*WARNING: This podcast mentions suicide, sexual abuse & trauma and may be triggering.
Episode Summary
When Lisa was 10 her mother told her her father had died of a heart attack; 35 years later she discovered the truth — he died by suicide. In this episode Lisa and Natasha sit down with Lisa's 87-year-old mother, Sandy, to talk for the first time on the pod about loss, secrecy, and the silence around suicide in the 1970s.
They explore why Sandy kept the secret to protect her daughter, how that secrecy shaped their grieving, and how learning the truth changed the course of Lisa’s life, inspiring this podcast and her new memoir Surviving: Finding Hope After Suicide Loss (Familius Books).
Episode Sponsored by The HelpHUB™
Struggling with your mental health? Feeling lost, overwhelmed, or just alone? Well, you're not. Welcome to The HelpHUB™—your online destination for mental health resources, treatment options, content, and tools to help meet you exactly where you are in the moment. Visit TheHelpHUB.co to get started.
Takeaways
- The impact of family secrets on mental health
- The importance of honesty in healing from grief
- How mental illness and suicide affect families
- The role of open conversations in reducing stigma
- Hope and resilience after loss
Chapters
00:00 The Collision of Truths 07:41 Unveiling the Past 12:23 The Impact of Secrets 18:57 Navigating Grief and Truth 19:23 The Moment of Clarity 22:36 The Weight of Truth 26:13 Processing the Past 27:07 Becoming Advocates for Mental Health 29:33 The Importance of Open Conversations 32:05 Finding Hope and Reasons to Stay 34:29 Reflections on Loss and Legacy
Mental Health Resources
- If you or someone you know is struggling, please call 988 for help.
- The Survivors Podcast Website – https://thesurvivors.net/
- The HelpHUB™ – Mental health resources, tools, and support networks – https://www.thehelphub.co/
- National Domestic Violence Hotline – Call 1-800-799-SAFE (7223)
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See you next week! In the meantime, keep surviving.
00:00:00 --> 00:00:03 My father died when I was 10 years old, but for most of my life,
00:00:03 --> 00:00:05 I didn't know the truth about how he died.
00:00:06 --> 00:00:09 The day it happened, my mother told me he had died of a heart attack,
00:00:09 --> 00:00:12 and I believed that story for 35 years.
00:00:13 --> 00:00:17 Today, we're sitting down with the person who carried that secret for me all
00:00:17 --> 00:00:19 those years, my mom, Sandy.
00:00:20 --> 00:00:24 She's 87 years old now, and this is one of the first times we've ever talked
00:00:24 --> 00:00:26 about this story publicly on the podcast.
00:00:27 --> 00:00:32 We're going to talk about losing my dad, the silence around suicide in the 1970s,
00:00:32 --> 00:00:36 and why telling the truth matters more now than ever.
00:00:39 --> 00:00:43 Hey friends, before we dive into this week's episode, just a heads up.
00:00:43 --> 00:00:47 Our podcast talks about suicide, sexual abuse, and other trauma,
00:00:47 --> 00:00:52 and some of what you hear may be triggering. So please listen with care.
00:00:52 --> 00:00:57 This is The Survivors, real stories, raw conversations, and the truth about
00:00:57 --> 00:01:00 what it means to keep going after the hardest things.
00:01:00 --> 00:01:03 We're so glad you're here. Let's keep surviving together.
00:01:05 --> 00:01:12 So this is a really, really special and unique episode for me, for us, all of us.
00:01:13 --> 00:01:17 If you've been listening to the pod for a while, you know that my father,
00:01:18 --> 00:01:20 Jim, died by suicide when I was 10 years old.
00:01:20 --> 00:01:24 But what you may not know, or you do if you've been listening,
00:01:24 --> 00:01:28 is that most of my life I didn't know the truth about how my father died.
00:01:28 --> 00:01:30 I thought it was a heart attack.
00:01:31 --> 00:01:34 That was what my mom told me the day he passed away,
00:01:34 --> 00:01:40 and I believed that story for 35 years because I had absolutely no reason not
00:01:40 --> 00:01:46 to believe that story until I accidentally learned the truth that he had died
00:01:46 --> 00:01:49 by suicide, and I learned that about 13 years ago.
00:01:49 --> 00:01:52 And that single event, that single event,
00:01:52 --> 00:01:57 truth coming out has changed the course of my life. It created this podcast.
00:01:57 --> 00:02:03 It's created the book that's coming out about that story in another month or
00:02:03 --> 00:02:06 so, and all the work that I've done since then.
00:02:07 --> 00:02:13 And today I get the privilege, we get the privilege of sitting down with the
00:02:13 --> 00:02:21 person who carried that secret all those years to protect me, my mom, Sandy. Hi.
00:02:21 --> 00:02:23 Hi. Hi.
00:02:25 --> 00:02:27 She's 87 years old now. I hope you don't mind me saying that.
00:02:28 --> 00:02:29 You look amazing. Not at all.
00:02:30 --> 00:02:37 She's living in Florida, and this is one of only a small handful of times that
00:02:37 --> 00:02:39 we've had a conversation like this publicly.
00:02:39 --> 00:02:43 We've been doing it a lot more lately, but not like this, and you've never been on the podcast.
00:02:43 --> 00:02:47 So we're going to talk about all the parts of our story,
00:02:47 --> 00:02:53 what it was like to lose a husband and lose a father for me,
00:02:53 --> 00:02:59 and all about the silence that suicide carried back in the 1970s and why you
00:02:59 --> 00:03:01 felt like you needed to protect me from the truth.
00:03:01 --> 00:03:08 So this is an unbelievably powerful experience for me having you on The Survivors.
00:03:08 --> 00:03:12 And you're meeting Natasha right here and now for the first time.
00:03:12 --> 00:03:16 We all were just chatting before we hit record. So...
00:03:17 --> 00:03:20 I just thought we could jump in, jump in.
00:03:20 --> 00:03:24 And first of all, just say welcome. And I'm just going to say I love you right
00:03:24 --> 00:03:30 off the jump, because I love you for just being so willing all this time to
00:03:30 --> 00:03:33 have these conversations and to share your experience with people.
00:03:34 --> 00:03:36 So welcome to the survivors.
00:03:36 --> 00:03:42 And I thought it might be a nice idea before we really kind of get into the whole story.
00:03:42 --> 00:03:46 If you just talk about dad for a second,
00:03:46 --> 00:03:53 just talk about daddy and you were married for 18 years and I'm just going to
00:03:53 --> 00:03:59 let you take it and say whatever you feel like you would want people to know about him as a man.
00:04:00 --> 00:04:06 He was very, very special. He was a kind, gentle man,
00:04:07 --> 00:04:13 He was a wonderful father to you. He used to love to take you climbing mountains
00:04:13 --> 00:04:18 and doing various things like that, and you helped in doing things.
00:04:18 --> 00:04:23 And it was wonderful because he enjoyed it.
00:04:23 --> 00:04:28 It was a pleasure for him to do. And he was just a good guy.
00:04:28 --> 00:04:33 Everybody liked him. He was a very likable man, very warm, very friendly.
00:04:34 --> 00:04:38 He just had that way about him. He was a very bright man.
00:04:39 --> 00:04:46 He worked very, very hard, had more than one job, and was not a complainer.
00:04:46 --> 00:04:51 That's one thing, he was not a complainer. That's one of the reasons that things
00:04:51 --> 00:04:57 did not come to fruition right away about him, that he had a problem.
00:04:58 --> 00:05:03 And in those days In the late 70s,
00:05:03 --> 00:05:07 You did not discuss That type
00:05:07 --> 00:05:11 of illness Quote Mental illness Suicide
00:05:11 --> 00:05:18 Off the table Then I found out That he was Really hurting And I said Whatever
00:05:18 --> 00:05:23 you need to do If you want to see someone If you want to Talk to someone Other
00:05:23 --> 00:05:27 than me Absolutely Because we talked about everything Um
00:05:27 --> 00:05:30 Our lives were the type that we,
00:05:30 --> 00:05:34 each one was to the other person.
00:05:34 --> 00:05:37 In other words, I could talk to him about anything.
00:05:37 --> 00:05:42 He could talk to me about anything, but he was really hurting.
00:05:43 --> 00:05:49 And at that time, I never, ever expected what happened. I just didn't.
00:05:50 --> 00:05:53 And the shock was overwhelming.
00:05:54 --> 00:05:59 And the immediate reaction for me was to protect Lisa.
00:06:00 --> 00:06:06 That was my biggest, the biggest thought that I had at that moment, other than he was gone.
00:06:06 --> 00:06:10 And it was just a shock, period.
00:06:11 --> 00:06:14 You know, I just, it was just so overwhelming.
00:06:15 --> 00:06:21 But the first thing I thought about was, this is a man who adored his daughter.
00:06:21 --> 00:06:23 They did so many things together.
00:06:24 --> 00:06:31 How can I say to her, he took his own life. He left because he wanted to, because he had to.
00:06:31 --> 00:06:34 I couldn't do that. I just couldn't do it.
00:06:35 --> 00:06:40 So there was a small note, very, very tiny note.
00:06:40 --> 00:06:45 And the note did say that he loved us, but that he could not go on.
00:06:46 --> 00:06:53 And I felt I would get rid of the note right away because Lisa was very inquisitive.
00:06:53 --> 00:06:57 She was kind of a girl, you know, she would go to the desk and maybe look in
00:06:57 --> 00:06:59 the drawer and check to see.
00:06:59 --> 00:07:03 You're calling me a snoop, aren't you? Yes, probably. You're calling me a snoop.
00:07:04 --> 00:07:12 Sort of, kind of. And what happened, I'm so concerned at that very moment that
00:07:12 --> 00:07:17 bright as she was, she would come across a note like that. I destroyed it.
00:07:18 --> 00:07:24 And then I decided to tell her that it was a heart attack.
00:07:25 --> 00:07:29 And that's what I did. And I have never, ever been sorry.
00:07:30 --> 00:07:37 Let's go back for a second to the beginning of that day, just to kind of set
00:07:37 --> 00:07:39 the scene of what it was like.
00:07:40 --> 00:07:43 So you mentioned a few minutes ago that dad worked two jobs.
00:07:43 --> 00:07:48 So dad was an import exporter. We grew up in Boston, outside of Boston.
00:07:48 --> 00:07:52 And he worked in the city for an import-export company.
00:07:52 --> 00:07:56 And that was his full-time job. But his family, the family business was real
00:07:56 --> 00:07:59 estate. And when grandpa passed away, dad took over.
00:07:59 --> 00:08:03 And so he had this full-time job in Boston doing his thing.
00:08:03 --> 00:08:08 And then he also had an equally full-time job running the family business,
00:08:08 --> 00:08:12 which was managing all of these apartment buildings for his parents and his siblings. Right.
00:08:13 --> 00:08:17 And that was, I think, even more all-consuming than his regular day job.
00:08:18 --> 00:08:27 Yeah. So, he had been deciding to potentially go off on his own.
00:08:27 --> 00:08:31 He loved real estate. That's what he wanted to do. he had
00:08:31 --> 00:08:34 a whole business plan for developing his own
00:08:34 --> 00:08:37 his own business his own real estate
00:08:37 --> 00:08:41 business and he asked grandma
00:08:41 --> 00:08:46 and his sister who were kind of the administrators of the the family business
00:08:46 --> 00:08:51 if he could go ahead and get their support and go off on his own and they said
00:08:51 --> 00:08:55 and they said no right they said no you're going to stay and you're going to
00:08:55 --> 00:08:59 do this and is it fair to say, in your opinion,
00:08:59 --> 00:09:03 and you and I have talked a lot about this, that that was something that really
00:09:03 --> 00:09:06 kind of threw him at the edge.
00:09:07 --> 00:09:13 I believe. I do. I would have helped him with anything because I had some office
00:09:13 --> 00:09:15 knowledge, that type of thing.
00:09:16 --> 00:09:20 I could have helped him, and I did help him with certain functions that had
00:09:20 --> 00:09:26 to be done with the property in the old days, but then I could have helped him.
00:09:27 --> 00:09:33 I had a part-time job, so I could have used the rest of my time to help him,
00:09:34 --> 00:09:36 which was the plan originally.
00:09:38 --> 00:09:44 But so so he he was discouraged and that's when you mentioned also that that
00:09:44 --> 00:09:45 at the very very end of his life
00:09:45 --> 00:09:49 he did decide to go see a therapist which clearly was too little too late,
00:09:50 --> 00:09:57 and the day he passed away he had stayed home that day from work and he had
00:09:57 --> 00:10:01 a plan to meet you you worked up the street at a nursing home as a secretary
00:10:01 --> 00:10:05 right right you were supposed to meet,
00:10:06 --> 00:10:10 and quickly take us through what that was like. You were at work.
00:10:10 --> 00:10:13 He was around the corner and down the street at home, supposed to meet you at
00:10:13 --> 00:10:15 noon. Noon came and went. What happened?
00:10:16 --> 00:10:19 I just had, I had a feeling.
00:10:20 --> 00:10:25 It didn't often happen that way, but I just, something was not right.
00:10:25 --> 00:10:31 And I said, you know, I should go home. And fellow that I worked,
00:10:33 --> 00:10:36 said to me, you know what, I'm going to take you home, because we were right around the corner.
00:10:37 --> 00:10:43 I always walked to work, and then it was one, two, and I was back. And he said, let's go.
00:10:44 --> 00:10:48 I'll just drop you off. Everything, I'm sure he said it, everything is fine.
00:10:49 --> 00:10:53 And we got in, walked in to where
00:10:53 --> 00:10:58 he was in the playroom, and we could see that there was, he was gone.
00:10:59 --> 00:11:05 He was gone. Yeah. Oh, yeah, that's exactly what George said at the time. He's gone.
00:11:06 --> 00:11:08 So at that moment...
00:11:09 --> 00:11:15 Of course, my world fell apart, but I was thinking of Lisa, only child.
00:11:15 --> 00:11:25 We tried for eight years to have her, and finally I had her after multiple tries and problems.
00:11:26 --> 00:11:33 And it was just so overwhelming that all I could think of was,
00:11:33 --> 00:11:39 is how can I tell her that he left voluntarily?
00:11:39 --> 00:11:41 I couldn't do it.
00:11:41 --> 00:11:47 And that's what led up to the fact that I would keep the secret.
00:11:48 --> 00:11:57 And I felt if ever it came to life and I was asked to try her about this,
00:11:57 --> 00:12:00 I would certainly give her the truth.
00:12:01 --> 00:12:04 But if you didn't ask, I wouldn't say anything.
00:12:05 --> 00:12:12 And so you have to understand that my in-law family was very different from my family.
00:12:13 --> 00:12:18 My family, we were all very close, very close family.
00:12:18 --> 00:12:24 So everybody knew everything that was going on. But they were for me.
00:12:25 --> 00:12:32 My in-laws, they just, for whatever reason, they just ignored us.
00:12:32 --> 00:12:37 That's the only way I could say it after everything happened.
00:12:37 --> 00:12:40 So to keep a secret was okay.
00:12:41 --> 00:12:46 And it just, I maintained the secret as long as I could.
00:12:46 --> 00:12:52 But when you found out the truth, I was not going to lie to you.
00:12:52 --> 00:12:55 That was it. I couldn't. I couldn't do it again.
00:12:56 --> 00:13:00 Yeah. No way. Yeah. And that, we're going to talk about that and the secret
00:13:00 --> 00:13:05 coming out, which happened much, much, much later, decades and decades later.
00:13:05 --> 00:13:10 We'll talk about that in part two of this episode.
00:13:11 --> 00:13:11 Right.
00:13:12 --> 00:13:16 What was the conversation even like about suicide?
00:13:16 --> 00:13:22 Was there any conversation going around in the world about suicide in your world?
00:13:22 --> 00:13:25 Except for my nephew. No.
00:13:26 --> 00:13:29 He was young, very young. He was a wonderful boy.
00:13:30 --> 00:13:33 I don't know what happened. I can suspect.
00:13:34 --> 00:13:42 And he did have help. That I know. But it wasn't to be. He wasn't...
00:13:42 --> 00:13:46 To keep up with this life. It just, that's the way it was.
00:13:47 --> 00:13:53 And he passed away a year before dad did. A year before dad did.
00:13:54 --> 00:13:58 And that was when I actually learned about suicide. That was my first experience
00:13:58 --> 00:14:01 with a death. And it was my first experience with a suicide.
00:14:01 --> 00:14:05 And you and dad were very honest about it. You told me as much as you could
00:14:05 --> 00:14:08 tell a nine-year-old child about it.
00:14:08 --> 00:14:15 We were honest about it. There were people within the realm of the family that did not speak of it.
00:14:15 --> 00:14:20 It was not considered by them suicide.
00:14:20 --> 00:14:25 They did not want to talk about it as suicide because in those days,
00:14:25 --> 00:14:29 you didn't talk about it. You really didn't.
00:14:29 --> 00:14:33 You could never sit and talk the way we're talking now.
00:14:33 --> 00:14:38 You just couldn't. and the
00:14:38 --> 00:14:44 sad part is the sad part is he was a bright young kid and he would have made
00:14:44 --> 00:14:51 a lovely young man I know that because I know the type of a boy that he was
00:14:51 --> 00:14:54 but things change and people change.
00:14:55 --> 00:15:04 And that's what happened Was he a nephew on your side or your husband's side? My sister's boy.
00:15:06 --> 00:15:11 He lived a half a mile away.
00:15:11 --> 00:15:16 So my mother's older sister had three children. He was the youngest.
00:15:16 --> 00:15:19 Oh, okay. Yeah, he was.
00:15:19 --> 00:15:31 And it was very, very sad because I feel it might have been prevented.
00:15:31 --> 00:15:38 But, you know, it's easy for someone on the outside to say that. And I was on the outside.
00:15:40 --> 00:15:43 So I just, I felt awful.
00:15:44 --> 00:15:51 My family did. Oh, we felt terrible. It just was sad. You know, you're.
00:15:52 --> 00:15:58 Life has a lot of struggles, and you do the best you can with what you have,
00:15:58 --> 00:16:03 and you have to try to overcome certain things.
00:16:04 --> 00:16:09 Sometimes it's easier to say goodbye than it is to say, I'm going to do something,
00:16:09 --> 00:16:11 and I'm going to make a life.
00:16:12 --> 00:16:19 Well, when someone is so burdened by their own mental illness and they have
00:16:19 --> 00:16:26 no way of making that pain stop and they have no way of escaping that daily
00:16:26 --> 00:16:27 loop that they're living in,
00:16:28 --> 00:16:32 the only thing they have left is control over whether they stay or whether they don't.
00:16:32 --> 00:16:36 And so many people make that decision.
00:16:36 --> 00:16:42 I mean, look at, you know, Natasha comes from a family of, she's one of 20 kids,
00:16:42 --> 00:16:48 and five of her brothers have been lost to suicide. side.
00:16:49 --> 00:16:59 And a lot of them were more recently and living in a time when talking about
00:16:59 --> 00:17:02 your mental health was more acceptable.
00:17:03 --> 00:17:10 So I think it just, it depends on so many different things of your life.
00:17:10 --> 00:17:13 That's it. It's so many factors. Like, do you feel like there are people you
00:17:13 --> 00:17:14 can reach out and talk to?
00:17:15 --> 00:17:19 Do you have the means to support your own mental health? I mean, there's so many things.
00:17:20 --> 00:17:27 To be able to call a number and talk to somebody, I think is amazing and wonderful. I do.
00:17:28 --> 00:17:31 Because you need to talk to someone.
00:17:31 --> 00:17:37 You need to be able to unburden yourself because that will give you a chance
00:17:37 --> 00:17:45 to regenerate and maybe say to yourself, you know, hey, I'm really a special person. too.
00:17:45 --> 00:17:48 I deserve to live my life and have my family.
00:17:49 --> 00:17:53 It's just, you don't know until you're living it.
00:17:54 --> 00:18:00 And obviously, Natasha knows it. And it's very, very difficult. Yeah.
00:18:02 --> 00:18:07 I mean, you were suddenly, so suddenly and unexpectedly,
00:18:08 --> 00:18:14 a single mom all of a sudden, overnight, raising a 10-year-old child after losing
00:18:14 --> 00:18:18 your husband in one of the most... There was no time to grieve.
00:18:18 --> 00:18:23 Right, I know. There was no time to grieve. you are my focus immediately.
00:18:23 --> 00:18:29 Because I remember you sat with me, the edge of the bed, and you looked at me
00:18:29 --> 00:18:30 and you said, are you going to die too?
00:18:31 --> 00:18:35 And I said, someday, but not now. Not now. And I remember you.
00:18:35 --> 00:18:38 I remember that. I remember that. I remember that.
00:18:39 --> 00:18:48 And, you know, it's a sad set of circumstances because we don't have all the answers.
00:18:49 --> 00:18:54 And it's so hard too, as a parent, when you're, I mean, you had knowledge that
00:18:54 --> 00:18:59 you weren't giving me, which was obviously the dad died of, by suicide.
00:19:00 --> 00:19:08 But what is that like having to, what, I can't imagine the kind of pain you were dealing with,
00:19:09 --> 00:19:12 knowing the truth, losing your partner, having to keep a secret,
00:19:12 --> 00:19:15 and then having to talk to me, like Natasha,
00:19:16 --> 00:19:20 you and I were talking a little while ago about you going through something
00:19:20 --> 00:19:26 similar, where you had to tell your son at the time, your kids,
00:19:26 --> 00:19:30 but your son at the time was the same age that I was learning about my father's death.
00:19:31 --> 00:19:38 And you had to have that same experience as a mother telling your children that
00:19:38 --> 00:19:40 one of your siblings had died.
00:19:40 --> 00:19:43 I mean, what is that even like?
00:19:44 --> 00:19:49 Well, I mean, the hardest part for me was that we had just seen Corey 48 hours
00:19:49 --> 00:19:52 before he had taken his life at my children's birthday party.
00:19:53 --> 00:20:00 Oh. So, yeah. And so that was, the kids talk about that often,
00:20:00 --> 00:20:02 is that we had just seen him.
00:20:02 --> 00:20:06 How is that possible? Literally 48 hours prior.
00:20:07 --> 00:20:11 And not only did I have to tell them that Corey took their lives,
00:20:11 --> 00:20:17 took his life but I also had two other brothers that had taken their lives in
00:20:17 --> 00:20:19 their, you know, 18, 20 years prior,
00:20:20 --> 00:20:25 and so that was a tremendous amount of weight to put on a 10-year-old and a 12-year-old at the time,
00:20:27 --> 00:20:34 and it just, and then they too were very, very afraid that I was gonna die too.
00:20:37 --> 00:20:40 Yeah. And then as I've had more, you know, now I've had five,
00:20:41 --> 00:20:46 I dare say, and they probably don't even share with me how much they're afraid
00:20:46 --> 00:20:48 that I'm going to be next.
00:20:50 --> 00:20:56 Yeah, that's such a hard and incredibly unique situation to be in.
00:20:56 --> 00:21:00 I remember, and I've talked about this, I'm talking now from the perspective
00:21:00 --> 00:21:05 of that child, finding out that news about, in my case, my dad,
00:21:05 --> 00:21:08 and having only one parent left.
00:21:08 --> 00:21:11 I mom you and I had a conversation just this
00:21:11 --> 00:21:15 this week about how I
00:21:15 --> 00:21:18 have and I get very emotional every time I think about this or talk
00:21:18 --> 00:21:22 about this because I remember like you you remember those thoughts put you back
00:21:22 --> 00:21:28 to those emotions that you were feeling in that moment and I remember that conversation
00:21:28 --> 00:21:31 sitting with you on the edge of the bed saying are you going to die too and
00:21:31 --> 00:21:37 and I I remember from the day dad died right up until today.
00:21:38 --> 00:21:39 I mean, right up, honestly, until
00:21:39 --> 00:21:45 right here and now. I have always lived with this fear of losing you.
00:21:45 --> 00:21:49 And it's such an intense, like it's very hard for me to even talk about it right
00:21:49 --> 00:21:50 now without the emotion coming out.
00:21:51 --> 00:21:54 But it has been my single greatest fear.
00:21:54 --> 00:21:59 And I'm a grown woman. I understand life and death and have experienced that
00:21:59 --> 00:22:03 in so many different ways. But I just remember that fear.
00:22:03 --> 00:22:10 So, Natasha, I totally get what your kids were feeling being that child who
00:22:10 --> 00:22:16 was so terribly afraid that, well, okay, when is this going to happen to my person?
00:22:17 --> 00:22:21 When are they going to do this to themselves? Or when will they be gone?
00:22:21 --> 00:22:23 And it's terrifying. It's an absolutely terrifying feeling.
00:22:24 --> 00:22:28 Hey, it's Lisa Sugarman, co-host of The Survivors and founder of The Help Hub.
00:22:28 --> 00:22:31 If you're listening right now and you're not okay,
00:22:32 --> 00:22:36 If you're feeling overwhelmed, stuck, or like you're carrying more than you
00:22:36 --> 00:22:39 can handle, please know you don't have to go through it alone.
00:22:39 --> 00:22:46 You can call or text 988 or chat online at 988lifeline.org to connect with trained
00:22:46 --> 00:22:49 counselors like me who are there to listen and support you in the moment.
00:22:50 --> 00:22:53 Reaching out is a brave first step, and you owe it to yourself.
00:22:54 --> 00:23:00 Because your life matters, your story matters, and help is always just three numbers away.
00:23:02 --> 00:23:07 And then, you know, I know that them watching me grieve actively,
00:23:07 --> 00:23:13 all of us grieve day in and day out and watching me because they had never seen me like that before.
00:23:13 --> 00:23:18 In fact, I for, you know, the first week or two, I was trying to hide my grief from them.
00:23:18 --> 00:23:22 And then I had a very dear friend tell me to stop doing that,
00:23:22 --> 00:23:27 that it was important for them to see me grieve, to see that it's OK to cry
00:23:27 --> 00:23:28 and then miss and be upset.
00:23:28 --> 00:23:35 And so I actually made it a point to be more open with my grief with them.
00:23:35 --> 00:23:40 And then I guess that gave them the permission to openly share their feelings.
00:23:40 --> 00:23:47 And I know for me, it was, I didn't want to burden my children with that kind
00:23:47 --> 00:23:48 of information initially.
00:23:49 --> 00:23:55 Because I know what it's like to carry a lot of trauma and grief from a very
00:23:55 --> 00:23:59 young age and be burdened with life too young. And I didn't want to do that,
00:23:59 --> 00:24:03 but I also knew that it was important for them to know the truth.
00:24:03 --> 00:24:09 And so for me, I wanted to ask you, Sandy, was it Lisa that you only kept that
00:24:09 --> 00:24:13 secret, or was it everybody? And how did you do that?
00:24:15 --> 00:24:24 You know, my own family, my mother, my brothers, my sister, they knew.
00:24:24 --> 00:24:29 My sister and Alain's, they knew the situation.
00:24:29 --> 00:24:32 However, it was never brought up.
00:24:33 --> 00:24:37 Never mentioned. Never certainly mentioned in front of Lisa. Never.
00:24:38 --> 00:24:45 However, as I say, my in-law family, when everything happened,
00:24:45 --> 00:24:49 it was just like cut off. That's it.
00:24:49 --> 00:24:54 I mean, they would, hi, how are you, if we were somewhere. They were cordial.
00:24:54 --> 00:24:57 But there was not, there was never warm.
00:24:57 --> 00:25:03 There was never warm. And that's the one thing that my husband loved about my family.
00:25:04 --> 00:25:07 They were very loving from the day that he met them.
00:25:08 --> 00:25:11 They were that type. They were very warm.
00:25:12 --> 00:25:18 They were very loving, very caring.
00:25:18 --> 00:25:23 And we were family. Mom, what was it like, just kind of going back to Natasha's question,
00:25:24 --> 00:25:28 what was it like for you carrying
00:25:28 --> 00:25:31 these two narratives and really being
00:25:31 --> 00:25:39 the only one who was really holding on to these two stories that were very much
00:25:39 --> 00:25:48 in opposition of each other and worrying about slipping or worrying about somehow?
00:25:48 --> 00:25:53 Somehow me answering, you know, asking a question or what was that like?
00:25:55 --> 00:26:00 Since it was ongoing for so long, it kind of fades a little bit.
00:26:01 --> 00:26:03 It just becomes very natural.
00:26:04 --> 00:26:11 It becomes my life. The lie became your truth the longer you carried it.
00:26:11 --> 00:26:20 That's very true. and I felt I think because I had a wonderful marriage I mean
00:26:20 --> 00:26:25 I was very grateful Jim was a wonderful guy what happened was,
00:26:26 --> 00:26:29 was sad for him, I feel.
00:26:29 --> 00:26:36 For me, it was no time to grieve. I had a 10-year-old.
00:26:36 --> 00:26:42 I could not do that. I couldn't have the luxury of going into my bedroom,
00:26:43 --> 00:26:46 closing the door, and trying for days on end.
00:26:46 --> 00:26:48 I just knew I couldn't do that.
00:26:49 --> 00:26:54 Did you, at night, maybe after Lisa went to sleep, would you allow yourself to grieve at all?
00:26:56 --> 00:27:03 Rarely Only because I had friends and family That kept in touch all the time So there was not,
00:27:04 --> 00:27:11 A lagging Of time Where I could say I'm going to sit now And I'm going to think
00:27:11 --> 00:27:17 about all that I had Because all that I had Was a daily thought for me I was
00:27:17 --> 00:27:22 very grateful That I had a wonderful life with them We talked all the time And
00:27:22 --> 00:27:24 we talked about everything,
00:27:25 --> 00:27:26 Everything, everyone,
00:27:26 --> 00:27:28 we just had that kind of a marriage.
00:27:29 --> 00:27:34 You know, we were comfortable, I think that's the word, with each other.
00:27:35 --> 00:27:37 You know, it's interesting. And you don't.
00:27:38 --> 00:27:43 It's interesting. This came out for me when I was over the course of being in
00:27:43 --> 00:27:45 therapy, especially in the last year or so.
00:27:45 --> 00:27:47 And mom, this relates to you.
00:27:48 --> 00:27:51 My therapist who has gotten to know.
00:27:53 --> 00:27:56 So she asked me a really interesting question that no one had ever asked me.
00:27:56 --> 00:27:58 And I had certainly never thought of it myself.
00:27:59 --> 00:28:04 She asked me, who was checking in on me when I was 10 years old?
00:28:04 --> 00:28:07 And this is in the context of grieving.
00:28:08 --> 00:28:14 Grieving that loss at that time actively, which it turns out neither one of us really did.
00:28:14 --> 00:28:16 Like you and I did a lot of reminiscing.
00:28:16 --> 00:28:22 We did a lot of crying. We did a lot of, I mean, I, in my own way,
00:28:22 --> 00:28:24 I always kept a journal since I was a little kid.
00:28:24 --> 00:28:30 And so I would express things in that way, but there was no talking about it.
00:28:30 --> 00:28:33 There was no, certainly no therapy.
00:28:33 --> 00:28:38 There was no group. There was no buddy checking in on, I'm just speaking from
00:28:38 --> 00:28:42 myself here, checking in on me saying, how are you?
00:28:43 --> 00:28:48 I mean, it was, you were always there and always present and always actively
00:28:48 --> 00:28:51 keeping dad very much a part of our life.
00:28:51 --> 00:28:56 But in terms of what we now know or what I now know, like active grieving to
00:28:56 --> 00:29:02 be, which involves a lot of asking yourself questions and reflecting and,
00:29:02 --> 00:29:05 and, and really sitting in it.
00:29:05 --> 00:29:08 We didn't do any of that. We didn't do any of that.
00:29:08 --> 00:29:13 And I feel like you and I, honestly, especially since I mentioned early on in
00:29:13 --> 00:29:17 this episode that I have a book coming out, Surviving, Finding Hope After Suicide
00:29:17 --> 00:29:19 Loss is coming out at the end of April.
00:29:19 --> 00:29:23 And it is about dad. It is a memoir. It's about losing him twice,
00:29:23 --> 00:29:25 once to a heart attack, once to suicide.
00:29:25 --> 00:29:30 And you're in it in so many beautiful ways. Your voice is in every chapter.
00:29:30 --> 00:29:36 And so you and I have done a lot of heavy, heavy reflecting the last year or
00:29:36 --> 00:29:38 so while I've been writing this book.
00:29:39 --> 00:29:41 And I feel like we've almost done...
00:29:42 --> 00:29:46 All the grieving we didn't do then, now. Do you feel that at all?
00:29:47 --> 00:29:54 Yes, because truth has a way of doing that. And the truth came out.
00:29:55 --> 00:30:02 For 35 years, it was one answer, and now there's a completely different answer.
00:30:03 --> 00:30:07 Yeah. Yeah, and that's actually, that is the perfect place, I think,
00:30:07 --> 00:30:12 to wrap this conversation. This is going to be a two-part conversation.
00:30:13 --> 00:30:16 And in the second part of the conversation, we're going to talk about what it
00:30:16 --> 00:30:23 was like for you, not just to carry that secret, but what happened exactly when
00:30:23 --> 00:30:26 the truth finally came out. how did that happen?
00:30:26 --> 00:30:32 What was it like? What did it create in terms of the trajectory of my life and your life?
00:30:32 --> 00:30:38 Because that's where I feel like so much of this story really begins for me
00:30:38 --> 00:30:41 personally is when I found out the truth and everything that happened after that.
00:30:42 --> 00:30:46 So we're going to meet right back here again next week.
00:30:46 --> 00:30:51 And we're going to have part two of this conversation with my mom.
00:30:51 --> 00:30:57 And until then, I just am so grateful for you to be here like this and be so
00:30:57 --> 00:31:00 open and share this. It's not an easy thing to do.
00:31:00 --> 00:31:04 And we both love and appreciate you so much for doing it.
00:31:05 --> 00:31:09 Absolutely. So we'll keep surviving until next week.
00:31:09 --> 00:31:13 And we'll be back to dive right back in where we left off. Absolutely.
00:31:15 --> 00:31:18 Thanks so much for listening and for being part of the Survivors community.
00:31:19 --> 00:31:23 No matter where you are in your story, you're not alone, and you're definitely not broken.
00:31:24 --> 00:31:28 Healing takes time, and it looks different for everyone. The fact that you're
00:31:28 --> 00:31:32 still here and still trying means you're already doing the hard work.
00:31:32 --> 00:31:36 If something in today's conversation resonated with you, please share it with
00:31:36 --> 00:31:38 someone who might need to hear it too.
00:31:38 --> 00:31:43 That's how we keep these conversations going and remind each other that there's always hope.
00:31:43 --> 00:31:47 And if you or someone you know is struggling please remember help is always
00:31:47 --> 00:31:52 out there you can call or text 988 anytime to reach a trained crisis counselor
00:31:52 --> 00:31:55 like me and for more mental health resources, tools,
00:31:56 --> 00:32:00 treatment options and content to support your mental health visit thehelphub.co
00:32:00 --> 00:32:04 we're so grateful you're part of the Survivors family and we'll be back next
00:32:04 --> 00:32:09 week with another honest conversation about life after the hardest things until then,
00:32:09 --> 00:32:12 take care of yourself and your people and keep surviving.