Our Dead Dads
The concept of Our Dead Dads was born through the daily discussions of seven men who share bonds of blood, friendship and all having lost their fathers. Nick Gaylord, the show’s host, shares his life experiences with his deceased father while exploring the complications and realities of that relationship. Life is intense, grief and loss come in many forms, and no parent-child relationship is black and white, which is why this show touches on all shades of grey.
Join Nick for candid conversations with his three brothers and three of his lifelong friends, along with other special guests who discuss their experiences with loss, grief, laughter, and moving forward. Nothing is off-limits here. Nick learned after his father's passing that he couldn't process what he was going through alone and sought the help of a therapist, who helped him to let go of his anger toward his father. Looking back, he realized just how many people are being crushed under the weight of grief, loss, and in some cases, anger.
Nick's mission through Our Dead Dads is to offer a platform for anyone who needs or wants to tell their story, to have that opportunity. He also hopes to reach many more who need to talk but don't know how to start the conversation, hopeful that by listening to these stories, they will be able to start talking with someone.
Nick has always sought to help others and to make everyone around him laugh. Along with his brothers and friends, he has frequently used humor to get through the hardest times in their lives, and hopefully, you will permit yourself to do the same. Get ready for an emotional deep dive. Nick has a lot to say and so do his guests. He's here for you and ready to help. Everyone has been through trauma, grief, and loss. Now, along with Nick and his guests, everyone will get through it together.
Nick is changing the world one damaged soul at a time. Welcome to Our Dead Dads.
Our Dead Dads
022 - A Journey Through Family Dynamics and Fatherly Wisdom - Helene Krapf
What if sharing your grief could help heal not just your heart, but also those of others? That's exactly what happens as I, Nick Gaylord, sit down with my youngest sister, Queen Helene, to revisit the kaleidoscope of emotions and experiences from our childhood with our father. Our conversation is filled with laughter and a few eyebrow-raising tales about family hierarchies, the quest to find our brother Joseph a partner, and the unforgettable escapades involving our father's multiple marriages. It's an episode that promises to resonate with anyone who's ever felt the unique blend of pain and comfort that comes with familial bonds.
You'll hear about the clever antics that kept our family on its toes, including the infamous 'banana' password that led to an unexpected clown prank—stories that shine a light on our father's vibrant intelligence and humor. We reminisce about the joy and tension of family gatherings, like weddings where our absent father was an unexpected guest, and the unwavering love from our stepmother that weathered decades of family drama. Plus, there's a nod to the simpler pleasures he instilled in us, from a love of baseball to a fondness for festive Christmas traditions.
As we navigate the emotional terrain of our father's passing, Helene and I open up about the complexities of care, decisions made in difficult times, and the heartache of saying goodbye under COVID restrictions. We reflect on the irreplaceable presence our father had in our lives, even as we forge ahead in his absence. This episode is not just about remembering our father but also holding space for others to share their stories of loss and find strength in shared experiences. Join us to explore the laughter, love, and lasting impact of a father who left an indelible mark on our hearts.
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Instagram (Krapf's Kreations): https://www.instagram.com/krapfs_kreations/
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Hello and welcome to Our Dead Dads, the podcast where we are normalizing, talking about grief, trauma loss and moving forward. I'm your host, my name is Nick Gaylord, and if this is your first time joining me, then welcome to the show. If you're a regular listener, then welcome back. For everyone listening. Thank you so much for your support and thank you for making this show part of your day. The best way that you can continue to support the show is to continue listening. Send in your feedback on the show's facebook and instagram pages and, most importantly, please spread the word about the show. Everybody deals with grief. We are all in this together and the best thing that any of us can do is to support each other through that grief. Follow us on your favorite platform, give us a five-star review and, by the way, if you don't know how to leave a five-star review, go to the homepage of our dead dads, scroll down and it'll show you, step by step, the ratings, the downloads. Spreading the word. I can't thank you enough. We're getting noticed in countries all around the world, so please keep it up. As you all know, I want to be a recognized voice in the grief community, and the more the word spreads about this podcast, the more folks I can help.
Speaker 1:I really hope that you enjoyed last week's conversation with Annie LaBeth, and this week is episode number 22, and I'm talking with my baby sister, the final sibling to appear on the show, queen Helene, as she was affectionately known throughout her childhood and into adulthood. We had so much fun on this call, and we did that while covering all of the joys and the not so joyous times of growing up with our dad. I could talk about it here, or we could just get into the interview. So what do you say? We do that. There's one other thing that I should probably cover, because I know that many of you are probably saying wait, what do you mean? The final sibling, helene, only makes five and you always say that you're the oldest of seven. Well, both of those are right. It's very simple. I do have two other sisters, one of whom I do not have contact with and the other who made the decision to not be mentioned on the podcast, which is why you don't hear me talking about them. That's really all I'm going to mention about them on the show, and it's okay, because there's plenty that we will be talking about, and today that spotlight gets turned to the baby of the family. So let's do this Before we get started.
Speaker 1:I would like to thank you again for listening, for your feedback and for engaging with the show. Don't forget to follow the show's social media pages by searching for Our Dead Dads Podcast on Facebook, instagram and TikTok. As you know, my goal is to normalize talking about grief, loss and trauma, which are topics that are not easy for most of us to talk about, but they are also topics that everybody should be discussing more Not only discussing them, but not feeling like they are taboo topics. Time may not heal all wounds, but keeping everything bottled up inside doesn't heal any of them. Together, we are building a community for others to have a safe space to talk about their stories and their feelings, and for anyone who may not yet be ready to talk, just to listen to others and know that nobody is alone in this path. That is why I say we are a community and I'm so happy to have you here. If you have a story of grief and loss to share and might want to be considered as a future guest on Our Dead Dads, then go to OurDeadDadscom, go to the Contact Us link and then select Be a Guest. Fill out the form, send it in and you just might be able to tell your story and carry on this mission of helping ourselves and helping so many others. That said, it is now time to start the show and talk to Helene. Please enjoy this episode and stick around for the end when I will tell you about next week's episode.
Speaker 1:Our Dead Dads podcast is sponsored by Kim Gaylord Travel. If you can dream up the vacation whether a getaway for you and your other half, a family trip or a trip for a large group she will help you plan it. If you've never used or even thought about using a travel agent for your trips, you really should. Kim will help you plan everything the flights, hotels, transportation, excursions, all the places to visit and all the sites to see. You'll get a detailed itinerary of everything and if anything goes wrong during your trip, you have someone to contact. Whether you're looking for a customized European vacation, a relaxing stay at an all-inclusive resort, an Alaskan adventure, a Caribbean cruise, kim will work with you to make sure you have a seamless travel experience. Contact her today and plan your next trip with a peace of mind that only working with a travel agent can offer, and as a special bonus for our listeners, mention Our Dead Dads podcast for a 10% discount on planning fees. You can find Kim Gaylord Travel on Facebook, instagram and LinkedIn, or email Kim directly. Her email address is kim at kimgaylordtravelcom.
Speaker 1:Our Dead Dads podcast is sponsored by Dotted Avenue Creative Studio. If you're looking to build your first website or give your current site a facelift, you need not look any further than Dotted Avenue Creative Studio. They will work with you to customize exactly what you want in a website. Whether you want something personal and simple or a website for your business, you're in the right place A professional looking page that you and everyone who visits your site will be obsessed with. Search engine optimization, e-commerce all the bells and whistles.
Speaker 1:If you haven't already checked out OurDeadDadscom, you should take a look for a couple of reasons. First, because there are a lot of really cool features to check out, including some interactive sections for the listeners, but also because Dotted Avenue built this website. They work exclusively within Squarespace, who is the hosting company of our website, and customize your website exactly the way you want it and then, when it's done, you'll have a one-on-one Zoom call to learn everything you need to learn about maintaining the website yourself. Go to dottedavenuecom and get started today. Mention our dead dads and get a 10% discount on any web design package. Dotted Avenue Creative Studio is the first, last and only company you'll ever need for website design oh, hi, there, hi, how's it going?
Speaker 2:good, how are you? I'm using nick's computer, so I have no idea how this non-apple works.
Speaker 1:Oh, he's a windows computer. Yeah, you have a mac I have a mac well, why isn't your mac ready and functioning?
Speaker 2:because? Well, because it's a Mac, don't say too many things.
Speaker 1:Your favorite sister-in-law has a Mac and she's going to beat you.
Speaker 2:Oh no, I love it, but it's slowly dying. And 10 years old.
Speaker 1:So that's what Santa's bringing me for Christmas this year it's a new Mac. Look at that. You've already got a direct connection to Santa in July. Listen, christmas in July is the best.
Speaker 2:It is. I was so bummed. Tomorrow we're taking Nora to the American Dream Mall.
Speaker 1:It's.
Speaker 2:August 1st Yesterday. They did Christmas in July. I was like ah.
Speaker 1:Well, you need to do your research, fool.
Speaker 2:Well, I had to tutor yesterday.
Speaker 1:Excuses, excuses. My husband beats me and doesn't let me stay home. Okay, now you're starting to sound like your brother.
Speaker 2:Well, I was hanging out with him on Thursday, so I'm sorry about that. Yeah, me too.
Speaker 1:I'm not really that sorry. It was your own damn decision.
Speaker 2:I made the choice. Well, we wanted to get the girls together.
Speaker 1:Okay, sure, do it for the kids.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know. They're so freaking adorable, all three of them oh, my goodness, I can't sophie's already like basically the same size as nora, and nor will be six months on friday I don't know what jack's feeding her probably steak and brisket probably listen. What's not to like about steak and brisket?
Speaker 1:I don't know. You tell me you're the one who doesn't eat them yeah, well, that's unfortunate for me. That's very unfortunate for you. What the hell is going on with your computer? Is it on your lap or something?
Speaker 2:Not technically my lap.
Speaker 1:It's on a table which is on your lap.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:So then, why does it keep moving?
Speaker 2:Because I keep moving, it Is the glare behind me too bad, or should I close the blind?
Speaker 1:Probably would be better. If you close the blind, that's a little bit better. Perfect face Tongue sticking out. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, it's okay, you can turn it on if you want. I mean, it's not directly in the view of the camera, so you're good.
Speaker 2:Okay, Well, I mean. No, it's 515 in New York, so the sun is still out. Completely dark in my bedroom.
Speaker 1:Not completely dark.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:Not completely void of light like the inside of your head.
Speaker 2:Basically I get the monkey symbol clapping. That's what Nick says goes on in Nora's head, so you know she had to get it from somewhere.
Speaker 1:She had to get it from somewhere. Oh, because she couldn't have gotten it from him.
Speaker 2:I mean.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know we like it. He goes to me at least once a week.
Speaker 2:He's like like I wonder what's going on in her head, like are there thoughts or is it still just the monkey clapping the symbols together?
Speaker 1:that's probably about all it is at that point I mean probably I don't know. She hasn't had time to process anything yet. She's six months old a lot has happened in six months yeah, I know, but I mean she shouldn't have to worry about anything other than just being a six month old, she's also evil, a little bit Like she'll do something. Oh bullshit, not my niece, no, not even close.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:All right, give me an example.
Speaker 2:Like she'll do something Like she knows. See, she knows what she's supposed to do and what she's not supposed to do, and she'll do something like you know, kick Nick or whatever, what she, whatever, which she's not supposed to do.
Speaker 1:Well shit, when did she get that from? Definitely not from you.
Speaker 2:Nope, but then she'll laugh and smile about it. It's hysterical.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wow, she is evil.
Speaker 2:She is Yesterday, I forgot. Nick said something. I think it was bath time. So Nick was like oh Nora, are you ready to go take a bath? And on cue right in his face.
Speaker 1:Tell me she gave him the finger.
Speaker 2:Oh no, she did that when she was born. But on cue right in his face she burped like a truck driver. I'm like, oh my God, that's the best.
Speaker 1:Tell me you're not already giving her Coca-Cola.
Speaker 2:No, never. Though we were on vacation from Thursday to Monday and I have a picture of it, I'll send it to you. I did not post that one on Facebook.
Speaker 1:She's sitting on my lap. We have a shared family album. What's taking you so long? Oh, did I put it?
Speaker 2:Maybe I put it in the album. I might have put this picture in the album. Then she's sitting on my lap and she's trying to take my high noon from me, my open high noon.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And drink it. She's not allowed to do that for at least another 18 years.
Speaker 1:She's a good girl 18? Okay, so you're going to let her start really early, aren't you? Yeah, apparently.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I mean you did. I started younger than 18.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know, I'm just saying what I was trying to say. Is you started early?
Speaker 2:Yeah, savage, listen. That's why I don't drink now. I got all my drinking out when I was 12.
Speaker 1:No, I'm kidding, wow, 12. I was not drinking when I was 12. I was going to try to give you a little bit of credit and stick with like 16 or something like that, which would have been a little bit more understandable.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, that's probably when I had my first beer, or whatever.
Speaker 1:In three years.
Speaker 2:Listen, it's only a problem if you acknowledge it.
Speaker 1:You can't drink all day if you don't start in the morning. Right, what do you say? We jump into this. Let's do it. Let's talk about some fun topics.
Speaker 2:Let's do it.
Speaker 1:Let's see, you were born at a very young age. No, we won't go back that far. I don't know.
Speaker 2:You know, honestly, I didn't really do any prep for this.
Speaker 1:I mean, I kind of know you a little bit, just a smidge. We've met like once or twice before Once or twice.
Speaker 2:I have faint recollections. I deal with you because I like your wife.
Speaker 1:You deal with me because I'm your favorite sibling, yeah, whatever, you can tell yourself otherwise all you want, it's okay. I know what the truth is. You know what the truth is. But, yes, we are slightly familiar with each other's work. I do have faint memories of changing your diapers as a newborn I mean, I don't remember that I was a newborn no, you were a newborn.
Speaker 1:So, as I've mentioned many times before for the listeners, you and I are about 17 and a half years apart. You are the seventh descendant to the throne of nothing.
Speaker 2:That we know of.
Speaker 1:Well, yes, Seventh that we know of and pretty damn sure the last Hopefully that was something that the boys and I talked about is if you, if there are others out there I would imagine there were earlier on in the line- Well, at this point I have.
Speaker 2:so it's July 31st. I have listened to every released episode ending with Laura Sina Love it.
Speaker 1:Wasn't she amazing.
Speaker 2:Love it. Awesome, I mean. Granted, I have to say there has. I haven't listened to any interview that I haven't loved.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So I have heard at this point.
Speaker 1:Episode 10, by the way, was Laura Sina. For anybody who skipped around and hasn't listened to it, I don't know what you're doing, but go back and listen to it.
Speaker 2:Incredible, yes I have heard a few times I guess michael told it originally the story stop and shop or king colin or wherever in hampton bays oh, dad with the phone number yes holy Holy shit. I mean it doesn't surprise me. It doesn't Listen. He was a very good looking man when he was younger, and even not for nothing. Really, up until the time he died he was still a good looking person. I mean, he didn't take care of himself, but you could definitely tell that there was something there.
Speaker 1:He definitely resembled offspring of Jabba the Hutt near his life. We've all talked about this. All the group of siblings Kim has said this. Everyone has said it. He was a very handsome man when he was younger and, yeah, there was definitely something there. Even later on in life you could see that he once was.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:He had to have been. He had to definitely have some charming characteristics to get five women to marry him. Oh, definitely, and reproduce with him well, again, as far as we know, only four reproduced with him. Yes, that is true. Well, four of his wives yes, that is all there are. If we are one day not one and seven of seven, then it's because there was because you put your dna out there yeah, that's why I went on 23andMe and Ancestry. I waited until after he died.
Speaker 2:Yes, but.
Speaker 1:I wanted to know for sure it was probably within six months or so and have not found any siblings yet. So either we don't have them or they're just not on the site.
Speaker 2:I mean I hope it's choice A.
Speaker 1:I hope it's choice A also For our sake too.
Speaker 2:We don't have any more space. No, we're a very welcoming family, but the space is running out.
Speaker 1:Seven is a good number. Well, I mean, I guess it was for him. Yeah, honestly, look, if it ever happens that there's another sibling, I guess we'll deal with it at that point. But yeah, I'm good with what we have.
Speaker 2:I'm good with our people, yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm good with our people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's us. We're all married off. We got to find Joseph someone, and then we'll be good.
Speaker 1:So when is Joe going to get married? I mean, is like 50 looking good for him?
Speaker 2:Probably Well on the plus side. He doesn't live in the basement anymore. I don't know if you know that.
Speaker 1:No, I do. Oh okay, I think he's in. I don't remember if it was Joe or Mike that told me he's in. Is he in your room?
Speaker 2:No, he's in Michael's old room, I don't know why, because my room what the?
Speaker 1:hell is that about?
Speaker 2:Well, so he likes the closet better in Michael's room. And the only reason why is because Michael's, which I mean I do like Michael's closet.
Speaker 1:Oh, the closet in your room is not as deep, right.
Speaker 2:No, my closet is actually bigger, but we don't have like walk-in closets or anything, but I mean it's a typical standard closet. But in what was Michael's room, which is now Joseph's room, which used to be my room years ago, grandpa, mom's dad, built shelving units Right. Yeah so it has two levels of hangers. It has like four or five shelves in the middle and then it has a whole open area. So I mean I wish that was in the closet in my room. But now my old room is Nora's room.
Speaker 1:I forgot all about the built-ins that your grandpa built.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the room is smaller, but he likes the closet. I would have went with the bigger room and dealt with the closet, all right.
Speaker 1:I think at some point we're going to have to get the boy married off.
Speaker 2:Yes, we have to find somebody. Someone.
Speaker 1:Man, woman, animal, whatever, Goat, I don't care. Yes.
Speaker 2:Yes, but once he's married off, then we can figure it out.
Speaker 1:I love that boy.
Speaker 2:He's fun.
Speaker 1:He's a good time. He really is. Yeah, they both are. I know you and Mike have had your differences over the years, but-.
Speaker 2:Michael and I are like oil and water.
Speaker 1:I think you both have managed to get a little bit better now that you're not living together.
Speaker 2:Yeah, probably.
Speaker 1:You guys fucking hated each other when you lived together. I know there's a million reasons behind it, but I think you both just needed to get out of the house.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:And not be in each other's space. And now that this happened, I think you're able to tolerate each other a little bit more which is a good thing, oh yeah. Because it preserves the family unit, preserves the sibling unit, whatever we're going to call it, the unit yes.
Speaker 2:Well, but he's just like a jerk, like he was talking about this on his episode, how he would, and I think Joseph was like chiming in on it, so he would do things to purposely aggravate me. So he started telling the story, but he never finished it.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:One time I don't know what I did. Whatever I did did not warrant what Michael did to me. So for those of you that don't know, which is probably everyone listening with the exception of, like my husband, I am deathly afraid of clowns because Michael, when I don't know how old I was like sixth grade he made me watch you were about 10 or 11.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he made me watch the movie it and I was good up until, like, the person came out of the swamp or the swamp monster came out of the swamp, whatever it was. So fast forward. I'm now in high school, whatever. I have my very own laptop. I'm like a real badass and I do something to Michael and he breaks into my computer, which wasn't very hard because my password was monkey and my hint on my computer was bananas, so it wasn't really hard to figure out what the password is. So he broke, he put the password into my computer.
Speaker 1:And then this is back in the days when Windows didn't exactly have the tightest security and you could have, you know, put butt as your password.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there was like no, it was literally M-O-N-K-E-Y, no uppercase.
Speaker 1:Before you finish the story, I have to ask monkey really, and, by the way, if you're going to have your password as monkey, why?
Speaker 2:would you have a hint? Don't make the hint banana.
Speaker 1:Don't make the hint. Banana, I mean holy shit with monkey, such a hard word for you to remember. I mean, I know that you know, like all of us, one of the things we got from dad is we all are, you know, running on our last one or two working neurons. But really, monkey was so hard.
Speaker 2:No, I had to. When I was a Dell, I don't know when I was setting up the computer and I put never going to get sponsored by Dell Now.
Speaker 1:thanks for that.
Speaker 2:When I was setting up my computer and putting the password and I had to do a hint, I couldn't think of a better hint for monkey than bananas Duh. But when the thing that backfired on me is when you hit the password incorrectly, the hint shows up right away. Oh, he literally just typed in whatever press enter. It was wrong. The hint showed up as bananas and he got monkey.
Speaker 2:Wow, I'll give him that one. But so then he goes on to google and changes my background to be a killer clown, kind of like the time that we had dinner at our house at well, I should say at mom's house. I believe it was kim's birthday after it was kim's birthday it was the weekend that christy got married. Yeah, 2015.
Speaker 1:Yes, right before we moved to tex.
Speaker 2:Yes, and we're all sitting around the dinner table in the dining room and Michael disappears. Should have known something was going on. And then all of a sudden we're talking and you start laughing and mom goes, michael, and then I turn around and he's with his killer clown mask behind me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he sure was.
Speaker 2:Hang on a second. Oh, I'm sure you have the photo.
Speaker 1:I sure do Right there.
Speaker 2:You're a jerk.
Speaker 1:I know, in fact, I might have to share it on your episode page when this episode drops.
Speaker 2:I was just thinking that I'm like he's going to put that on the homepage.
Speaker 1:Yeah, not on the homepage, just on your episode.
Speaker 2:No on the screen.
Speaker 1:So was that the end of the story? As far as um, he put the clown picture as your screensaver, or was there?
Speaker 2:yes, because that relates back to john george gaylord senior. In his not so nice moments of life, he would probably do something like that too what do you mean?
Speaker 1:probably?
Speaker 2:well, because he wasn't that technologically savage.
Speaker 1:Savvy, not savage. You're a teacher, You're educating the youth of this country. Okay, you're pre-K, you're giving them a foundation and you don't even get savvy and savage right. You know what? Listen, nora is banned from pre-K. She's going to go right to fifth grade.
Speaker 2:I mean, she's a genius, so she can go right to 12th grade.
Speaker 1:Well, she definitely got that from Nick.
Speaker 2:Oh, I don't know about that.
Speaker 1:She got that from your mom's side.
Speaker 2:Probably.
Speaker 1:Probably.
Speaker 2:Look, Dad was also incredibly smart, as we both know Well. That's also the frustrating part is he's like a freaking genius.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he was so stupid smart.
Speaker 2:Did he ever have his IQ tested? Do you know?
Speaker 1:Like professionally or anything.
Speaker 2:I don't think so I would be interested to know what his IQ was.
Speaker 1:I'm sure if he were alive and if you asked him, he would tell you that he did it. He'd probably tell you that he tested at around 160.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Because he frequently exaggerated a couple of things.
Speaker 2:Just a smidge.
Speaker 1:Just a smidge, just a smidge. He was incredibly smart and unfortunately, he didn't always use his gifts for good.
Speaker 2:I was going to say it's almost like he's too smart for his own good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know what that was all about. He just he was. He's a man. What was that?
Speaker 2:He said he's a man.
Speaker 1:Nice, you're welcome. What are you saying? I'm welcome for.
Speaker 2:Because you're a man too.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, I didn't do half the things that he did. I know, I know I know, I don't think I did a tenth of the things that he did.
Speaker 2:I was going to say did you do any? I mean I any. I mean I played baseball, played softball, that's true, I just wasn't. I was not in laura's interview or the interview before laura that I found out that melissa was melissa armstrong episode yes, the nurse okay that he used to play softball or baseball or whatever.
Speaker 1:You were telling a story about it yeah, I don't remember which episode it was. I think it might have been episode nine. I think it was melissa's episode. Yeah, he played baseball in high school. I mean, he's the reason that I got into it, because we would. When I was a kid, we would spend all day every day, in the like spring, summer and fall outside in the backyard playing wiffle ball and just having to catch you know, he's the one that taught me how to kind of hone in my swing.
Speaker 1:As I told in that episode, the man moved like the wind. I've still I'm not sure if I've ever seen anybody in person move as quickly as and maybe it was because I was a kid and just you know. Larger than life. Presence yeah, it was my dad, but I still do. Oh, no, you know what it was it. Presence yeah, it was my dad, but I still do.
Speaker 2:Oh no, you know what it was.
Speaker 1:It was. It was the bonus episode. Oh, yes, it was. It was the hot seat. Hot seat from july. Kim and I were talking about that and I still remember this family picnic when he was working at stony brook hospital and there was a softball game going on and he I don't think he played the whole game, I think he only had the one at bat. But he went up there and had the bat and the first pitch bounced off the plate, second pitch bounced off the plate, third pitch just destroyed it and it just went and went and like the outfield was, you know, just empty grass and it rolled across a dirt road which basically ended up rolling into the woods.
Speaker 1:But by the time the guy in center field got to the ball he was already home. He was a cross home plate and he just like he looked like, you know, roadrunner, just just going around the bases coming up there what?
Speaker 1:yeah, it was a little dust cloud and I still have very vivid memories of watching him run and when he was home I looked out into center field and the guy was just going into the woods to get where the ball had just rolled in, right on the edge, and then he picked it up and threw it in. But yeah, I mean oh, my goodness, he hit and he ran and he threw like nobody's business.
Speaker 2:Right See, now, I didn't know that Because, again, by the time I was born and well, maybe not by the time I was born, but by the time I have a memory of things he was, I'm trying to think. I actually vaguely remember him being an x-ray tech, but then, he was an x-ray tech until like 97, right.
Speaker 1:Maybe, yeah, probably 97, 98.
Speaker 2:So I, vaguely remember that. But then, by the time most of my memory set in, he was already working for Hampton Jitney.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:So he was slowing down and not as mobile as he wanted.
Speaker 1:Well, what really started that on the bad track was the Christmas party, when he did the trains downstairs, did the train show with the board, and this was when he was 46. So that would have been 2003. He was going out to Now, yes.
Speaker 2:No, not in 2003. He was 44 when I was born, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:90, 90. Okay Well, holy crap, my brain is failing. I did some bad math there. 93.
Speaker 2:I was going to say he was 45 when I was born.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm pretty sure In I'm pretty sure it was the Christmas that he was. He was 46. So that would have been 93. So you would have been about you would have been about nine months old.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:He was. You know people were showing up. You know their friend, you know him and your mom friends and everybody would come in to see the train and have food or whatever.
Speaker 1:He went out to greet somebody and yeah, and there were a blast yeah and the two were the three steps on the side of the house, not what's now the main entrance, the other steps he went to go down and he just like missed the step and his foot caught the step and he broke his ankle and we, you know, he went out to greet somebody and two minutes later he's hanging on to someone on both sides and like his I don't remember which leg it was, but like like was up in the air and or just kind of like off the ground and we're like the hell happened and he's like oh, I messed up my ankle and it was already like the size of a softball.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, and he was still thinner at this point.
Speaker 1:It was definitely. Yes, he was definitely thinner. I would say he was probably about I don't know, 230, 240 at this point, so thinner than you know what he was in the last years of his life yeah, but he had swollen notice. Oh, it was very swollen and I think it was your mom that came in and saw it and immediately said hospital and it was a broken ankle and he I was gonna say it doesn't really help when you're an x-ray tech and your wife is a nurse.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're screwed either way, yeah he ended up going to say it doesn't really help when you're an x-ray tech and your wife is a nurse. Yeah, you're screwed either way. Yeah, he ended up going to the hospital. It was broken and he never rehabbed it properly. He never did what he was supposed to do, he never stayed off of it when he was supposed to stay off of it, so of course it never healed properly, right. And then a few years later, when he started working for Hampton Jitney the bus company, it was pretty much all downhill from there, because as an x-ray tech, he was on his feet all the time as a bus driver, you're sitting all the time.
Speaker 1:So I mean, in the first year and a half he probably gained about a hundred pounds. Wow, and it was just. It was over from there. I mean, he would just come home, he'd sit on the couch and you know and eat his Oreos or his Chips Ahoy, drink his Coca-Cola, play video games, sleep, do whatever. But the level of physical activity declined sharply. Yeah, it went downhill very quickly after that and even after he and your mom got divorced and he was first in his apartment and then when he had the house afterwards, I mean, his level of physical activity was next to nothing. He was always on the couch he would get up to if he needed to go into the kitchen and eventually he would just have us get something.
Speaker 2:He talked about him being very smart. That wasn't a dumb move.
Speaker 1:No, that wasn't a dumb move at all. I still think back to when I was a kid, nine, 10 years old. I'd be on one side of the house and he was on the other and he would scream for me Like I thought something was wrong or, you know, I did something or whatever. I'm like sure, what do I do now?
Speaker 2:And I went to the other side Could have been anything.
Speaker 1:And I go running into the other side and I said, what's the matter? And he's like, hand me the remote control, like four fucking feet away, get your ass up and get it Again. Brilliant man, yeah, brilliant man. This is why he had so many kids, so that we would all take care of him.
Speaker 2:Exactly See.
Speaker 1:Holy hell. So, yeah, you definitely. By the time that you can probably remember, he was either like on he was probably on his way out of being an x-ray tech, or was already with Hampton Jitney. So let's talk a little bit about childhood. You are the youngest of seven. Not everybody was in the house at the same time. We've already covered that in other episodes. First of all, what was it like being the youngest of so many?
Speaker 2:See, my memory doesn't really go back as far as I think it would. I only ever remember growing up, obviously with Michael and Joseph, but I don't remember you or John or the other one being in the picture until I was, at least, in elementary school, Except for one incident where one of the siblings was babysitting me and was supposed to get me ready for preschool. So that you know Leanne's mom right, Terry. Oh yeah, of course Well obviously that was like a dumb question, so that was a very dumb question.
Speaker 1:I knew Terry before you guys were born.
Speaker 2:Yes, so that she could just pull in front, I could be, let out the front door and Leanne and I were off to preschool. The person babysitting me fell asleep on the couch, didn't get me ready for preschool. So then Terry, thankfully, got me ready for preschool. Yes, but other than that, I really only remember, like, honestly, like once I was in elementary school, like actually having more siblings, which is odd. But I do have to say, on the flip side of that now I might just contradict myself, but I do always remember every Christmas you although I didn't figure out it was you until I was like 11, coming over and being Santa Claus.
Speaker 1:As I said to your brothers, I don't have any idea what the hell you're talking about.
Speaker 2:And the only reason I figured out it was you.
Speaker 1:Well, still didn't New Balance sneakers. I know.
Speaker 2:No, I didn't, even I didn't. Now I know that you wear the black New Balance sneakers, but that was a Michael thing. So mom and dad got divorced. When was? I think he was out of the house when I was in fifth grade. So that Christmas quote unquote Santa came, but Santa didn't come.
Speaker 2:So I, we didn't get woken up in the middle of the night. So, like, when you would come for those of you that don't remember episode three when you would come, like mom too sorry, actually it was dad. Mom was, like usually in the kitchen. Dad would come into each one of our rooms and wake us up and we like sneak, sneak, wait by, like the closet door and try not to be caught, which was, again, pretty genius when you think of the fact that if there's kids in the room, don't let them hear this, make them leave the room. That, as you believe in santa, like, oh my god, santa came to my house, like, really I saw him. And then I remember one year that I don't know you must have looked over and I got really scared Again, didn't know it was you.
Speaker 1:I remember that.
Speaker 2:And I went running into my room and dad followed behind me but I was like hiding under my covers and he was trying to like get me to take my covers off so I could see you, and I was not having it. Yeah, Again, genius. So then part of the story was when mom and dad got divorced. Dad took the Santa costume and the physical Santa did not come that year and then I think it was maybe like a year or two later, mom was like you know, it was Nick, right? I was like no, she ruined that for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she and I are going to have words.
Speaker 2:She's one of my favorite people walking this planet, by the way. Oh yeah, my mom's pretty cool. She's all right, we'll keep her for a little while. From the time that mom and dad got divorced, she moved. We were just talking about this the other day yeah, did she moved in I want to say 2004, like the summer, the spring summer-ish and she moved out when she died in 2000.
Speaker 1:She had somewhere else to be.
Speaker 2:Someplace else to go. No, actually she did leave the house. She did In March of 2010. She ended up getting sick. She spent some time in the hospital and then went to assisted living. On like I don't know, she passed away on August 7th. So I want to say, like August 6th, mom and I moved her into. No, the end of July, mom and I moved her into assisted living and then we had got. We were there all day. We had just gotten home maybe an hour or two later getting ready to go to bed, and assisted living had called mom and said listen. They said Josephine, which was her name, but we call her Ditzy. Something had happened. They were taken into the hospital and from there she just went into hospice and then two or three days later, on august 7th, she had passed away right but yeah, so literally talk about a caretaker and then being married to the person.
Speaker 2:That is the reason why this podcast has started exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a big part of why I want to interview her, but for so many reasons again, I want to talk to her about her relationship with both her parents, which I know is a great relationship, but there's a lot of grief to talk about there. I mean both of her parents her aunt, your uncle Frank, her brother.
Speaker 2:Oh, my goodness. Which two months to the day that Ditsy passed away.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then, yeah, I couldn't. I still remember that when Ditsy's funeral happened, and then it was like, yeah, it was like maybe two months later.
Speaker 2:It was November 5th. She was August 7th and he was November 5th.
Speaker 1:No, that's three months.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, three months Sorry.
Speaker 1:See, now, you did bad math. All right, we're even now.
Speaker 2:We're even. And it's so funny because I think mom said this first, but then I think she said it like either around aunt terry, uncle michael, and they're like, oh my goodness, this is so true that so if you knew, ditzy, I mean she's not gonna pick favorites, but uncle frank was definitely like top of her list, like she cared for him.
Speaker 2:I mean, there's a whole backstory behind uncle frank, sure yeah, yeah like she cared for him, like that was hit, like she never had kids, so like I mean all my mom and my two uncles were my great aunt's honorary kids, but Uncle Frank was just hers. She would call him every day. He would call her. I mean, he called all of us every day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they had a really special relationship.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, so my mom made the comment. Maybe it was at his funeral that she goes. Oh well, ditsy knew that we wouldn't take good enough care of him down here, so she needed him.
Speaker 1:She needed him yeah.
Speaker 2:But when Uncle Frank died, dad was very upset.
Speaker 1:Yes, he was.
Speaker 2:I remember that.
Speaker 1:That was one of the few times you actually got to see the sensitive side of dad.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that one kind of hit him a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and especially because it was so unexpected, like he was only 55, 56. I don't even think he was 60 yet by the time.
Speaker 1:No, I don't think he was. I want to say mid fifties.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and he wasn't sick, for lack of a better word, so yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a lot to unpack in that conversation with your mom, and this podcast has already become so much more than just dads. I mean, I know that's what you and I are here to discuss. I mean, as of the point when you and I are recording this, as you just said, you listened to episode 10 the other day.
Speaker 2:Literally yesterday when I was driving to tutoring.
Speaker 1:Right, and this interview will probably, if I had to guess, probably be somewhere in the mid twenties. I mean, I've already recorded, I think, 22 or 23 interviews, so yeah, there's, it'll be, and I always say that for context, to give everybody who's listening an understanding of you know how far out this is going to be where we are.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're recording this in summer and it's beautiful weather and it's like 92 degrees outside right now, but I mean, I'm in Tampa, you're in New York. By the time. Everybody's listening to this, everybody's going to be getting ready for Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2:Seriously, oh my goodness, I love it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, please talk to your mom about that, and. I don't think she'd be opposed to it, but to it, but I really would love to have a conversation with her and, unlike that, I'm sure that she'll be technologically savvy enough to be able to set up a Zoom call.
Speaker 2:I mean honestly, if this was a few years ago, I would say no.
Speaker 2:So after I had Nora I mean, I'm sure you know about this Mom ended up moving in with us for about two and a half months because my postpartum was just insane with the anxiety and the depression that I couldn't care for Nora not in the sense that like I wanted to harm her or anything, but like her doing baby things would send me into a spiral Like, oh my gosh, she didn't. She's supposed to drink 23 ounces but she only drank 22.75. She's not going to sleep like normal stuff like that. So, anyhow. So mom ended up moving in for two and a half months and with that, her job that she's at right now is amazing.
Speaker 2:Like they gave her a laptop to take home with her and she was doing work and she was doing something on the laptop one day and I was getting ready to say like, oh, do you need me to show you how to do that? And she did it. I'm like wait, when did you learn how to do that? She had to learn all of it during COVID.
Speaker 1:She sure did. Yeah, she's a good egg, your mom. Yeah, let's rein it back in a little bit.
Speaker 2:So you were probably about how old were you when he ended up leaving?
Speaker 1:When they got divorced. When they got divorced, I want to say you were about nine or 10.
Speaker 2:I had just turned 10 because well, actually it might have started. Wait, I think it started in 03 and it was finalized by O4. Pretty sure that's right, it started in 02 and it was finalized by 03.
Speaker 1:No I think it was 03. Obviously, your mom could yeah, your mom could definitely answer that, but I'm pretty sure it was finalized sometime in 03. I feel like it was like summer of 03, but I could be wrong.
Speaker 2:Okay, so I actually-.
Speaker 1:I wasn't part of the divorce.
Speaker 2:Correct, so in that case it was 02, 03. Then I was nine when it started and had just turned 10 by the time it was finalized sometime in the summer or fall or whatever.
Speaker 1:What do you remember before they ended up getting divorced? What do you remember just about the dynamic, about having dad in the house, about your relationship that you had with him?
Speaker 2:I mean looking back at it as a young child, I didn't notice that anything was different than what my friends would have. I had a mom, I had a dad, I had the two siblings living in the house, we had a dog, we had the white picket fence type of thing. Oh, that's right, suki.
Speaker 1:We had a dog Like we had the white picket fence type of thing that's right. Suki. We had Suki oh Suki. She was such a good dog. But then A little bitch bit me the first time that I saw her.
Speaker 2:Well, mom said that she wasn't really a people person. No, she wasn't, but she very quickly became people, until Joseph was born.
Speaker 1:Right, I love that dog. She was so good.
Speaker 2:Oh, I love Suki and I remember Suki, but okay, so, speaking of Suki and dad, so would do things that probably you should talk about with your spouse before doing them. So but he wouldn't. So one day I it must've been in the summertime, because we were home from school. Mom was at work, dad was home I don't know if it was his day off or he had gotten home from work already, or whatever and he's like okay, we're going to get a dog. Mom did not want any more dogs. She loves Suki, but she did not want another dog. So we went somewhere to this.
Speaker 1:I don't know if I know this.
Speaker 2:Oh my goodness, we went somewhere. I don't know it. I know this. Oh my goodness, we went somewhere. I don't know it was a shelter, but I don't know which one, and we got this. I believe it was a German shepherd. From what I'm remembering, it looked like a canine dog Took it. Oh, what was the dog's name? I forgot what the dog it was, already named.
Speaker 1:She was already named.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so dad puts dog toys out in the front yard trying to be cute. So when mom came home from work she would see the dog toys out in the front yard trying to be cute. So when mom came home from work she would see the dog toys and maybe lessen the blow. Right, so it did not lessen the blow. She was not happy. Dad thought it was the greatest thing ever.
Speaker 1:So wait, he thought that her reaction was the greatest thing ever. No getting the dog, still getting the dog.
Speaker 2:He saw nothing wrong with getting the dog. So she comes in the house and basically says things might have happened in between, but for all intents and purposes she's like get rid of the dog or we're gonna have bigger problems. So at this point it was evening time, couldn't do anything with the dog. So the dog stayed the night. And we never even still to this day, we never sleep with our bedroom doors closed. We've always slept with our bedroom doors open. Something that night made me close my bedroom door. This little dog, oh boy.
Speaker 1:I mean, it wasn't a full grown dog, was it a puppy?
Speaker 2:No, it was. I don't know how old, but it wasn't a puppy size. All right, it was.
Speaker 1:But it wasn't full grown. No.
Speaker 2:Got into my bedroom probably got into my bedroom. I woke up. My fist was in her mouth. She was biting me. I am screaming.
Speaker 2:Mom comes, rumming, rumming not play biting like now that I think back of it, I think she was playbiting because, like my hand was fine, there was no cuts or anything. But like you wake up, you're sleeping, you wake up, your fist is in a dog's mouth, right. So she tells that she like, get this dog out of our house now. Like it's going, regardless if the dog was playing or not, it's going after our children now yeah and that was the last time we got a dog and and I think shortly after that was the end of marriage number five.
Speaker 1:Now.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:I never knew I can't believe this that there was a dog in the house and I never knew this.
Speaker 2:And, like I said it was, I don't even think we had her 24 hours, but yeah, like he would do things. That that again probably should consult with your spouse.
Speaker 1:Most likely.
Speaker 2:Most of the time, if I was going to bring home a dog, I would probably tell my husband, nick, hey, thinking about getting a dog, what do you think about this? If he says no, I'll probably still bring the dog home, but then at least I know he's going to be mad.
Speaker 1:Yeah, major purchases when you don't live alone should always be presented to the person that you live with. Exactly, I'm not going to ever show up here with a new pet or a new car or something crazy like that. Exactly. You know, little things are okay.
Speaker 2:Like, oh, I bought a stick of gum, okay, Right, a stick of gum.
Speaker 1:Oh, I bought a pocketbook, okay.
Speaker 2:Right, I got a pocketbook, or, you know, I bought a stick of gum.
Speaker 1:Okay, Right Stick of gum. Oh, I bought a pocketbook. Okay, right, got a pocketbook or bought us. I'm going to make something totally surprise for dinner.
Speaker 2:Something simple. Oh, they're fine A dog.
Speaker 1:Not something that's going to affect years of your life.
Speaker 2:Correct, exactly, but I mean other than that. Yeah, yeah, there were like fights here and there, but I do have to say like I don't know if it was a joint effort or if it was more so. My mom, they were very good about trying not to argue or fight in front of me, michael and Joseph. He didn't really go to our events, like I was in dance he was always there. Or like my communion, like he didn't go to the church for my communion. But granted, he's also not a religious person. We're two different religions. We were raised Catholic, he was raised Orthodox, so that I could also kind of understand. But like it is your kid, so like, just go.
Speaker 1:You're very generous to say that you understand.
Speaker 2:I mean, he was always there in the aftermath, but not like during the dance recital or during the communion or whatever it may be. So there was that, but then again, then, just one day, they're like oh, we're getting divorced.
Speaker 1:I'm glad that you don't have much memory of anything beyond that. There were, unfortunately. There were a lot of fights. There were plenty of things.
Speaker 2:Oh, like now. As an adult, I know about the fight and like I mean I'm sure if my mom comes on the podcast she might open.
Speaker 2:It's not my story to tell or my she might elaborate to tell, yeah, get a little bit of it out of her exactly, but like I mean, like all, like I think it was nick and I preface this as because you're nick, but also my husband is nick. Yes, I think he had asked me like, did your dad ever like spank you or like anything like that? I go I, honestly, I think like one time my dad spanked me and the only reason I remember is because he would like sit on the couch or whatever and he would have me lay across his lap and then he would spank me. But honestly, I go, no, my dad never. Like I mean he would discipline us, yeah, of course, but like he never like spanked or hit or anything like that. Like yeah, but also then I have to say like I kind of left out in all the situations because when it came to dad, I really didn't get punished.
Speaker 2:Mom is a different story, but I remember one time dad sending me to my room and I don't even know how old I was, it was in the summer, I was little like small enough to still take a nap during the summer or need like rest time, but like maybe preschool-ish, and like I refused to go into my room to like go to sleep, which seems to be like a common occurrence throughout my life.
Speaker 2:Like I just refused to go to my room and sleep for a little while. So he took me, he put me in my room and he closed the door and he said you're not allowed to come out until I come and get you. And it felt like forever, but it ended up being like maybe like an hour or whatever that he's like no, you need to stay in here and you need to rest. Like you're getting cranky Right and you need to rest. But I think honestly, like you might've been over or John might've been over, and like you were inside. Like you were inside like playing video games or whatever, like I wanted to be part of the fun yeah, but he knew that I needed a rest or whatever.
Speaker 2:But any memory that I do have is like he used to. I was just telling nick this the other day because nick kind of started doing it with norm, so he would be sitting on the couch or the chair or whatever and would I would lay across his feet and then he would take his feet and lift me up in the air and then back down, almost like he was using me as like a weight, almost, yes, or like, was it? You had just recently spoken about this in one of your podcasts Like he was obsessed with Jurassic Park. Oh no, I was talking about it on Thursday with Jack and Kim.
Speaker 1:I don't think I've even mentioned Jurassic Park on the podcast yet.
Speaker 2:No literally it was on Thursday and I had gotten a phone call. My ringtone is the theme song of Jurassic Park 1993. So Jack was like is that Jurassic Park? I go, yes, I go. Oh my gosh, it's my favorite movie. He goes me too, because of Dad I go. Obviously it wasn't the 1993. I think it was the 1997 one that came out. He took all of us to go see it. Honestly, like I didn't know, like I wasn't paying attention, whatever. It's a really long movie and I was like four or five years old type of thing. But like he's the reason why I like jonasic park. He's the reason why I love like different types of movies. Like he was a movie buff type of person, the reason why I love christmas types of movies. Like he was a movie buff type of person, the reason why I love Christmas time. I mean, it's not like my mom doesn't love Christmas, but he would go like crazy for Christmas.
Speaker 1:He would go over the top.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you were talking a few minutes ago about the train show. This year for Christmas I told Nick that we need to take Nora to train land in Lundbrook because I want to get a train for around our tree. Love, my Christmas tree. If it was up to me, my Christmas decorations would go up veterans weekend. Wow, it's not up to me, so they go up the day after Thanksgiving day after Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2:Yes, and the only reason it's not up to me is because I need help bringing them into the house. So, like the colors, the sounds, the smells, the sounds, the smells, the songs, everything about Christmas I love, and dad loved Christmas the snow, I mean I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I do love a good blizzard every once in a while.
Speaker 1:Every once in a while, as long as you don't have to drive in it. Exactly On a Friday night it can snow and as long as the roads are clear by Monday morning, you're good.
Speaker 2:Well, also because I'm a school teacher, I love me a good snow day.
Speaker 1:Well, yes, when I talk to the boys about this, we've all gotten that from dad. Our love for the holidays movies, in my case, sports weather. Yeah, I love, I'm obsessed with weather, we're all obsessed with wrestling.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, every night at 9.08, I would get the phone call.
Speaker 1:Tomorrow it's gonna be raining, go slow, take your time, don't rush yeah, he did that to all three of you every single night left voicemails I would be 905, michael will be 905 and I'll be yeah, and that's because the reason why is because after nine o'clock it was free yeah, because, yeah, he forever until probably the last, I don't know two years of his life.
Speaker 1:He had the, you know, circa 2003 verizon phone plan where between 9 pm and 7 am the calls were free, yeah, and I think it was like I don't know like 300 minutes.
Speaker 2:The rest of the time when he died, he probably had the original flip phone. Talk, talk about Jurassic Park.
Speaker 1:He might have. Yeah, I don't know if it was the original one, but yeah, he loved his flip phones.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And, look to be fair, so did my mother and at a certain point we got her to break down and get a smartphone because, between her hearing loss and being able to use the voice to texttext app on her phone, because until she had the cochlear implant surgery, she needed that to be able to communicate with people. And, plus, honestly, at a certain point, when you get to a certain point in life, you need the advantages of technology. A flip phone is not one of them.
Speaker 2:Not in this decade, it must have been. He was still living at the house on Holly and I think this was quite a few years back. Like I want to say, like 2016, 2017, he goes to me. He goes, helene, he goes. I'm going to ask Joseph to cause I guess Joseph had access to his phone plan he goes. I'm going to ask Joseph to take my phone and upgrade it to an iphone. I go, dad, you can't, I know I.
Speaker 1:I did not hear you, by the way, but I saw you I'm yeah, I'm still dealing with like throat and cough and whatever, so every time that I need to call, I'm muting it.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes I'm like dad, what do you need an iphone for? He goes well. He had just gotten the iPad. So that was, however long ago, right, he goes well, I just got this iPad. This is so cool. Now I need to upgrade my phone. I go. No, no, no, you don't need to upgrade your phone, I go. First of all, an iPhone is like $1,000. He goes well, but I could do a phone plan, I go. You're not getting an iPhone, I go, you have the iPad. That's bad enough, because once he got the iPad, he learned how to do Amazon and he learned all of that.
Speaker 1:I'm like oh, good Lord, facebook Messenger, everything.
Speaker 2:Well, that was the best part If he didn't get me on my phone, like by calling me, he would then instant message me. Yeah, almost like he'd leave me a voice message. Helene, it's dad. Yes, dad, I know, because your profile says John Gaylord. Yes, kind of like, when you call me it comes up dad. So I know that dad is calling me.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Needless to say, he never got the iPhone.
Speaker 1:No, he never got the iPhone and thank goodness for that, because that would have been an entirely different disaster to have to deal with. And yeah, the ipad was bad enough. Him getting any kind of uh education on technology was bad enough for us remind me to kill whoever taught him how to do that, probably it was probably, I'm guessing either michael or me yeah there were plenty of times when I was over visiting him and he would have 63,000 questions on the iPad or whatever, and he's like show me how to do this.
Speaker 1:Oh, how do I do this?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then, of course, he's always. I'm sorry to take up so much of your time.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, really, dad You're not, you just keep asking more questions, yeah.
Speaker 1:You just keep asking questions.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But whatever I mean it, was fine In the grand scheme of things, it was harmless as long as he didn't do anything stupid on Facebook, which he did plenty of times but that's okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so back to the original question. I don't really, based on what I know my friends grew up with in the house. I don't really remember anything different Again, because I had a mom and dad, two brothers, a dog.
Speaker 1:The fighting would be behind closed doors or whatever for the most part for the most part I definitely can attest to this he was not an active part of really anything that was going on in any of our lives. Um, he and I had a huge blow up when he did not. Oh, no, beyond that, yeah, that was the first of many.
Speaker 2:Oh, your wedding, your wedding.
Speaker 1:Well, aside from that, actually, this was after your wedding, your Sweet 16.
Speaker 2:Oh yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the wedding was an entirely different shit show. And again, anybody who wants to hear about that episode one that's the nice part about having so many interviews done is I can just start referring everybody back to the old episodes.
Speaker 2:The different episodes right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because otherwise I'm going to keep telling the same stories and anybody who's a regular listener they're going to hear this in episode 20, something like yeah, I know you don't need to talk about all that, stop telling the same story, the same damn story all the time. Yeah, the wedding was. That was an adventure with him. No, you're sweet 16. I still don't understand why he refused to go. He didn't go to anything. The only thing, the only major event that he went to for any of us was Michael's wedding.
Speaker 2:And do you know why?
Speaker 1:I really don't. Because of the fact that it was at your mom's house, I would have thought that would be more reason for him not to go.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, well, that's the reason. I mean no one really knows why he ended up coming. He never said it. I mean no one really knows why he ended up coming, he never said it. But the reason why we all think that he came is because it was in the backyard.
Speaker 1:But what does that have to do with anything?
Speaker 2:It was his old backyard yeah but it wasn't his anymore.
Speaker 2:Right, exactly. But I have to say so, when he came, I was standing next to Alexis, her husband Dan, stephanie and Sable. All three, all four of us were standing right there. And actually I want to say the other one was standing there also and I forget. I want to say it was Stephanie. I'd seen him pulling in the driveway. He goes, she goes is that uncle john? And I go, I didn't even look. I go no, he's not here. And then either sable or alexis all three of them are sisters goes no, that's uncle john. Like uncle john is here. And then I want to say it was alexis. Like wow, it's been however, many years since I've seen him. So then at this point I turn my head. I go oh, that is him.
Speaker 2:So mom was in the house. So I ran in and no, I stopped at the drink table. I poured her a glass of whatever white wine. I go here, you're gonna need this. She goes why? I go? Someone in the backyard that you probably don't want to see? And she goes he's here, isn't he? I go yeah, wow, oh yeah, wow, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:But honestly, I don't know that your mom really cared that much. No, Dad was the one who made the big deal for years after the divorce. I mean, that was a big part of him not coming to my wedding initially is because he's going to be there. Yeah, yeah, that your mom, my stepmom and, by the way, they've been divorced for about 21 years right now and she is still my stepmom. She always will be. She is my second mom. For anybody again who's skipping around episodes, I love that woman and she is. She's a fucking saint to have put up with him. Oh yeah, he basically told me I'm not going to use some of the exact words that he used to reference her because just disgusting. But he basically said why is she coming to your wedding? And I said why wouldn't she come to my wedding? And he said she's not your family. I said fuck you, dude.
Speaker 2:Right. She is Not to mention that all three of her children were in the wedding.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and, by the way, I didn't have a choice in the matter when she was basically thrust into my life and into Jack's life and I don't say that in a bad way, because it was not a bad thing at all. It's something that I've said in I don't remember if it was my interview or the one with the boys is that all of the women in his life were always very good to me, and Jack for sure. But I say that because at that point his romantic life had pretty much become a revolving door for a little while. And when your mom showed up I was like, okay, well, Rosemary seems nice, but honestly, Jack and I didn't expect her to be around for long. And then, when they got married, and then she's pregnant with Joe, like all right, well, this is legit, hopefully.
Speaker 2:Hopefully 16 years later.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we'll see. 16 years, yeah, that was definitely the longest of his marriages, even though, let's face it, it was probably over long before that. But when I first met your mom, I was 11. And she has been in my life ever since, so for 37 plus years. So that was his big gripe is she's not your family? I'm like, oh, fuck yourself. She's absolutely my family, like you forced this into our lives when I was 11. And now we love her. She is our family and this is your problem if you can't handle it. I told him this and he had a big issue with that. It was multiple things it was my wedding, I think it was Jack's going away thing from one of the times when he was headed overseas, and I mean, that was another big fight between us.
Speaker 1:That one I actually remember that was worse because that was shortly after the divorce. That was in 2004. Correct, and at that point he was still bitter about everything because he again couldn't take responsibility for anything. He blamed everybody for everything. He blamed your mother, he blamed Joe, he blamed everybody but himself, because the man couldn't take accountability. He was furious with the fact that she was going to be there Now, meanwhile and, by the way, before this ended, I think two days before the party I basically said if you don't show up to this party, you will never talk to Jack again and you will never talk to me again. So make your decision and make it wisely. He showed up.
Speaker 1:By the way they sat five feet apart. It's like a park in like riverhead or something it was in wait, wasn't that in my mom's backyard?
Speaker 2:oh, that one yes yeah, that one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was in my mom's backyard, I'm pretty sure. Honestly, I don't remember at this, point.
Speaker 2:I think it was I'm ancient.
Speaker 1:my memory is foggy, but I am ancient. I'm pretty sure it was at my mom's house. I think so. But wherever it was, they sat five feet apart the entire time. Nobody died, no, nothing happened. Nothing went wrong. They were civil.
Speaker 2:I think at one point they were even talking.
Speaker 1:I think they were yeah, and everything was fine. The world continued to turn Right. So what the fuck are you making such a big deal about John? But again, this was the way he was.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:And these are the things that I'm glad that you were young enough that you didn't have to see a lot of the background stuff on. But of course, as you got older you got to see probably more than you really ever wanted to, right, fortunately you didn't have to see everything. But again, we've already covered a lot. As far as you know, he wasn't at your sweet 16, he wasn't at a lot of things and obviously he wasn't at your wedding because he was, well, you know, no longer with us at that point. He was slightly unavailable at that point, just a smidge.
Speaker 2:But yeah, neither of my graduations, even to the fact that my college, my first college graduation I say that because I also graduated with my master's two years after my undergraduate was at Nassau Coliseum, right before they tore it down Right, and I told him I go, I'm not driving it. First of all, I have to be there. Way earlier than everyone else. However, michael or Joseph or someone had volunteered to drive him because at this point he was living down on Holly, which was six blocks from our house, and they had handicap accessibility, so we would be able to get a wheelchair or whatever.
Speaker 1:He had a way to everything.
Speaker 2:Well, so, like he does, yes, yes, yes, I'm coming, I'm coming, I'll see you there. I can't wait. Blah, blah, blah. The day comes and he's not at graduation.
Speaker 1:By that point you had already had a few bouts of disappointment, so I'm sure that you weren't surprised. I'm sure that I probably took things a lot I don't know worse or more to heart for you guys. I'm sure you were probably used to it by that point, and so was I. But at the same time as your father, I wanted him to be as involved as he could, because he made the choice to be so bitter. He made the choice to be so angry and so uninvolved. It wasn't by accident, it was unfortunately by design, though I don't know why he did, but he never wanted to be involved in anything, and I mean one time he said something to the fact that you know, he's embarrassed because he doesn't want everybody to see, like how bad a shape he is and how bad he was walking. I'm like what you want me to do about that? This is your reality. Like nobody cares about that.
Speaker 2:The only person who cares is you and, like people, just be happy that you're there just be exactly.
Speaker 1:They'll be happy that you're there. Everybody will be happy to see you, as I'm sure they were with mike's wedding. Oh yeah, everybody was happy to see him. It wasn't, oh john's here. Oh shit, what's gonna happen?
Speaker 2:it wasn't any of that no I and I'm in that aspect, I'm also a little different than everyone. Like, like, what you see with me is what you get. Like, did it hurt me that he wasn't at your wedding or my sweet 16, or my high school graduation, my college graduation, whatever? Yes, but also not that it doesn't affect me, but you're the one that's missing out. I was there. I went to my sweet 16, had a great time. I walked across the stage at Nassau Coliseum, received my degree, had a great time, went out to dinner afterwards. It was great. We were there. I was there. I got to do it. You're the one that wasn't there. You'll just see it through pictures.
Speaker 1:Exactly, and that's what we've all talked about. Kim and I have talked about it. I mean, the boys have talked about it, you and I have talked about it before. That is exactly right. Dad missed out on all of it. He's the only one who missed out, like if he had been actually sick or something else. It's a different story. But he made conscious choices to just be uninvolved with pretty much everything for whatever stupid reason. I mean largely he blamed it on he didn't want to be around your mother right, which was a bullshit excuse when I graduated college.
Speaker 2:How many years after they got divorced like?
Speaker 1:yeah, I mean, you were what 23 when you got your master's.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I mean we're talking 13 years later. Why can't you get over it, dude, Exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about the last few years of his life. Okay, so by this point, kim and I moved to Texas in 2016. Up until then, I had been largely taking him to a lot of his doctor's appointments. By the time I moved to Texas, that wasn't the case anymore because obviously I couldn't drive to Texas just to take him to his doctor appointment, though I'm sure he probably wanted me to. I was still doing a ton phone-related. I was making all the appointments with his doctors and phone calls for whatever the hell needed to be done. I don't even remember because I've tried to block a lot of it out. But the last few years of his life I mean I know what I remember of it how much were you either involved or not involved as far as he goes? Because, again, not being there, I mean, I remember some of it, I don't remember other parts of it. So tell me, give me your perspective of the last few years of his life.
Speaker 2:So I mean I was pretty involved because at that point my life had slowed down in the sense that I was done with school. I was done with all those things that I was doing when I was in school. I was already. I had landed my first teaching job, so I was already like establishing my career and I was able to be around more and do ifoseph or michael couldn't take him to a doctor's appointment hey, helene, are you available this day, or whatever. It also worked out well that I had the entire summer off, plus like eight other vacations during the school year, right, so pretty involved. When it came to that part there was I mean this isn't gonna sound how I want it to sound part of me actually did feel a little bad because at that point his living situation, he was completely taken advantage of.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we did talk a little bit about that. We're definitely not going to go into elaborate detail, but yes, he was in a bad situation.
Speaker 2:Correct, yeah. So he was taken advantage of and then, in the same breath, frustrated, because I know before you moved to texas you were trying to find different apartments or whatever yeah your footsteps by my door he's listening. Uh, with the glass up to the door again yeah, well, I'm just waiting for my baby to come crawling in. Like you were trying to find apartments and then michael was trying to tell him like, listen, like you need to, yes, you need to we're nowhere close to done nick.
Speaker 2:Go away or come in and listen, but we're not done like I think he's getting his phone charger. Like you need to figure out what you want to do. Like we're all in agreeance that you can't continue to live here and a spend your money like this and b just live like it's disgusting. So that part of me did feel bad. Like you want to do more than what you're already doing, but you can't do it if the person isn't willing to accept the help, or I mean it's not like he had to do anything, like even he said he didn't have to do anything, even if he just like go find me a new apartment and I'll move in there.
Speaker 1:Like no, that's bullshit Because? No, that was bullshit, because three times.
Speaker 2:I had a problem Like, even if he was like, do this? Not saying that he did say that.
Speaker 1:Right. He had every opportunity to be a little bit more comfortable. Twice I had apartments set up for him and both times, at the very end, when I went to pick him up to go see the apartment, he said I changed my mind, I'm not going to do it. And then, like a year later, the third time that he asked me to do it, I said this is the last shot. I said this is three strikes in any game and you're out If you fuck me over. If I find you an apartment and you renege on it, then don't ever ask me for help again because I'm not doing it.
Speaker 1:And sure enough, I found an apartment. It was ground level. It was like the door for him was like 15 feet from where his car would have been, where he could have parked, and easy access, no steps, and went to pick him up and he said I'm not going. And I'm like what do you mean? You're not going? And he's like I'm not going. And I'm like what do you mean? You're not going? And he's like I changed my mind. And then I was like all right, and I started to leave and he tried to stop me and he's like come on, sit down for a little bit. I'm like no, I'm not sitting down, I came here to take you to an apartment and you're playing this bullshit game again, so yeah, so he was in a really fucking shitty situation. It was. I mean, it was basically, it was like a half a step away from abuse oh yeah, it wasn't physical abuse.
Speaker 2:Did he ever tell you why he kept changing his mind? Because I have a theory on that, but did he ever give you the exact reason as to why he kept changing his mind other than he was comfortable where he was?
Speaker 1:he, he gave me answers that really didn't make any sense oh, okay uh, I mean his. The answer.
Speaker 2:The only answer that I got really, was he wanted to stay there for his grandkids sake that was my theory, also because I hate to give this credit to this man, but he was really good when it came to his two grandkids. That were born at the time that he was alive. Now he has three more grandkids, but he never got to meet them.
Speaker 1:Right, and I think it probably was that, as much as I hated hearing that, because I told them like you really need to because the situation like I told them. You need to figure this out for yourself because you're not being taken care of ever here. For yourself, because you're not being taken care of ever here. I know that he probably wanted to remain there because at least he knew as long as he was there, the house would still be there the minute he walked away from it. Who?
Speaker 1:the hell knows what would happen and it was all going downhill and it did. And I know I understand that part of it, I understand why he did it, but of course he barely ever got to spend time with his grandchildren. I know when he did he loved that time.
Speaker 2:Oh, 100%, and so did those children.
Speaker 1:Oh, they absolutely did. I know that they did. And when he finally made the decision to walk away from it all, I know it wasn't an easy decision for him. I know the whole process wasn't easy and, like I said, it wasn't. When I said abuse before, it wasn't like it was physical abuse, but it was abuse in every other sense of the word yes, oh yeah, because how many times would we be standing in that living room and the things, yeah, exactly the things that we heard coming from upstairs.
Speaker 1:Again, I'm not going to elaborate, but it was everything that I could do to stop myself from going upstairs, because and beating the shit out of that situation was not worth going to prison over no, not at all it was horrible and nobody should ever live like that sorry no, it was horrible and nobody should ever live like that.
Speaker 1:No, and I will never say that he kind of got what he deserved. He didn't, Because a lot of the other things in his life. He did get what he deserved to be alone and he deserved to have your mom leave him Because she put up with a lot of his shit for way too long. And so, yeah, he did end up. He did deserve to be divorced for a fifth and final time and to spend the rest of his life living alone. The rest of it he didn't deserve.
Speaker 2:Right, no, I agree 100%. I was happy, though, when he finally did decide to leave that situation. Whatever the reason was that he decided to leave, I don't know the backstory behind it, other than the fact that it was like something stupid like four houses away it was around the corner, like at like two houses down.
Speaker 1:It was amazing yeah, literally, it was just. Get out onto the street, go to the stop sign, make a left and yeah, it was like four or five houses away. It was less than. It was not for him, but for the rest of us it was within walking distance, within walking distance.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he loved living there. He became friends with the guy who owned the house. I forget his name. Gary I think, gary, yes, at Christmas time they would exchange Christmas presents. They were like little BFFs.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they were really good and unfortunately he wasn't there for very long. No, he wasn't there long enough. He was. I mean, what? A year and a half two years.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I want to say it was about. I feel like it was November, december of 2018.
Speaker 2:He moved in, yeah.
Speaker 1:When he moved in and then it was I mean 2020, he was in the hospital constantly. It was like every six weeks.
Speaker 2:You shouldn't be in the hospital.
Speaker 1:Right the year you shouldn't be in the hospital. Right the year you shouldn't be in the hospital. And he was in for every reason except for COVID.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:But his anemia was really bad, the internal bleeding, and he just had so many things going on with him. I still remember being at the hospital. I think it was October and November of 2020. And the nurses and doctors were saying you need to have a colonoscopy and he refused. Oh, I remember that and I basically looked at the doctor and I said you tie him down and you knock him out if you have to Give the man a colonoscopy.
Speaker 2:I'm his power of attorney. Do this.
Speaker 1:Right, Finally he, you know.
Speaker 2:He decided to and nothing was wrong he consented to.
Speaker 1:Nothing was wrong.
Speaker 2:Which irks the ever-loving bejesus out of me. Yeah, man couldn't walk. He was overweight. Every bone in his body needed to be replaced. Died with a full head of hair Perfect colonoscopy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, perfect colonoscopy. And he barely had any gray hair. No, it was like- 73 years old, and it was like a little bit of salt and pepper going.
Speaker 2:I had a full Salt and pepper and it was like a little bit of salt and pepper going I had a full-, but it was like the good salt and pepper.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was a good salt and pepper, like the kind of salt and pepper that most men will usually start experiencing around like you know 40s. Yeah, he had a full, thick head of almost completely black hair. Jet black, Jet black and like that was the best part of physical, because everything else was gone at that point.
Speaker 2:That annoyed me about him.
Speaker 1:Right. But yeah, like that time he finally had the colonoscopy, everything was fine. But then two years, two months later, he ended up in the hospital sometime around Christmas. And that was finally when the doctor said you can't live on your own. You can't go home, you can't live by yourself anymore. And he was pissed. And I know he was pissed at me because he's like you got to figure something out for me. I'm like there's nothing to figure out, dad.
Speaker 2:There's no one you can go live with.
Speaker 1:There's nobody you can go live with, he's like. At one point he said and this was the second conversation that he and I had about this At one point he said well, I'll come down and I'll live in Texas. And I said dad, we've already been down him down this road.
Speaker 2:Yeah, weren't you supposed to buy the house and live together?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, we'll get back to that story in a second. But the second time was in Texas, before we actually moved, when we were just getting ready to go down. Well, he said maybe I can come live down there. I said no. And then, when we bought the house in Texas in 2016, he said does it have a garage? And I said yeah, it has a two-car garage. And he said, does it have a garage? And I said yeah, it has two car garage. And he said can I come live?
Speaker 2:in the garage. I'm like what the fuck are you talking about? No, no, it would have been better than his current living situation it would have been.
Speaker 1:But. But yeah, I said but no, is it? How are we going to get you down to texas, dad? He's like oh, I'll drive, like really right you wouldn't drive 10 minutes to my wedding. You're going to drive 1800 miles?
Speaker 2:to how many states are you crossing?
Speaker 1:Yeah. And then I think he said well, you know, you know I could drive with him or Michael would drive. He had some elaborate plan.
Speaker 1:It never ended up happening. But then when it came to he needed to go into assisted living or it wasn't even that, it was a nursing home. He fought and fought and I said that none of your kids have the medical background or financial resources to take care of you like. You need around the clock medical care. You can't. He literally I don't mean to be disgusting for the listeners, but he couldn't even get to the bathroom.
Speaker 2:To the bathroom, yeah, without having an accident how many times did he call michael and or joseph in the middle of the night?
Speaker 1:yes three o'clock in the morning because he either didn't make it or he fell and couldn't get up or whatever it was, the chair broke. You know a hundred thousand different things. Yeah, no, he couldn't do it. And finally the doc said like no, you can't do this anymore. And so he went into the nursing home, the first one, which was his words, that one.
Speaker 2:That was the one like middle island right I think so, yeah, yeah I went there one day on my lunch break because my school was a stone's throw away and it was just very like. The outside was very like sketchy yeah, he said that too. I hadn't gotten to that one but he did say it was pretty sketchy, yeah, um, and we ended up getting him.
Speaker 1:I made I don't know one day I made a spent probably three hours at work on phone calls to get him transferred to a different nursing home and it was basically like the only other option inside it ended up being a good one. And then the shit show that we went through with his insurance because he died basically yeah, he refused to do anything.
Speaker 1:And then his primary insurance got canceled to secondary insurance got canceled. It was like a month of my life on the phone with the director of the nursing home and finally getting his medicare medicaid, I'm sorry approved and it did in like the early part of april of 2021. And then, yeah, three weeks later he died I'm like come on, yes, seriously yeah to.
Speaker 1:To go back for a second to what you had mentioned earlier about buying the house with him yes, that was something that he wanted me to do when he and your mom were getting divorced. He, at this point, was working at Hampton Jett and he wasn't bringing in the same income that he was as an x-ray tech, and he could not afford to buy your mom out of the house. Now, for anybody who may not remember from earlier conversations, this is the house that his parents had built back in the late 50s.
Speaker 1:They had lived in Queens, New York. For anyone who's still not sure, they lived in Queens they moved out to Central Long Island when he was, I don't know, 11 or so.
Speaker 1:They bought a piece. They bought like an acre or so. They built a nice house in Shirley, new York, and they built their lives there, and this is the house that he lived in for his entire life, with the exception of, I think there were about a year or so when, after he and my mom got divorced, when he had been living in Denver, but then he moved back to Long Island and he lived there forever. I don't know if he lived there with his first wife, but I know for two through five he lived there.
Speaker 1:So, that was basically pretty much all he ever knew, and so of course he was trying desperately to do anything he could to preserve that, and his last ditch option was to try to get me to go in and buy the house with him. Now I was at this point, I was 27. I had not met Kim yet and I flat out refused. There's no way, I said. I'm sorry, dad, someday I'm going to get married, I'm going to have a life of my own. He's like she can live with us. I'm like no, I'm going to end up being your caretaker and you know that, and that's why you want me to buy this house with you. It's not happening. And that was another example how he just pretty much had no use for me for about a year I think it was close to a year that we didn't speak because he wanted nothing to do with me, because I made him lose the house, all right, whatever. So again, it just you know one of the many situations I had to deal with him, but it is what it is.
Speaker 1:May 2021, he dies. We deal with everything. It was a Saturday morning. You were the only one that I didn't get to speak to directly that morning, so was it? I think it was Joe or Mike that had called you.
Speaker 2:Well, actually so-.
Speaker 1:Or maybe it was your mom.
Speaker 2:So it was my mom, because Michael was, or Joseph, whoever was going to call my mom, said no, she's at a wedding, don't call her yet. So, backtrack, that was already an extremely tough year, obviously, a, coming out of a pandemic, but B, like less than a month prior, my godfather had passed away. He was sick for literally 28 days. He got sick on March 18th and by April 13th he had passed away. So then, fast forward to May 8th. Nick and I are.
Speaker 2:So my husband for those of you that don't know is a police officer and we are very close with all of his colleagues. So we were out in Riverhead, at the vineyards of Aquabog, for a wedding of someone who's one of our closest friends that he works with. So she had come on the force after him and Nick was her first partner. So we were at their wedding, and that was on May 7th, and because we were young and carefree and had no responsibilities, we slept out at the hotel the night before. So, come May 8th, it was, like I don't know, 7.30 in the morning and I'm starting to come out of my drunken fog and I look over at my phone and my mom had sent me a text message Call me when you wake up. She never says that She'll either just call me or she'll wait until like later in the morning.
Speaker 1:When she knows you're awake and functioning.
Speaker 2:Especially since she knew that I was out the night before. She would never text me call me when you wake up unless there was something wrong. So immediately I knew something had happened. I didn't think she was going to say that my dad was dead, but I called. I waited a little while until Nick started to wake up and I was like okay, I go. My mom just texted me. She's like call me when you wake up. So I go, are you awake enough? Like would you mind if I call her and talk to her? And when I answered the phone she was upset but again didn't immediately think anything.
Speaker 2:She like dad passed away this morning heard. I guess my volume was loud enough. He had heard, he was already on. He was already on the phone with his sergeant who happened to be down the hall at the hotel sleeping. Oh, not sleeping, they were up, or whatever. He's like chris, his dad just died. We have to leave. Tell crystal and joe thank you so much for their wedding congrats, like for inviting us to the wedding. Congratulations, like we'll text them. So chris comes running down to our room again another very close friend of ours.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:He's running down to our room banging on the door. He's like you guys got to get out of here. I'm like I'm trying to like pack my bags. He's like leave it, he goes, we will pack up your room, just leave it. So I mean he's a guy I'm not going to let him pack up my stuff. So we I continue to quickly pack up my stuff. And then he's like give me your key, I will check your room, do a full once over after you guys leave, or whatever.
Speaker 2:Nick got me to mom's house as quickly as possible without getting pulled over on the lie, and then by the time I had gotten there, like jack was almost there. He was like a few minutes away and then when he got to the house we had called into, we had done a. I mean, I guess it was like a few minutes away and then when he got to the house we had called into, we had done a. I mean I guess it was just a two-way phone call because four out of the five of us were in the same room and then we had discussed the plans.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, and that by that point I had already cause I had the conversation with the nursing home that morning, cause I had a missed call when I woke up, I had already spoken a couple times with nurses there. I knew what was happening as far as dad's body would be transferred to the medical examiner and then after that he would be released to the nursing home. Now, everything had already been set up with the nursing home, so it was just a matter of waiting until I think it was like 10 o'clock, until they opened that morning, and then the gentleman Matthew at the nursing home, he was my point of contact and, yeah, he was an amazing guy and he just streamlined everything. Again, this was taken care of before I moved to Texas, so like five and a half years earlier, and that was something that I'm so glad I made dad do, which it was kind of against his will, but it ended up being a good decision, so it ended up being great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we had to do nothing at that point. As far as the funeral, the only thing that I had to deal with at that point was I had to reach back out to the cemetery the East Marion Cemetery because then the grave had to be dug. That was something that couldn't be done in advance. But other than that's, when we started to go over everything, we also made the decision to delay things like a week or so, because, like flights were a fortune for kim and I to fly up from texas, oh yeah, if we had waited a week or a week and a half out there were normal prices. So I mean, at that point he's not going anywhere. So we all, you guys all, said you know no issue with waiting. I think it was the 19th we flew up.
Speaker 2:It was the weekend before Memorial Day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, it was.
Speaker 2:No, like the weekend before. Yes, yes, the week before I should say Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was. I think it was either the 19th that we flew up, the 20th was the funeral, or the 20th we flew up in the 21st funeral. I think it was the 8th. So we did that and you guys were all fine with it, got everything arranged, had made the calls. Yeah, we had the funeral and that was really it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, tell me what your initial thoughts were that morning finding out he was gone and having a little bit of time to process that he's not there, basically between the morning that he died and when we had the funeral.
Speaker 2:Okay. So, like I said a little while ago, I don't really have regrets in life. So like nothing, like I didn't feel like when he died that like, oh, I left all these doors like open and like I don't have closure, or whatever the only thing Unresolved things. Correct. The only thing I did feel extremely bad about was the fact that he, as long as I could remember, he always said I don't want to die alone and because of the time period that he died still in the things of COVID he literally died alone.
Speaker 1:Well.
Speaker 2:I will say he died without family there.
Speaker 1:The nurses were there because that morning and I don't mean to hijack what you were saying, but the day before his blood pressure had dropped they were able to get it back up. I was talking to him that Friday and he had told me his blood pressure dropped, they got it back up and it was fine. I said make sure they keep an eye on it. Right after I was finished talking to him, I called the nurse and I said this is what he's told me and she confirmed everything and I said all right, just obviously, please keep an eye on him. I said if you need to do anything, if you need to take him to the hospital, get him to the hospital. You don't have to get permission from me first, but I'm giving you permission, yeah, I'm giving you permission. Like, take him to the hospital and call me afterwards.
Speaker 1:And so then it all happened at you know, between 4 and 5 am where his blood pressure dropped again. He refused to go and they said you need more care than we can give you here. We have to take you to the hospital. The ambulance was waiting, because there's always an ambulance on site, but then, when they were getting ready to, they got him cleaned up and then, when they were getting ready to transfer him literally from his bed to the stretcher, that's when he coded yeah. So I mean they luckily from that aspect.
Speaker 2:Yes, he didn't have family around him but, fortunately he did have people with him correct, which I am grateful for I am grateful for that part.
Speaker 1:It wasn't a situation where the nurses walked in and he's dead, correct? I am glad. I'm grateful that he did have those wonderful ladies who took care of him there when it happened Correct, but I do understand Right the fact that his loved ones weren't there. Yes, there was nothing we could do about that it was correct.
Speaker 2:It was the state of the world.
Speaker 1:Even when you guys went up there, if you like, took him food or whatever, you couldn't see him. We had to stand out there, the front desk.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we weren't even allowed in the doors. We had to wait out there. We had to stand outside, call saying that we were outside to drop something off, to so-and-so. Eventually someone would come outside, but we weren't even allowed in the doors, which was crazy. I can't even believe. That was like a freaking period of our lifetime. So that was that. Like I said, I never really had any unresolved issues with him, because with me things are very much what you see is what you get. I didn't miss out on anything. You're the one that missed out on it. If anything, you died with regrets type of thing which, knowing him, I mean he probably didn't, but whatever. So then, that-.
Speaker 1:I will say again sorry to cut you off, but I know he had a lot of regrets. I will say again not to sorry to cut you off, but I know he had a lot of regrets. He and I had many phone and in-person conversations the last few years of his life. Whenever, anytime, I went up to New York to visit and when I would see him, he had a lot of regrets he had a lot of regrets toward me and Jack, towards you guys, even some towards your mom. What's that?
Speaker 2:Which is unfortunate because that's the way that you had to live your life it is unfortunate.
Speaker 1:It's unfortunate that you lived your life in such a way that all you have at that point are regrets. But I will say that he definitely had some remorse for a lot of the things and a lot of the ways that he treated us, but again, that's on him.
Speaker 2:That's on him Right and then in the aspect of that, I'm grateful that he realized that before he died, so that's also a step in the right directions.
Speaker 2:And then, unfortunately, he died, but whatever. So then I mean, like that night, like nick was supposed to go out to dinner with his friends from the actually that we just went away with last weekend. They've been friends since some, since elementary school, middle school, high school. They all grew up in Massapequa together, so I was like no go, but he forced me to go out. I wasn't going to go in the first place, even before I found out that my dad died. But so then he had texted the people that we were going out with. He's like listen, helene's going to come. Dad died. They're like, oh my goodness, of course, like anything you need, or whatever. So and going out to dinner, I think, what again, I didn't really want to go like, not because I don't love the people that we went out with, but like I just even you weren't in the frame of mind no, but even beforehand, like I wasn't planning on going, so like I was going to stay home and watch, probably like real housewives of new jersey or something like that.
Speaker 2:So going out that night was a really good choice. We had fun, we laughed. One of his friends, like she, was like we went to this restaurant in Massapequa and one of his friends was like oh, there's a Ralph's Italian ice down the road. Helene, you want to get Ralph's, knowing that like I love ice cream and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:So hell yeah, ralph's is where it's at right and Nick's like, yeah, let's go get Ralph's. Nick never voluntarily says yes to let's getting ice cream, so let's put that out there. Then the next day was Mother's Day. We ended up not doing anything for Mother's Day just because of the circumstances of the weekend, which I felt bad for my mom. I wasn't a mom at that point, but my mom was like no, you stay home, you and Nick just hang out for the day, do?
Speaker 1:whatever we can do this another time.
Speaker 2:Exactly that Monday, I actually ended up not going to work, not that it was my choice, but my boss said okay, I'm giving you Monday off, at least Monday off. I should say. I ended up going back on Tuesday, but when I was out on Monday, my TA who I love to death we've been together since 2019, she had informed the parents why I was out. So on Tuesday when I came back, my students had cards and hugs and everything. And I teach babies, I teach four and five year olds. So they're like oh, I want to give you a hug.
Speaker 2:Or, miss Helene, can you sit on the carpet today when you read the story so we can cuddle around you, like stuff like that. Like they don't know what happened, but they just knew that Miss Helene was sad and we had to make miss helene feel better, right? And then the week and a half, two weeks, whatever goes on, and we go back to life or whatever. And then it's the funeral, which again like so at this point, nick and I were engaged we weren't married at the time, right? So, like, we went to the funeral. It's your, kim, you, me and my neck all in a row, right?
Speaker 2:yeah kim is teary-eyed. You're upset nick's crying, just because that's what he does. Wasn't all that upset, realize? And I was standing there at one point michael was upset oh yeah I was honestly and joe was very upset.
Speaker 1:I honestly look I've said this before like I have. I don't know why I've never cried.
Speaker 2:I've never felt I had the need to no, and that was me, and at one point I was sad, I mean yeah, of course, but at one point I started laughing. But that's what I do at funerals, like I'm that person. That's like cracking jokes at funerals, like the really inappropriate times.
Speaker 1:Also, by the way, I mean this man who, you know, is half responsible for our existence, the king of inappropriate jokes and dark humor, Exactly, yeah. So of course we're doing this.
Speaker 2:I burst out laughing at one point, and I think it was because the priest I guess that's what he is came up to me and asked me what my name was, and I said my name was Helene and he knew that it was a Greek name. So then he starts speaking Greek to me. Yes, and I'm looking at him and he's just talking and he's like like waiting for me to respond. I go, I have no idea what you just said. Sorry, he goes, but your name it's Greek. I go, yeah, but I'm English, I'm American.
Speaker 1:I do not speak the language I don't speak the language.
Speaker 2:I just am blessed with a Greek name. I, like my last name is Gaylord Like skip, the Greek lesson Never went to Greek school. I don't know why, out of all of us, he picked me to be speaking Greek too, but that was it. So at the time, my fiance he looks over at me. He goes are you okay? I go, no, I go. This guy, I don't know who the I don't know him from Moses. He's speaking Greek to me. I go literally, it's all greek to me. I don't know.
Speaker 1:next slide yeah, it was, you're not sad.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was a greek orthodox priest yeah, nick goes, but you're not sad I go. No, I'm sad he goes, but you're not crying. I go, bro, I go. And literally I said this to him I go. Do I cry? He goes. No, that's what annoys me about you, I do not cry. Like he's standing like, and at this point he had only met dad.
Speaker 1:I mean at this point it was only at this point he had only met dad like two times before, and he was upset. This is probably the second or third time that he was around, dad yeah, exactly, and he was upset.
Speaker 2:He goes oh my fiance, she doesn't have a dad. My future children, they're not gonna get to know their grandfather. Blah, blah, blah. I'm like okay, but like to be fair. Like I didn't cry. Like when uncle frank died when ditzy. Like I don't cry yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:So, like funeral happened, whatever, I ended up taking the rest of the week off. The day after his funeral we had another wedding to go to. That was. I did actually, though, get upset at the wedding at the father daughter dance, because I always knew my dad wasn't going to be at the wedding. At the father-daughter dance, because I always knew my dad wasn't going to be at my wedding, but, like, just because he wasn't gonna come not because he, right, wouldn't come yeah, there was always the, the concrete understanding that he wasn't gonna be there.
Speaker 2:He just wasn't gonna come yeah, not that he couldn't come, so he just wouldn't right. And and we're really good friends with these people that got married the day after his burial. So seeing the bride dance with her dad, I'm like, oh shit, yeah, I'm like, oh, I'm not gonna be able to do that. And it even hit me more because I was already what's the word I'm looking for? Like I had already made the choice that my godfather was going to walk me down the aisle and he was going to dance with me as the first dance where my dad should. He was dead too. He died four weeks ahead of time. I'm like, oh shoot, I have no one to walk me down the aisle now. I'm like who? Because at this point I had already known that you and John were going to be in the wedding party. I don't think Nick had asked you yet, but I had already known. I don't know why I didn't think of mom as a choice, but just to me, you don't do that.
Speaker 1:If he wasn't going to ask us to be in the wedding party? Was that a possibility?
Speaker 2:I probably would have had both of you, because I wanted everyone involved in some way, shape or form.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm thrilled that Nick asked us to be in the wedding party. I was honored to be part of that party that day.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm thrilled that Nick asked us to be in the wedding party. I was honored to be part of that party that day, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:It was awesome. Best wedding party ever. Feel bad for people who weren't there. Second maybe to mine and Kim's.
Speaker 2:No, I'm kidding.
Speaker 1:Obviously listen. Your wedding should have been your favorite wedding.
Speaker 2:I mean, your wedding was pretty fun. 14-year-old self did have fun.
Speaker 1:It was a fucking blast. I mean, the only difference between your wedding and my wedding was you didn't have the ability to get drunk.
Speaker 2:Exactly, but I did have champagne.
Speaker 1:Yes, you did.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but then life kind of just went on as normal, except now I just didn't have a dad.
Speaker 1:All right. We're a little bit more than three years out since his death. You had the wedding the next day, the day after his funeral that you guys went to. You had your wedding a couple of years ago. You now have a baby girl.
Speaker 1:I know you've already said you don't cry, but have there been any points in that time in the last three years where you had any kind of whatever it was a breakdown or I don't know, an epiphany, whatever you want to call it a realization, that, holy shit, this is going to be my existence without my dad. He's not going to be here for any of this. Did that happen at all?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So it actually didn't happen until I got pregnant with Nora and the only I don't want to say the only reason, but like and it was more of like an epiphany. So Nick and I we had lists. At this point we didn't know if she was a girl or boy, so we had girl names, we had boy names and then we found out she was a girl and all the girl names that we both at one point agreed on. We just weren't loving at that point. So we went onto Google and we Googled girl names.
Speaker 1:We didn't want anything popular.
Speaker 2:We wanted an old-fashioned name, but not something that she would dread. Not that was uncommon.
Speaker 2:My name is never on a keychain like I want her name to be on a keychain type of thing yeah, you may see, helen, but you're not going to see exactly so we found nora and I was like, oh, both nick and I were like, oh, we love this nor, and we knew the middle name was going to be rose, so nor rose. That goes perfectly together. Two short names flows off the tongue, perfect. Then I google the name and here comes my big fat Greek wedding. It's of Greek origin. Nora is a nickname for Eleonora, which is Greek, and it means honor and like loyalty and trust and stuff. So when we found that I was like, oh, I go, this would be really nice, it has Greek origin.
Speaker 2:And then that's kind of when the epiphany started that like my daughter is only going to have three grandparents yeah like she'll net, like talk about him all the time, like we refer to him as babu because my mom is, yeah, yeah, the non-greek, it has the greek name we talk, we refer to her, him, as babu, we tell him story, we tell her stories. And mom and I were in greenport a few weeks ago and we were going to take her a mile down to East Marion, but then by the time that we were leaving Greenport she was cranky, she just wanted to go home or whatever. So like we tell her stories and there's times like she'll smile and like she obviously she still has like that gummy smile. But it's like a picture of like dad comes into my head and I'm like, oh well, this is kind of sad, like you're not again, not like upset, but like, oh, you're never going to know him, like you'll only know stories.
Speaker 2:And I kind of of him, yeah, and I kind of resonated with that because I never knew his parents, they were both gone long before I came. But my mom's dad, he passed away when I was like 18 months old and all I know of him is stories. So I was like, oh, that's going to be Nora and any future children that we have. And then I also thought like he does have more grandchildren now that he never met. He has three grandchildren that he doesn't.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he has Ellie and Sophie and Sophie.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and he never met them. They're also going to grow up only knowing three grandparents and what we tell them of stories, Right. So I mean looking at it now differently, like as a parent, it's different. Like I never had these thoughts, like on my wedding I'm like, oh, my kids are never going to know their grandpa. Like never crossed my mind until I had the child.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because that point, or prior to that point, it's only a thought of when I have children. Exactly you could be having the thoughts of when I have children, for could be weeks, could be months, could be years and could never have children. Yeah, or could never have children.
Speaker 2:The reality set in when you found out you were pregnant yeah, well, not even when you had her, but when you found out you were pregnant.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, not even when you had her, but when you found out that you were going to have her.
Speaker 2:It was probably like around November or December of 2023, since she was born in February of this year.
Speaker 1:What was that like having that realization? Yeah.
Speaker 2:It was somber yeah.
Speaker 1:Care to elaborate a little.
Speaker 2:I mean, it was just somber. I was like, oh well, I have to figure out a way to make sure she knows that at one point she had four grandparents and that one of her grandparents isn't here. But this is what he was about and this is what he did and things that he liked and all that stuff.
Speaker 1:And you guys are still. You and Nick have talked about this. You're going to make sure that she knows about her bup.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:So you didn't really have a huge grief story.
Speaker 2:No, not really, and again it might be my personality, but also, like I said quite a few times now, like I don't leave things unfinished, like when you're alive, because then when you're gone you're left with the pieces of well, I wish I did this or I wish I handled this situation like this. I just do it there and then kind of my personality.
Speaker 1:You've got a hell of a personality, that's for sure. There's a reason why you well, at least for the last 18 years of my life, been my second favorite person on the planet. Sorry, Kim kind of took that role of being-.
Speaker 2:You know what? Now I have beef with Kim. No, I'm kidding.
Speaker 1:I'm pretty sure that's not even a little bit true.
Speaker 2:No, not at all.
Speaker 1:Did you enjoy being the youngest of this crazy brood? I did. That was his offspring.
Speaker 2:I did or I do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I shouldn't even say I do do you?
Speaker 2:I do. I feel like I got away with a lot, because oh, you did because I was the youngest, like who's gonna look at the? I had six other people to blame stuff on, like dumb right, and I don't want to say that I was spoiled in the definition of spoiled with materialistic things, but like definitely got my way a lot and I also had like fun and cool older siblings that like would take you out or pick you up from school early or like stuff like that.
Speaker 1:I yeah One of my favorite things in life is being the oldest of this group. You know, for a long time it was just me and jack right, and by the end of that, by the time I'm, you know, graduating high school, I'm not one of two or one of three, I'm one of seven. Yeah, and I loved having you guys as younger siblings. It was really cool, even though I wasn't there for, unfortunately, a lot of it, because by the time you were born I was three months. Yeah, I was. Yeah, I was in college and still, when I was, even after I left Albany and moved back home, tried to be there as much as I could, because, unfortunately, I knew dad wasn't emotionally present for a lot of it. But still, not even because of that, it just meant a lot to me to be around you guys.
Speaker 2:Right yeah.
Speaker 1:And it was a lot of fun it was so much fun Got a little bit older. It was a little bit weird being maybe like in my mid-20s of having siblings that were so much younger. You know, joe was 12 years younger, mike was 14 years younger, you're 17 years younger. So that was a little bit weird because, while we all had a closeness, we couldn't have like a relationship, right?
Speaker 2:Not that we couldn't. Because you're 22 years old and your sister is five.
Speaker 1:Right. So it's not that we couldn't have, it's not that we couldn't or didn't have a relationship. We did have a relationship and I think it was great. But then what I really loved was as you guys got older and you became your own persons and you were able to just kind of live your own lives. One of my favorite things in life has been how close I've been able to be with the three of you and I think honestly I've made no secret about this especially you and I have always been so tight and being the oldest and the youngest and you're probably the one that I've been closest to.
Speaker 1:Yeah that huge. I mean I'm literally old enough to be your father, correct? And we have always had this closeness which I have loved and I have cherished, and I'm so proud of and so grateful that we have.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, because there are plenty of people that I've talked to and that I've met over the years and known that have siblings that are significantly older or younger. That closeness wasn't there. Significantly older or younger that closeness wasn't there. And that's definitely something that I will give dad a lot of credit for is he always told Jack and I he made sure that we knew these are you know. He never talked about half siblings and I never talk about half siblings. He said these are, this is you know. I'm like this is your brother for you, this is your sister and I always took that very seriously and I don't know I felt like maybe because he wasn't emotionally or physically involved in so many things.
Speaker 1:That was something that I definitely took on and I took that very seriously to just protect you guys and to take care of you guys as much as I could and, like I said, it's something that I've cherished. I've loved being your older brother, I've loved having you guys as my younger siblings and, yeah, you really again, until Kim came along. Yeah, You're easily one of my very few top favorite people on the planet and yeah you sit there and you brush your hair.
Speaker 1:You're so fucking adorable, but I'm grateful to have you guys. It was you who asked that question. The hot seat episode, you guys are all of my siblings. You guys are easily the best thing that I ever got from him.
Speaker 2:And I don't know if you would say the same if I asked you that question.
Speaker 1:Oh, definitely.
Speaker 2:And I'm also glad I mean this is going to sound weird, but I'm glad that he ended up having so many kids, because I feel like he wished that he had siblings. He's an only child and he gave us what he didn't have.
Speaker 1:And I don't know if there was any reason for that. I don't know if there was any reason for that, I don't know if made the decision to only have one, if they couldn't have more than one yeah, I don't know because it was of a time he was born, in 1947. It was of a time where larger families were more commonplace yeah, so I don't know the reason and you know it doesn't really matter at this point, but yeah, he was an only child and he made sure that we were not.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, whether he made sure or just because-.
Speaker 2:Or just did it by accident.
Speaker 1:Yeah, did it by accident because of five marriages.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Either way, I'm very lucky to have all of you guys for most of my siblings, yeah. So, grateful that we have each other. I think that's probably a good place to stop. So now we're going to get to your favorite part. You're already clapping and you're so excited and I'm so excited for this.
Speaker 2:My favorite part of listening to all of the interviews Other than you know like the interview and learning about different people. I love the rapid fire questions.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, this is something that I, when I started this in the beginning I didn't know if this was going to take off, because the three brothers were the first interview that I ever recorded.
Speaker 1:I know it was the first, aside from mine, it was the first one that got published, but it was also the very first one that I did, and I did it just as kind of like let's see how this goes. I didn't really know what was going to happen and it ended up that it has become part of every single interview and everybody, all of my guests that have listened to previous interviews they are looking forward to their questions at the end of the interview.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, it's the best so it really is.
Speaker 1:It's so much fun. And for anybody who's listening to this, who hasn't already figured it out, if you have listened to other episodes and you want to add new random questions to the ever-growing list, go to ourdeaddadscom, go to the contact us page, select the random questions tab and submit your own questions and they will get on the list and at some point you just might hear your questions on an interview. And if you have questions for me that you would like to contribute to a future episode of the hot seat, you can select the hot seat tab under contact us, submit your questions and grill me, as I'm always looking forward to new questions coming my way. So let's get into this. What is the most number of hours that you've watched TV in a single day? You better not say 24.
Speaker 2:Oh, it has to be up there. I mean, during COVID I was doing not much, I would say six or seven.
Speaker 1:That's it.
Speaker 2:Like that's a lot when you think about it. You're watching six hours of TV a day. What else are you doing? I mean, no, that's not true. After Nora is born, pretty much all I was doing was watching TV.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we'll add like 20.
Speaker 1:Well, we can't add 20 to six or seven, because that would be 26 or 27 and there are not that many hours in a day.
Speaker 2:I'll say like 15 after, but only until recently, only since recently.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's fair. You're going to love this question. How often is it healthy to cry For you? Never.
Speaker 2:No, I would say I don't know like at least monthly, if not like a few times a month.
Speaker 1:Okay, I enjoy when that question comes up. My answer is always as often as you need to. Yeah, whenever you need to.
Speaker 2:Well, mine's a judge.
Speaker 1:What are some nicknames that your parents used to call you?
Speaker 2:Ah, my favorite was given by my dad, Queen Helene. Queen Helene Yep, and I love it so much, but my husband calls me Queen Helene also, but he's more like mocking when he says it.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, he's your husband, he's allowed to mock you yes, or dad also used to call me Weenie. Used to call you Weenie.
Speaker 2:Yep, yep. That's pretty much it, the nicknames.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was pretty much it, just Weenie, queen helene. Queen helene has since been adopted for my child, my four-legged little beast.
Speaker 2:Uh, she is queen maxine, among many other things she has a million different nicknames.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's for a whole other episode. Are you? Yes, stupid questions they come up again. They're totally random. Are you married?
Speaker 2:yes, I am. Yes, you celebrated our second wedding anniversary, that's right.
Speaker 1:And one of the running jokes in our family is how you have a full I've only had one marriage. Yes, you have only had one. All of us have only had one. Hopefully, none of us. Well, michael thinks he's going to break his record, because Michael claims that he's always on the lookout for his next ex-wife.
Speaker 2:Well, that's not even where I was going. I was going with the fact that I should have said I've only had one wedding. Two out of the seven of us had two weddings to the same person.
Speaker 1:You guys got married twice.
Speaker 2:No, I said two out of the seven of us have had two weddings to the same person.
Speaker 1:Oh, actually Jack and Kim.
Speaker 2:Yes, and you yes.
Speaker 1:And me? Yes, well, technically we've gotten married three times. Oh, because who was it? Grampy? No, cliff, my cousin Cliff. Yeah. So we got married in June of 2006. We had a wedding in September of 2007. And then, at my cousin Christy's wedding in October of 2015, my other cousin, cliff, christy's brother, officiated the wedding and he became ordained and he did that and then later on in the reception he's doing other like vow renewals, yeah, and I saw him doing this and I went and grabbed Kim from somewhere, like come on, and she's like just come, you gotta. Yeah, we have to do this and we're going to renew our vows. And she's like what? She was like half drunk at that point, but the alcohol hadn't even set in. But he did it for Grammy and Grampy and did it for a couple others, and then I said we've got to do this. And so Cliff did it for Kim and I and Grammy and Grampy stood up for us and I just, that's one of my favorite favorite moments ever, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:It was so good we have talked about. You know we'll do like vow renewals at some point. You know 20 or 25 or whatever, but we could do it a hundred times. But I think that will. If we end up renewing our vows a hundred times, that will always be my favorite, because Grammy and Grampy, my mom's parents, were also two of my absolute favorite people on the planet, aside from you know, my mom and your mom, but I'm so glad that they were there to stand up for us and do that. I mean, it wasn't like there was paperwork or anything. No, we exchanged the same rings that we already had.
Speaker 1:Right, exactly, but still, it was something that was really special and I'm glad that we were able to do that, and I'm glad that Cliff was able to do that. For us, money or happiness, happiness Cake or?
Speaker 2:pie Cake.
Speaker 1:What kind of cake?
Speaker 2:The chocolatiest cake you can get.
Speaker 1:This is why you're my favorite person. Yep, who is your best friend?
Speaker 2:I mean, I should probably say my husband, but I'm going to say Leanne. Yeah, leanne, you guys, but like a non-relative best friend, because my best friend is my mom.
Speaker 1:Generally okay, yeah, generally when I say, when I ask that question, if the person is married, if that question comes up, I say other than the person you're married to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so Nick is my mom and Leanne and Leanne.
Speaker 1:yeah, there you go. You speak more than one language.
Speaker 2:I barely speak this language, so no, I mean I can speak a little bit of Spanish after taking it in high school, but by the way, barely speaking, I'm going to say that's pretty accurate because your grammar, your spelling, you're a teacher and it's horrible.
Speaker 1:I love you with my entire heart and your grammar and your spelling sucks. But I also call that part of the AOL generation, when everything began to get abbreviated and you still don't know the difference between your and your. It's okay, I love you anyway. Is your bed made right now?
Speaker 2:It is not only because we were out up and early this morning, but we make our bed or I make our bed every day, really.
Speaker 1:Okay, do you respect Kanye West?
Speaker 2:Not that I respect him, but I don't disrespect him.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:I don't care for him.
Speaker 1:Would you go to a movie alone?
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:Do you snore?
Speaker 2:Probably my husband's a, I think I really only snore. I snored a lot when I was pregnant for obvious reasons, but then, like when I have a cold, I do snore.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:What story do you tell most often?
Speaker 2:Oh, probably the story when. So this was when Ditchy was still alive and getting older and doing things she probably shouldn't have been doing, ie walking across the living room without her walker, using only our fireplace that's covered with a brick to hold onto to turn on the lamp on the opposite side of the living room. So mom comes in, sees her doing this, throws her bag down and starts not yelling at her but saying like it's like you can't do this, you need your walker. I tell you every day you're not supposed to do this. So Ditsy goes, something like I'm tired of you always yelling at me. She goes I'm gonna move out, I'm gonna go live somewhere else. My mom goes who you're gonna go live with? She goes my cousins. My mom goes you can't, they're dead. They're all dead like, oh, my god, and even. And then my mom looks at me.
Speaker 2:I remember this we're also like oil and water. We did not get along at all. I. I look at her and I go mom, that was mean, and she, I was saying it was mean. So then she goes do you remember? Like, do you know how old you are? And she was like 97 at this time. She's like do you know how old you are? She goes, you're the only one living. She goes, you're 97 years old.
Speaker 1:I tell that story like all the time. That's amazing, I love that story. You've told me that story before and it's priceless. Bread, pasta, rice potatoes.
Speaker 2:Which one of those is your favorite carb? Yes, okay, yes, I would say pasta, unless the potatoes are mashed.
Speaker 1:How. This is a side question. What is your favorite way to make your mashed potatoes?
Speaker 2:Okay. So mom has this recipe that she makes only for Thanksgiving. It's like some mashed potato casserole, so good. It's made with whipped chive, cream cheese, half and half or heavy cream One of those two. It's delicious. I'll have to send you the recipe so Kim can make it.
Speaker 1:Yes, please. Well, I can make it. I know how to cook.
Speaker 2:Kim's the chef yeah. Well, that's one of our Kim gets the kitchen. You get the grill.
Speaker 1:That's right. That was our running joke when we talked about if we ever had a prenup, which we didn't, because we got married, we had nothing. So, yeah, kim gets the kitchen, I get the grill and the smoker. Okay, so whipped chive cream cheese.
Speaker 2:Delicious.
Speaker 1:Heavy cream mashed potatoes, the butter.
Speaker 2:Please tell me you use butter, nutmeg is in it, and then you just mix it all together, put it in an aluminum pan. You can throw sliced almonds on it. We don't, because in our family we have different allergies than just bake it in the oven, and it's delicious.
Speaker 1:But if you use the sliced almonds on the top, not mixed in, Correct, just as like a garnish.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a garnish.
Speaker 1:Okay, damn, that's good. Yes, please send me that recipe.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I will.
Speaker 1:After we put Nora to bed, I'll If you're kind enough and remember to send it to me before this episode gets published. Then I will include the recipe with the show notes.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I'll do it right after we put Nora to bed, nice.
Speaker 1:What does a person need to be happy?
Speaker 2:Need like an object or need in general.
Speaker 1:You're the one answering the question, you decide.
Speaker 2:They need to be able to love themselves.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's a great answer. Right, describe your style in one word.
Speaker 2:Hot mess express. That's three words.
Speaker 1:That's three words. All right, we'll hyphenate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm going to do Hot Mess.
Speaker 1:Express, hyphen Express, hot Mess Express. Yeah, you definitely are a little bit of a shit show. You're a lot of a shit show. I love it Fucking.
Speaker 2:Also very bougie. I fucking love it.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, I like nice. You're a little bit bougie, you, but you also not everything has to be all extravagant and bougie.
Speaker 2:No, not at all.
Speaker 1:Okay, what makes you hopeful?
Speaker 2:My daughter, hopeful that she'll grow up in a world that's not as messed up as it is right now. Hopeful that she'll be a great person.
Speaker 1:To quote Burgess Meredith from Grumpy I think it was Grumpy Old Men or Grumpier Old Men. You can wish in one hand and crap in the other and see what gets filled up first. Oh, you can wish in one hand and crap in the other and see what gets filled up first. Oh yeah, I hope that we are giving her a good world. I really do. Yes, she deserves it, she and her cousins and any other future children that you guys may have. They absolutely deserve it.
Speaker 2:Oh definitely.
Speaker 1:Do you shower at night or in the morning?
Speaker 2:At night.
Speaker 1:You shower.
Speaker 2:I do Just like weekly though.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, your weekly hose down.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Nice.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:How many kids would you like to have?
Speaker 2:So if you asked me this before Nora was born, I would say at least five. Then Nora was born and I went a little crazy. So we're lucky if we get two.
Speaker 1:We're lucky if we get two.
Speaker 2:Yes, because she needs a sibling. Yeah, yes because she needs a sibling, yeah, but postpartum is hard man.
Speaker 1:Who knows, Maybe you won't have postpartum the second time.
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly.
Speaker 1:Because at that point you'll already know what's going to happen. You're going to realize that you're not going to break them. Nothing's going to happen to them.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:What was the last Halloween costume that you've worn?
Speaker 2:I wore it last year. Since I'm a teacher, I have to dress up every year. Last year I was a pregnant pumpkin, wow pregnant pumpkin.
Speaker 1:So basically you just were a pumpkin.
Speaker 2:Basically, this year we're being the Bluey family.
Speaker 1:Did you and Jack and Kim coordinate that?
Speaker 2:No, we didn't. I forgot that they love Bluey.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean by default, Jack and Kim love Bluey because Ellie loves Bluey. Ellie's obsessed with Bluey. Last time we were all there, ellie had both of Kim and I watching Bluey. I mean, kim probably sat through an entire season of Bluey and she loved it.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:It's the best, and I'm not going to lie I enjoyed it too.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah, Love it.
Speaker 1:Mostly, I just loved sitting there and seeing her so happy.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, definitely, what is?
Speaker 1:definitely. What is your favorite word?
Speaker 2:oh, it's two words okay good lord, I say that a lot of work. And then my students go home and start saying it and their parents like where'd you learn that? They say miss helene says it all the time there you go.
Speaker 1:How tall are you?
Speaker 2:five about five, six and three quarters five seven get that five three.
Speaker 1:Get that three quarters in there. Who is your favorite Harry Potter character?
Speaker 2:Dumbledore.
Speaker 1:Do you know how to perform any magic tricks?
Speaker 2:No, actually.
Speaker 1:Would you rather eat some smoky gnocchi or some delish fish?
Speaker 2:Delish fish.
Speaker 1:Okay. Do public restrooms make you self-conscious?
Speaker 2:Yes, I also think they're disgusting. They are usually.
Speaker 1:What mythical creature would you?
Speaker 2:believe was real, other than the clown from it.
Speaker 1:No, I don't know, I would have thought you said Godzilla because of how many times Dad would watch it.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's true. Or King Kong.
Speaker 1:Or King Kong, that's true, yeah. Ariel or Jasmine.
Speaker 2:Ariel.
Speaker 1:I know the answer to this one Did you ever live abroad? No, what is your favorite thing in your home office?
Speaker 2:My cricket machine.
Speaker 1:Like it makes cricket sounds.
Speaker 2:No, it makes things, it personalizes things. I use vinyl to make shirts, or have you seen on my Facebook where I was just advertising like the ice?
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, I didn't know that was called a Cricut machine.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, it's the best. I have my own webpage. It's called Crafts Creations.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you for actually mentioning that and that is K-R-A-P-F-S Creations. Creations with a K. Creations with a K Good. Okay, good, I'm going to include that on the show notes as well. If anybody orders anything, do you ship?
Speaker 2:I do.
Speaker 1:Good. Well then, hopefully everybody will check out your website. Yes, when do you live now?
Speaker 2:In my house. I live about 30 minutes west of where I grew up.
Speaker 1:Okay, still on Long Island.
Speaker 2:Still on Long Island, still in New York, still on the South Shore, still on the South Shore and still in.
Speaker 1:Suffol Still in New York Still on the South Shore, still on the South Shore and still in Suffolk County.
Speaker 2:Correct.
Speaker 1:Have you ever changed careers?
Speaker 2:I mean technically. I mean I don't know if it was a career, but like I've had different jobs, like I worked at Splash- Right. Now I'm a teacher.
Speaker 1:That was an early job, but ever since you graduated, got your degree for teaching? Nope, always been a teacher. Yep, always been a teacher. Do you think you'll ever change careers?
Speaker 2:I don't think so. If I wanted to, I can actually go into psychology because I'm a dual major in psychology. I've taken all the classes. I've kept up with my certifications. I just went the teaching route instead of the psychology route.
Speaker 1:Yeah, then we can have conversations of grief with other people together.
Speaker 2:Seriously there you go.
Speaker 1:Look at that. Might have a new co-host for the podcast in a few years if you decide to change careers.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:What is your favorite board game?
Speaker 2:Codenames. It's a new game.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:I'll bring it when you're up in October.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, we still have to. We need to talk about that. We need to figure that weekend out.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Last question what never fails to make you laugh, besides me?
Speaker 2:Well, I was going to say, my husband being a goofball.
Speaker 1:Okay, I mean, that's your answer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my husband, like my husband, never fails to make me laugh, but not in like a bad way.
Speaker 1:He should make you laugh. He's a funny guy.
Speaker 2:He is. He's very funny looking no, I'm kidding Very handsome he is very handsome.
Speaker 1:I've always given him grief because I'm a big guy and he is not a big guy, he is teeny tiny.
Speaker 2:He's only an inch taller than I am. He's 5'8".
Speaker 1:I mean, if I stood my thermos on the table, he could probably hide behind it. Probably One of my first jokes about Nick was and I'm sure I've probably said this to him a couple of times is he could be my pitching wedge.
Speaker 2:Oh, definitely.
Speaker 1:He's about 5'7", maybe 5'8". What does he weigh like? Is he even 150 pounds?
Speaker 2:Okay, so recently he had kidney stones where he had to have a procedure done. He was very distraught when he came out of the scale and they told him that he weighed 163 pounds.
Speaker 1:Holy cow.
Speaker 2:Very upset?
Speaker 1:I would not believe that Upset, because he used to weigh less than that.
Speaker 2:Because he used to weigh like 146 when we met.
Speaker 1:Marriage will do that to you.
Speaker 2:Mind you, he's a cop, he's not that big.
Speaker 1:No, he's not. As a cop does he eat donuts?
Speaker 2:He does. I have to say he's not a very big sweets person, but if there's a donut he will eat it. But he just recently started drinking coffee within the last five years.
Speaker 1:Kim is still trying to get me to drink coffee.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's one of my favorite smells in the world.
Speaker 2:He just never tried it beforehand. And then we were at the birthday party of one of Alexis's youngest and he's like oh, oh, I'm so tired. I'm like have a cup of coffee. He's like I've never really had it before and he tried it and he was like, oh, this is good, this is good and now he's hooked. Now he's hooked. He had a cup at like nine o'clock last night and then went to bed it's my grandmother.
Speaker 1:Yeah, grammy. I remember as a kid grammy would have a cup of coffee after dinner, like within an hour before going to bed, and I always like I never had coffee as a kid, but I always knew that it had caffeine and it would wake you up and I would ask her, like isn't that going to keep you up? She'd be like no, I'm good, I have this every night and I could drink it anytime and go right to sleep.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's insane.
Speaker 1:Never understood that.
Speaker 2:Crazy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm not drinking caffeine that late. I don't get enough sleep as it is and I value what little sleep I get Seriously, but still no coffee for me. Kim thinks that I should start drinking coffee. I drink tea, yeah, I don't like tea.
Speaker 2:I don't like tea, iced tea or whatever, but I don't know, just not a fan of the flavor of coffee. Love the smell of it, right, yeah.
Speaker 1:But likes coffee. It's good, how does Nick take his coffee?
Speaker 2:Black with three Splendas.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the Splenda's what are doing the damage. That's where all the weight's coming on and all the donuts, and all the donuts. Kim also takes the coffee black, like her men.
Speaker 2:Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 1:Kidding the oldest joke in the book.
Speaker 2:Seriously.
Speaker 1:I'm so glad that we finally got to do this. Thank you.
Speaker 2:Yes, I'm so excited.
Speaker 1:So much for agreeing to do this, not that I gave you much choice.
Speaker 2:Oh no, it's okay.
Speaker 1:But seriously, it means a lot that you were willing to do this.
Speaker 2:Yes, of course.
Speaker 1:I'm glad that we had so much to talk about, yeah, and I am glad that you are my youngest sibling. I'm glad you're my youngest sibling and I know you are, yes, and I can't wait to see you in October.
Speaker 2:Yes, I can't wait.
Speaker 1:By that point, and everybody who just heard us say that it'll probably be after that when this episode drops, or right? Around that time. I'm not sure Everybody's going to be like why are they talking to past tense?
Speaker 2:Because I, because it's.
Speaker 1:July 31st and I've already done a lot of interviews and we're just going to see where it falls on the calendar. But regardless, I cannot wait to see you guys and see my cute, adorable little niece All three of them and one of my favorite brothers-in-law. Thank you so much for doing this.
Speaker 2:I hope you guys have a great night. I love you Everything. I'll text you the recipe after Nora's in bed. Yes, please.
Speaker 1:Yeah, whenever, no big rush, as long as you text it to me sometime in the next couple of months so that I can drop it in to the episode.
Speaker 2:Sounds like a plan.
Speaker 1:Hug my brother-in-law, hug my niece. I will and we will all hug you when we see you.
Speaker 2:Yes, I love you you Love you.
Speaker 1:Well, if it isn't apparent now that the gift of gab runs at least a little bit in the family, then you haven't been paying much attention. I'm thrilled and grateful that Helene was willing to make the time to sit down with me for a couple of hours and reminisce about the life and times of our dad and so much more. And, just like with my other siblings, you definitely will be hearing more from Helene soon. Yes, that's a little bit of a teaser, but I'm not going to let the cat out of the bag just yet, so you're going to have to keep listening. As we mentioned in our conversation, if you head over to the show notes of this episode, or if you head to OurDeadDadscom and go to the page with this episode on it, you'll not only find the recipe for Hel craft, spelled K-R-A-P-F. You can see some of the past featured creations on the page, and you can also follow her Instagram page and reach out directly to her if you'd like to have her make something for you. If you have a story of grief and loss to share and might want to be considered as a future guest on Our Dead Dads, go to OurDeadDadscom, go to the contact contact us link and then select be a guest, fill out the form and send it in. You just might be able to tell your story and carry on this mission of helping ourselves and helping so many others again.
Speaker 1:There are no rules to navigating grief and there's no timeline for doing it either. Everybody needs to go at their own pace, but the most important thing is taking the very first step. Whether you want to tell your own story, you just want to listen to others tell their stories, the most important thing to understand is that nobody is alone in grief or should ever feel like they don't have someone who will talk to them or listen to them here at Our Dead Dads, within the safe space of this community. You always have both.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening and join me next week when I'm joined by James Bracken IV. At only 20 years old, james is my youngest guest on the podcast so far, but he has already been through enough loss to fill a lifetime. He's going to talk about losing the three most important men in his life, with the first loss happening when he was only six years old. Don't let his age fool you, because he's also a podcaster and he's on his way to being a very well-respected entrepreneur, which we will get into more during the interview. Make sure you're following Our Dead Dads on your favorite podcast streaming platform, because you will not want to miss this episode or any other upcoming episode. This is Our Dead Dads, where we are changing the world one damage, soul at a time. See you next time.