnight, Kelly started
20:13
Speaker 4: reaching out more. She would come over to help Devin
20:16
Speaker 4: with projects around the house, like painting cabinets. The two
20:20
Speaker 4: of them spent hours sitting together on the couch, playing Zelda, and.
20:24
Speaker 3: I felt like I had my mom. I finally had
20:28
Speaker 3: my mom. I was an adult, but at least I
20:31
Speaker 3: had my mom. Two weeks before she passed, my mom
20:42
Speaker 3: just out of the blue said do you want to
20:43
Speaker 3: go out and go do something together? And I was like,
20:46
Speaker 3: I don't know where do you want to go? And
20:49
Speaker 3: she's like, what about that place that has mini golf
20:52
Speaker 3: and go carts? And I was like, okay, then let's go.
20:56
Speaker 3: And I hang on to that moment. Somehow, I feel
21:05
Speaker 3: like she knew that she wasn't going to be around
21:08
Speaker 3: for very long, and she was trying to spend more
21:12
Speaker 3: time with me and trying to do things with me.
21:17
Speaker 4: As for the photograph and the strange circumstances of its appearance,
21:22
Speaker 4: I don't.
21:22
Speaker 3: Feel like it's weird. I just think that it fits
21:28
Speaker 3: my mom's personality to do something like that.
21:32
Speaker 1: How do you mean it fits her personality to do
21:34
Speaker 1: something like.
21:34
Speaker 3: She believed that there's something beyond death. And I've never
21:41
Speaker 3: believed in ghosts or anything or anything after you passed,
21:47
Speaker 3: but if there is something there, my mom would definitely
21:51
Speaker 3: do something like this.
21:53
Speaker 1: See you think that this is almost like a missive
21:57
Speaker 1: from your mom.
21:58
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's possible, and I feel like this
22:02
Speaker 3: is her trying to say I'm still here.
22:12
Speaker 4: In Jordan's book, she writes that in thin places quote
22:17
Speaker 4: invisible things like music or love or dead people might
22:21
Speaker 4: become visible, or if they don't become visible, they become
22:25
Speaker 4: so present and tangible that it doesn't matter.
22:30
Speaker 1: Like Devon, I'm not.
22:31
Speaker 4: One to believe in ghosts, Yet after talking with everyone,
22:35
Speaker 4: I still don't know where the photo of Kelly came from.
22:39
Speaker 4: No one in Kelly's family can account for it, so
22:42
Speaker 4: after months of searching, the origins of this photo are
22:45
Speaker 4: still a mystery. But in what I see as a
22:49
Speaker 4: series of unexplainable events that began with Jordan sending a
22:53
Speaker 4: book and ended up here, Devin sees her mother, and
22:58
Speaker 4: it's precisely the unlikeliness of the that she points to
23:01
Speaker 4: as proof.
23:03
Speaker 3: I just think, if you look at all of the
23:05
Speaker 3: little pieces of how this happened, not just anybody would
23:10
Speaker 3: have reached out and tried to find the owner of
23:12
Speaker 3: a photo, I think it would have been tossed in
23:15
Speaker 3: the trash or pushed aside.
23:18
Speaker 5: I feel like.
23:21
Speaker 3: It's like a treasure.
23:22
Speaker 1: From my mom.
23:24
Speaker 3: That's how I feel huh, like my mom placed it
23:28
Speaker 3: there on purpose and got it into the right hands
23:31
Speaker 3: that would reach out to me.
23:35
Speaker 4: I'd been thinking of this as a story about male
23:37
Speaker 4: going to the wrong place, but listening to Devn, I
23:41
Speaker 4: wonder if it's actually a story about it going to
23:43
Speaker 4: the right one to Amy. And yet because the photo
23:48
Speaker 4: wound up in Amy's hands, Devin didn't get it for
23:51
Speaker 4: an entire year after Kelly's death. If Kelly wanted Devin
23:56
Speaker 4: to have the photo, why deliver it a year late?
24:00
Speaker 1: Why?
24:00
Speaker 5: Now?
24:02
Speaker 3: There have been times where I've really needed somebody to
24:05
Speaker 3: be in my house with me, and out of everybody
24:09
Speaker 3: in my family and out of all of my friends,
24:13
Speaker 3: my mom would drop anything to come and support me.
24:20
Speaker 3: And when she passed, I didn't have that safety net anymore.
24:26
Speaker 10: I had trouble at my job and I had to
24:29
Speaker 10: take extra time off. But if she's still here, that
24:36
Speaker 10: makes a difference.
24:41
Speaker 3: It's not easy losing a mom, so having this feeling
24:47
Speaker 3: that she's still here and she's still with me is
24:52
Speaker 3: is amazing.
24:58
Speaker 4: Right after a loss, there are a lot of people
25:00
Speaker 4: to lean on, but as time passes and people return
25:04
Speaker 4: to their lives, you begin to feel that loss in
25:07
Speaker 4: a new way. Houses get cleaned out, clothes get donated,
25:12
Speaker 4: and all evidence of the person fades away with the photo.
25:17
Speaker 4: Though Kelly has come back to Devon a year late,
25:22
Speaker 4: but perhaps right on time. Devin's grandfather, Dallan Senior, is
25:32
Speaker 4: turning seventy five soon. Devon told me that they're throwing
25:36
Speaker 4: him a big party. She's been working on his birthday
25:39
Speaker 4: present for months, a new family photo album, and along
25:44
Speaker 4: with all the photographs she's collected, she wants to include
25:47
Speaker 4: this one safe among the other smiling faces of Kelly's
25:52
Speaker 4: family members, where surely it won't be lost again. Now
26:40
Speaker 4: that the.
26:41
Speaker 5: Fern atures rip turned into its good will.
26:45
Speaker 3: Home, now that the last month's rant is skiming with
26:53
Speaker 3: the damage to post, take this moment to dessert.
27:00
Speaker 1: If we mentioned if we trash Feld for.
27:09
Speaker 6: Things as dan Lee.
27:13
Speaker 3: Zero.
27:16
Speaker 4: This episode of Heavyweight was produced by me Stevie Lane,
27:19
Speaker 4: along with Jonathan Goldstein, Phoebe Flanagan, and Mohemi mcgouger. Our
27:23
Speaker 4: Senior producer is Khaleila Holt. Special thanks to Alex Bloomberg,
27:27
Speaker 4: mime O'Donnell, Laurence Silverman, Maureene Taylor, Estelle Ivory and all
27:31
Speaker 4: The Incredibly Patient People over at the USPS editorial guidance
27:35
Speaker 4: from Emily Condon. Bobby Lord mixed the episode with original
27:39
Speaker 4: music by Christine Fellows, John K. Sampson, Blue Dot Sessions,
27:42
Speaker 4: John Jacoby, and Bobby Lord. Additional music credits can be
27:45
Speaker 4: found on our website gimlimedia dot com slash Heavyweight. Our
27:49
Speaker 4: theme song is by The Weaker Thens, courtesy of Epitaph Records.
27:53
Speaker 1: Amy has just written a new.
27:54
Speaker 4: Book, Artificial, a graphic memoir about her father's efforts to
27:58
Speaker 4: preserve her late grandfather's life identity using AI technology. You
28:02
Speaker 4: can find it at your local bookstore. Heavyweight is a
28:05
Speaker 4: Spotify original podcast. Follow us on Twitter at Heavyweight, on
28:09
Speaker 4: Instagram at Heavyweight podcast, or email us at Heavyweight at
28:13
Speaker 4: gimlipmedia dot com. You can follow our show on Spotify
28:16
Speaker 4: and tap the bell to receive notifications when new episodes.
28:20
Speaker 1: Drop, and one will drop next week.
28:41
Speaker 5: Hello Stevie's dad speaking.
28:44
Speaker 3: Oh that was nice, okay, great Estelle, Thank you so much.
28:47
Speaker 3: What is your school about anyway,