About Bob
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When Laura gets a call from the hospital telling her that her dad has severe frostbite and could die, Laura is shocked. Not because of the whole frostbite part ... but because her dad is alive. She hasn't seen or talked to him in years and honestly assumed he was long dead.
This is a story about what happens when we realize our parents are, in fact, real people — and that real people mess up and make mistakes.
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Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.
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Hans Buetow: [00:00:02] A quick warning that this episode contains strong language. [00:00:04][2.3]
Nora McInerny: [00:00:10] One day Laura was at work doing what you probably do at work, pretending to work. Just getting Laura was actually working. Unlike you, she was typing, emailing, Facebooking and getting Laura is. She just seems like a responsible person. She works at a law firm. She would not waste company resources like that. Laura's employer, if you're listening. So Laura was at work and her phone rang, which is something that tends to happen when you're at work. And she ignored it because that's what we do when we're working. [00:00:41][31.2]
Laura: [00:00:42] Got this random voicemail from a woman who says, in this kind of like, thick Boston accent, if you're Robert, Gracie's daughter, Laura, Gracie, please call me back at Mass General. And I'm like, Well, I am that person. [00:00:58][16.4]
Nora McInerny: [00:00:59] So do you know at this point what Mass Gen is? [00:01:02][2.9]
Laura: [00:01:03] No, no. I mean, I Googled it. It's a hospital. It's just a hospital in Boston, and. So I called back from the office and she basically tells me your dad fell asleep in the snow and has severe frostbite. And I'm just like, you know, in total shock, kind of sat there stunned for a minute. Hung up because I told her I'd call her back. I hung up and I just start crying. [00:01:30][27.6]
Nora McInerny: [00:01:32] The shock here was not just that Laura's dad had severe frostbite, though. Yeah, that's very shocking. It's that her dad was alive to get frostbite. When Laura got that phone call, she hadn't seen her dad in several years. She had actually assumed he was dead. But now, suddenly, in the middle of just a regular workday, he wasn't dead. He was alive and really hurt. Laura pulled herself together and called back. A nurse answered and got her all caught up on what was going on with her not dead dad, which is that because of the frostbite on his hands and his feet, the doctors needed to figure out whether or not to amputate his hands and feet. They tell Laura that if they don't amputate. [00:02:27][55.6]
Laura: [00:02:29] He'll die because he'll get an infection and die or we amputated and he'll survive. And but, you know, obviously that's devastating because he'll have no hands or feet at this point. So do you think he'd want to live that way? [00:02:40][11.8]
Nora McInerny: [00:02:43] They're asking Laura to make this call for a man that a few hours ago she didn't even know was alive, let him die or cut off his hands and feet. And save his life. This is one hell of a question. Even if you're close to your dad, even if the two of you have by chance happened to discuss hypotheticals exactly like this, or if your dad has a very specific health care directive. But Laura has no idea what her dad would want. Would she want to live without hands and feet? [00:03:30][47.2]
Laura: [00:03:31] And I'm like, I don't know. Like, I don't even know what to do with this. It's so awful. And I started going to weird places, like, How's he going to pee? [00:03:43][12.2]
Nora McInerny: [00:03:45] Who's going to tie your shoes? [00:03:45][0.7]
Laura: [00:03:46] Yeah. [00:03:46][0.0]
Nora McInerny: [00:03:48] Oh, my God. He doesn't need shoes. I'm Nora mcinerney. A very observant person. And this is terrible. Thanks for asking. It's Father's Day or around Father's Day. What ever day you're listening to this. This is a Father's Day episode. Even if you don't have a dad or if your dad is dead or kind of a crappy person, or if your dad is the best. I just want to give you a little reminder that Father's Day is a made up holiday and you don't have to do anything if you don't want to. Personally, I have a dead dad, so I'm going spend the day doing all the things he would never let me do. I'm going to watch MTV, get a tattoo, drink a pop, probably an ice cold Coca Cola classic, which is how he ordered it at restaurants. And it always embarrassed me. And now I do that. So as you can tell, Laura has a complicated dad story. When Laura got that phone call, she was a successful professional woman, just trying to decide if her estranged father should live or die. But this father daughter story has been complicated for a while. Laura was nine years old when her dad disappeared for the first time. It wasn't a sudden disappearance either. It was more of a slow fade, like a ghosting, but by a parent instead of a tinder date. [00:05:24][96.8]
Laura: [00:05:26] I remember the last gift he sent. It was Christmas time, and he sent me. He sent me a box of presents in the mail. [00:05:34][8.5]
Nora McInerny: [00:05:36] Laura's mom and dad were divorced, and Laura and her mother had recently moved away from Laura's dad, so they were about 6 hours apart by car. [00:05:44][8.3]
Laura: [00:05:45] And he had been kind of avoiding me. The visitation that I had had, he had canceled a number of times, and I just hadn't seen him in a while. So he sent me Christmas gifts in a box, and then he was gone. [00:06:00][14.7]
Bob: [00:06:01] I remember I got her a motorized car like a little red Ferrari that you could drive around. Remote control type thing. Yeah, I do remember that. [00:06:13][11.7]
Nora McInerny: [00:06:16] That's Bob, Laura's dad. When Bob disappeared and headed out to California, he'd been struggling for some time with alcoholism. [00:06:24][8.2]
Bob: [00:06:25] My disease had really gotten bad, and. I decided to go out west. I'd been out there before and loved it. I thought, if I'm going to become homeless, that's the place to do it. You don't do that in Texas. If that's my fate, that I should do it there where the weather's decent. It turned out I wasn't really homeless that much, but some. [00:06:49][23.6]
Nora McInerny: [00:06:50] Bob didn't end up homeless, at least not right away. He ended up at a Salvation Army out in California and eventually lucked into a job managing an apartment complex. And with a job, Bob's life got more complicated because working while you are an active alcoholic can be very hard to pull off. [00:07:11][21.5]
Bob: [00:07:12] I hadn't really evolved to the binge thing yet, but I was still drinking pretty much every day. I drink at night and then get up and, you know, be functional as long as I could. And then that caught up with me and I ended up going into a rehab. I did that a couple of times out there. [00:07:33][20.6]
Nora McInerny: [00:07:34] Bob went to rehab and got sober, but he and Laura didn't reconnect right away. He didn't write to her. He didn't call her. Bob waited nine years and a lot happens in nine years. I mean, middle school, high school braces, if you get them first job, first kiss, first heartbreak, whatever those nine years hold for Laura. Bob misses out on all of it. Laura had a step father in her life, but over those nine years, she had still wondered about Bob. Where was he? What was he doing? Was he okay? In other words, what about Bob? That's the only time we'll say that in this podcast. It's been a struggle not to. [00:08:25][51.2]
Laura: [00:08:27] I will say, I mean, we'd go on road trips and I'd see homeless people or hitchhikers and I'd wonder Phipps him every time you're like that. My dad on the side of the road hitchhiking. [00:08:38][11.6]
Nora McInerny: [00:08:40] When Bob was ready to be in touch with Laura, it was hard to find her. And through the smallish town friends of friends. Bob finally tracked down and called Laura's mom at work. [00:08:52][11.7]
Laura: [00:08:53] And so she spoke to him first. Probably read him the riot act. I mean, she's an attorney, so she's probably really scary, I imagine, and wanted to vet what his intentions were. I suspect she allowed him to email me. And that was the very first contact we had. I still have the email. [00:09:12][19.8]
Nora McInerny: [00:09:14] This is like the late nineties. So email wasn't just popping up on magical rectangles that we keep in our pockets. Email was something that you had to intentionally go get. You had to go check for it like your regular mail only with dial up and a lot of waiting. And in that AOL inbox of hers, along with a bunch of chats from her boyfriends, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, there's Laura's dad. [00:09:45][30.7]
Laura: [00:09:46] Initially, I was just relieved that he was alive for a long time. I just I had gotten to a place where I just decided he was dead and was, like, buried in a pauper's grave because no one identified him. Initially, my reaction was relief that he was not dead. And then kind of like, huh, well, what does this mean? [00:10:06][20.2]
Nora McInerny: [00:10:08] What does it mean? Bob had been gone for nine years when he wrote that email. He had no idea what, if any, response he would get from Laura. He was a stranger to her at this point, but. Laura did reply. And that initial email eventually led to a phone call. [00:10:30][22.2]
Bob: [00:10:32] That was the most difficult phone conversation I ever had. I was scared to death. Scared to death. Because I missed all that time with her and she could have easily just said, You know what? Thanks, but no thanks. You know, I'm all set. And I couldn't have blamed her. I couldn't have argued with her about it. I couldn't have said a word. [00:10:59][27.0]
Laura: [00:11:01] I mean, from an early age, I kind of forgave him, really, because I knew about his alcoholism. I was an only child for a long time. And so you become a really intuitive kid when you spend a lot of time around adults because you kind of you're mirroring after other adults instead of other kids. So I knew he was an alcoholic. I don't know that I knew what to call it, but I knew that he had a problem. And my mom was married. She had remarried when I was probably six years old. And so I had a stepfather. So I wasn't completely without like a male figure in the house, you know, But I just kind of decided that he was doing whatever he needed to do. I was never really angry with him for having a disease. [00:11:45][44.3]
Bob: [00:11:47] And, you know, she gave me the chance to try to rebuild a relationship with her. And I'll tell you what, I'll never be more grateful in my life for that. I don't know if I'd be here today if it wasn't for her. I think I can honestly tell you that. [00:12:01][14.2]
Nora McInerny: [00:12:06] So Laura is a better person than most of us, or at least a better person than me. The phone call helped reestablish a sort of long distance father daughter relationship. Laura was starting college and she decided to take a trip to California with a friend so that she could actually see her dad in real life. [00:12:29][23.2]
Laura: [00:12:30] He paid for me to come out. I didn't tell my mom. I was afraid I would hurt her feelings. I guess. I don't know. Oh. [00:12:36][6.2]
Bob: [00:12:37] How was the emotions? Anxious. Incredibly grateful that she agreed to come out. Nervous. I didn't know what she was going to look like. You know, I was hoping she would recognize me, and she did. I remember her coming down the escalator when I went out to pick them up and recognized her instantly and hugged and. It was great. We did the tourist things and then went to Disney World and. You know, had a lot of dinners and a lot of time to talk. And I can remember it like it happened yesterday, just as clear as anything in my life. Now, I was sober also and had been for a few years. I'm sure that had a bearing on how that whole thing went. [00:13:25][48.5]
Laura: [00:13:27] I mean, I remember him saying, well, I don't have anything here in California. For me, like everything I care about is back in Texas. So that's what I'm going to do. And. At the time. I'm like, okay, well, good deal. Come on down. And he did. And it didn't take long. [00:13:42][15.1]
Bob: [00:13:44] Well, I had been in contact with a friend of mine that I had known for about 20 years, and she had become one of my best friends. I mean, we just always had this chemistry. Things progressed. And I'd always loved this woman. I always have as a friend. And now is different. And I wanted to be with her. So I convinced her that we needed to be together. And I quit my job and sold everything that I owned and flew back and. Moved in. I had been sober for over four years when I moved back thinking that. I could just continue my sobriety when I got here. What I didn't know was I was moving in with a woman who was an alcoholic. And as she drank some, but I didn't know that she drank every day like, you know, some alcoholics do. [00:14:40][56.6]
Nora McInerny: [00:14:41] So you thought you were going to move there, have, like this marriage you'd been dreaming about be closer to your daughter, and instead you get there and you get married. And when do you start to realize that things are not what they seem? [00:14:54][13.4]
Bob: [00:14:56] Within about six months. But again, I'm thinking, you know, I can handle this. I can handle this. I did everything wrong that you, as a recovering alcoholic, they tell you, don't do these three things, Don't move, get into a relationship or change your job. And I did all three on the same day, which that was just a recipe for disaster. And it turned out to be exactly that. [00:15:21][25.1]
Nora McInerny: [00:15:22] You just read the advice wrong. You were like, I thought it said, do these three things. Okay. Maybe, just maybe, the pamphlet wasn't clear enough. Okay. [00:15:31][8.9]
Bob: [00:15:31] That. Yeah, that could very well be. Well, I ignored it either way. I was in love and I ignored it and thought I could. You know, I thought I could handle it, you know, on my own and. Yeah. [00:15:42][10.7]
Nora McInerny: [00:15:43] Yeah. Love is dumb. Yeah. It's so wonderful. [00:15:46][2.7]
Bob: [00:15:46] And blind. [00:15:47][0.4]
Nora McInerny: [00:15:48] Blind. Blind will ruin everything. Or make it better. You never know. [00:15:52][3.7]
Bob: [00:15:52] Yeah, well, I was hoping for better. And then I'd been really lonely out in California. I had been in a relationship in many years out there, and I thought, Oh, well, here's maybe my last chance. You know, a real, meaningful, loving relationship. So that. Probably blinded me to. [00:16:09][17.2]
Nora McInerny: [00:16:12] Bob was finally back in Texas, finally had his daughter back in his life and finally was sober. And this is the recipe for happiness. Or for the opposite of that. [00:16:30][17.6]
Laura: [00:16:31] He's the kind of alcoholic he would say that like the smell of it would trigger him and he would go from zero to like 60. He couldn't just have a sip or have a drink. He would drink to being blacked out or he would drink to being nearly blacked out. So there was no middle ground. It's not one of these, like functioning alcoholics. It was just like, I'm going to drink this whole bottle of vodka because that sounds great. Like a great idea. [00:16:58][26.5]
Nora McInerny: [00:16:58] The smell of alcohol is a trigger for Bob and living with an active drinker in an unhappy marriage. Bob did smell alcohol quite a lot, and he told his wife that he thought he had a way to help their marriage survive. [00:17:14][15.4]
Bob: [00:17:16] I just flat out told her. I said, if if we're going to maintain this relationship, then I'm going to have to drink to. I think I can handle it. And she. Unbelievable, he said. That's fine with me. I think at that point she wanted a drink and buddy. So that's where it started again. You know, a couple of drinks at night. [00:17:39][23.2]
Nora McInerny: [00:17:40] Do you remember your first drink? [00:17:42][1.4]
Bob: [00:17:42] Yes, absolutely. Claire's bill. It was Dawes Scotch. I remember going to the store to buy it. I remember bringing it and getting the glass, but. Nice Cuban. Yeah, I remember Claire's bill. The first taste, the first feeling of the alcohol in my in my system. And remembering, thinking. Yeah, that's what I remember. And still thinking it's going to be okay. [00:18:18][35.9]
Nora McInerny: [00:18:23] How did you know that things had gone bad for your dad again? [00:18:26][3.1]
Laura: [00:18:27] The last time I saw him, he just didn't look good, and he kind of started to isolate himself. It was funny. It was like reliving my childhood in a way. I remember when I was younger and he would cancel or he'd make up excuses. I threw out my back. I'm like, Hey, I have to do something. He always had an excuse. And so it was kind of a similar thing. So the last time I saw him, he had bought me a Christmas present and he wanted me to come over and get it. And it was a teakettle, which I still have, which I now don't use, because after he disappeared, I was like, It's the only thing I have left from our relationship. So I just like, stopped using it and put it in like some weird place. Like he gave me the gift and he just he had that, like, classy eyes. He just didn't look well. And I didn't have the courage. It's kind of one of my regrets. I didn't have the courage to say, like, what's happening? You know, when I was nine, I didn't really know what was happening. And as an adult, I did. And I had a lot I have a lot of regret for not going. Are you drinking again? Do you need help? Like, what's going on? I just a couple of days later, I find out he's on his way to California, and that's when he was gone again. [00:19:44][77.1]
Nora McInerny: [00:19:47] And just like that, Bob handed his daughter a parting gift and disappeared again. [00:19:54][6.8]
Bob: [00:19:55] I don't remember. A tick. I don't know. I don't. Hmm. [00:20:01][5.9]
Nora McInerny: [00:20:11] Bob went back to California, back to his old life, but it wasn't the same. After about a year of living and working at the Salvation Army and not talking with his daughter. Bob decided to pick up and move again. So I got to ask, Why Boston? [00:20:27][16.3]
Bob: [00:20:30] You're not going to believe me if I told you the weather. Believe it or not. [00:20:35][4.1]
Nora McInerny: [00:20:35] Okay. This calls over this the weather. [00:20:37][2.1]
Bob: [00:20:39] One of the reasons I'd been to Boston a few times on trips. Really loved it. I love the people. Love the food. Plus good sports town. I'm a sports guy, so it's a good sports town. But growing up in Texas and living. The other half of my life or part of it in California. I never experienced real seasons. Yeah, I wanted to experience real winter because I love cold weather. I love the winter, love fall of spring. And I thought, you know, I can live anywhere I want. And selfishly just decided to move there. [00:21:13][34.1]
Nora McInerny: [00:21:17] But Bob didn't expect Boston to be quite as expensive as it is. And he quickly found himself homeless in that cold weather that he was looking forward to experiencing. He was a good cook. So another Salvation Army took him in and he lived there for the next year, struggling again with his sobriety and still not having any contact with Laura, who still thought that he might be in California. And the next February he was losing that struggle. This feels like a time where we could take a break. Sponsor break everyone quote that Barbie. Okay, so we're back. Okay. If you've ever lived somewhere cold, you know, you have these sort of winter fake out days where you wake up, you think it's kind of warm. Maybe you're getting a little break from just the brutality of living in a near arctic tundra. Boston's like this. Minneapolis is like this. There's plenty of places where people choose to live in this. But you wake up, you think it's kind of warm ish on a day like this. Bob started drinking early in the afternoon. It was unseasonably warm for winter in Boston. [00:23:06][108.2]
Bob: [00:23:07] At least when I started out. And then it got really cold. And I wasn't prepared for it. I wasn't I didn't have gloves. I had shoes I thought were good shoes. And I passed out. I thought I passed out on a. Bus stop bench. That's where I remember being. And coming to. And realizing I'm serious trouble. My hands are now in two fists about the size of grapefruits and hard as a table. [00:23:44][37.1]
Laura: [00:23:45] And he said they collect like ice cubes. They just clack together. [00:23:49][3.7]
Bob: [00:23:52] And some people will walk it by and I ask them to call 911 and they did. And this I will never forget. The ambulance driver got out and walked. I said, What can I do for you? And I said, My hands are frozen. And I looked at him and I held one out to him and he touched it and pulled back like and said, Oh, my God, I guess he'd never seen anything quite like it. I don't remember anything again until they brought me out of a coma. [00:24:27][35.0]
Laura: [00:24:29] I think I talked to the doctor later on in the afternoon, and that's when I kind of got the better or better layer of his medical landscape. And I remember going to sleep, waking up and having a, like, follow up conversation, like sometime the next day. At the time, I just thought, I don't I can't make this decision for him. I had no idea. And I basically told the doctor, while you need to wake him up and ask him, because I'm not prepared to make that decision. [00:25:01][31.9]
Bob: [00:25:03] And. That's when things got real. I remember coming out of the coma. I have no idea how much time has passed, but it been about three days. Evidently, the when you have frostbite, the thawing out part is so painful, it can kill you. So they put you in a drug induced coma so you don't have to feel that. And I remember coming out of it and looking at my hand and I could move it and say, Oh, wow. Thought out there was a doctor sitting in a chair at the end of the bed and he says, Do you know what's happened? And I said, Yeah, I have a vague idea. My hands got frozen. He says, It's more than that. Both. Both your hands and both of your feet have been severely frostbite. And he says you have two choices right now. You can do nothing. And in about three days, you'll die. Or we can amputate both hands and both feet. And you might survive. [00:26:05][61.9]
Nora McInerny: [00:26:11] So in the end, Bob made the call and the doctors performed the amputation of both hands and both feet. [00:26:18][7.1]
Laura: [00:26:21] I you know, the like really stoic, horrible side of my personality says you did this to yourself. You have to live with the consequences. And you need to figure out how you chose to live. And you're going to have to figure out how to do that. And I'll be here, like, if you need me. But I'm not going to, like, figure out your life for you. [00:26:42][21.1]
Nora McInerny: [00:26:44] She talks pretty tough, but Laura still grabbed the only reasonably warm coat. She had jumped on a plane and got to the hospital right after the surgery. So this trip, this is the first time Laura had even seen her father since that day, when he glassy eyed handed her a teakettle and then secretly moved to California a few years earlier. [00:27:09][24.5]
Laura: [00:27:12] I mean, he just looked. Sad and. Kind of bloated. And I mean, my dad's kind of a he's a funny guy and he he cracks jokes. So he was immediately like trying to make the situation light. He started telling me these, like, horrible jokes that are like, what do you call a man with no arms and legs in a swimming pool? Bob And I'm like, Uh, okay, yeah, that's funny. And your name's Bob. Holy shit. [00:27:46][34.3]
Nora McInerny: [00:27:49] Look, they can take your hands. They can take your feet. But they cannot surgically remove your dad jokes. Remember that? [00:27:58][9.3]
Laura: [00:28:00] I mean, it was pretty intense to see. Because I had to clean the like the stumps periodically. And I remember him describing it as being extremely painful. [00:28:09][9.1]
Nora McInerny: [00:28:11] It's very, very painful. But Bob is moved to a nursing home where he is given amazing physical therapy that made this new life seem livable. [00:28:24][13.0]
Bob: [00:28:25] I remember the first time I stood up on prosthetics. And literally I broke down in tears because it was not something I thought I would be able to do, stand for one thing and then actually walk. So what? Amazing. [00:28:42][16.8]
Nora McInerny: [00:28:42] What do. Because you were amputated right below the ankle, correct? [00:28:46][3.3]
Bob: [00:28:47] No, just about halfway down the shin. [00:28:49][2.4]
Nora McInerny: [00:28:49] Okay. So what do your prosthetics look like? [00:28:52][2.3]
Bob: [00:28:53] Carbon fiber. With titanium. They have. I don't know if you remember the sprinter that had the. They looked like sleds. Oh, yeah. These are these are a lot shorter. I have a little rubber foot that goes over that and then shoes on top of that. So if I'm wearing long pants, no one knows. Even the way I walk a walk is normally. Yeah. [00:29:22][28.8]
Nora McInerny: [00:29:22] Does that kind of feel cool? Like you have like, a superhero secret? [00:29:25][2.8]
Bob: [00:29:26] Kind of. Because if it's cool, I'm wearing a jacket and I have my arms in my jacket pockets. No one knows anything about my disability. People that ask me, what is it like to try to do things without hands? And and I tell them, okay, make two fists. When you first get up in the morning, when you first wake up, make two fists, act like they've been taped down with duct tape and then go about your day. Imagine every single thing that you would do brush your teeth, comb your hair, put on makeup, take a shower, get dressed, eat all those little things, but you cannot and clench your fists. Then try to imagine doing that without being. [00:30:16][50.1]
Nora McInerny: [00:30:20] If right now you are currently making fists with your hands and trying to see how you would do basic things, join the club. I'm the president. Honda's VP. I'm I'm truly imagining this right now. Like I'm going through my morning and my God, I crack an egg. [00:30:35][15.6]
Bob: [00:30:37] You'd figure it out. Yeah, I did. Yeah. [00:30:40][2.8]
Nora McInerny: [00:30:40] How do you crack an egg? [00:30:41][0.7]
Bob: [00:30:42] Well, you managed to pick it up from, like, either end and just. Just like you would. It gets messy. Takes a little longer to do everything. Everything's a little bit messier. I drop stuff a lot, which is really aggravating, but you figure it out. There's very little I can't do now. [00:31:03][21.0]
Nora McInerny: [00:31:05] Bob continued to build skills like this at the nursing home where he was sober by default. Mainly, they don't have a bar at the nursing home and he had no way of going anywhere. But it is sobriety still. And he was doing so well. Maybe. Did you ever get a sense of how your dad really felt about his current situation? [00:31:27][21.8]
Laura: [00:31:29] Not at the time. We didn't come to terms with his alcoholism. Like he told me his recollection of events. He was very, very calculating and not really talking about what led to him being in the snow. [00:31:44][15.1]
Nora McInerny: [00:31:46] Before you woke up from your coma. When was the last time that you and Laura had spoken? [00:31:50][4.4]
Bob: [00:31:54] I honestly couldn't tell you that. I was in California. I think I'm pretty sure I called her from out there. But then when I moved to Boston, I didn't call. I was ashamed. I was again afraid that this was that she would rightfully say, you know what, I'm done. And I was afraid that that would happen. [00:32:19][25.7]
Nora McInerny: [00:32:25] That's not an unfounded fear either. I think that most of us know what it's like to fear that we've used up all our goodwill with the people we love, or that we've worn out our welcome or are dangerously close to doing so. And most of us haven't even lived half as hard as Bob has. It's not an unfounded fear. Except that. Except that, okay, I have a couple theories about love, and one of them at least seems to be reinforced over and over by the stories we get here at TBTF. And that theory is this one that none of us parents deserve the love we get from our kids. None of us, me included. Our kids love us way more deeply than we deserve. They give us more chances than they should. Our kids see the best in us. Even when the rest of the world needs to squint really hard and use a magnifying glass just to see even a smidge of good in us. And it's not like Laura always sees the best in Bob, but she does see Bob. [00:33:34][69.0]
Laura: [00:33:35] I mean, to me, it's just it's sad. Sad for me, but sad for him. Like alcoholism is a really brutal thing. And I remember my dad warning me when he came back the first time when I went to go see him in California, he was like, it's genetic. It's you have to watch out. Like, be careful and like, don't let it take over your life. And this is how I react to alcohol. It's like he wanted me to be okay. Which. You know, on some level, I think that's kind of why he disappeared. I think he knew he wasn't okay. And I think for a long, long time, that's why I was okay with him having not been around, because I know that he wouldn't have been the dad that I needed him to be. He would have been this, like, grossly dysfunctional alcoholic. Who knows what he would have done or what influence he would have had. So I don't really fault him for making those decisions. It's just for me, it's sad and bittersweet because I think of what could have been if this hadn't taken control of his life. Does that not. [00:34:41][65.7]
Nora McInerny: [00:34:41] Reinforce my theory? Like kids, right? Our kids will show up for us even when we do not deserve it. Even when we are afraid and ashamed. Even if we're unrepentant. Even if they're exhausted by us. They show up. [00:34:58][17.0]
Laura: [00:34:59] As much as I was willing to be there and, like, wanted him to know that I. Cared about him and wanted to know that he was okay. A part of me was like, You're my dad. I shouldn't have to take care of you. Like I'm 26 years old. I'm trying to, like, find my place in this universe and have a job and have friends and be in a relationship and have all of the things that I'm supposed to have. And I. I remember being afraid that he would want to come back because I remember thinking like, I can't deal with this. [00:35:42][42.8]
Nora McInerny: [00:35:45] Bob didn't want to come back to Texas. He wanted to stay in Boston. He found another place to stay and he moved out of the nursing home and Laura went back to Texas. Now nothing says you've hit rock bottom and the only place to go is up, like having your hands and feet frozen while you're in a drunken stupor. But it turns out up is not the only place to go. Bob can still go totally sideways. About five years after the incident, Bob and Laura's relationship was still mostly long distance. Since he lost his hands and feet, she had even gone to see him a few times in February when she was back at work. Her phone rang again. [00:36:31][46.2]
Laura: [00:36:32] Like a617 number. And I know that's Boston, but it's not coming up is my dad. So it's like a different Boston number and immediately, like my heart sinks because I'm like somebody who's calling me from Boston. That isn't my dad. It's about my dad, but it's not him. So it can't be good. Like, immediately I'm like, This is bad. So I like, answer the phone. And they're like, Your dad's had an accident. He's at the burn unit. He was trying to light a cigaret and he set his hair on fire and he's got like second degree burns on his scalp and he's okay. But we just wanted to let you know because you're his, like, next of kin on the contact card. And I immediately thought how how was he trying to light it? Like, what was he doing? [00:37:19][46.9]
Nora McInerny: [00:37:22] So Laura chalked that lighter burn up to bad luck. Things are hard for her dad. Accidents happen. Bob had started to do that slow ghosting. He did when Laura was nine. His phone calls were fewer and further between. But aside from the fact that he lit himself on fire, Laura didn't really think she had to worry about him. I mean. He had a place to live. Someone must be watching over him. But then there's another phone call. About eight months later. [00:37:55][32.8]
Laura: [00:37:58] I was on my first international business trip and I'm in London and I'm walking down the street and I get a617 call again and I'm like, Shit. So I answer it and it's the director of this like, place where he's living, and she's like, I just want to let you know that your dad has had an incident. He came downstairs naked and drunk and he urinated all over the common area and we're going to evict him. And I'm like, Well, how long has this been going on? And she proceeded to divulge that. Well, it's been an ongoing issue, and he'd been panhandling for money to go buy alcohol with and had been drinking for like an indeterminate amount of time. [00:38:51][52.6]
Nora McInerny: [00:38:53] Okay. But I mean, how. Well, remember when Bob said he could do anything without hands? He meant it. He told us he can open a brand new DVD case with all that plastic on it. I have two hands. Ten fingers struggle with that. So Bob's impressive. He can open a DVD. He can light his hair on fire. He could get alcohol and get a lot of alcohol. And even though Bob does disagree with the specifics of the story that Laura was told by the person who managed the place he was living. Bob does not dispute that he had started drinking again. Heavily. [00:39:34][41.4]
Bob: [00:39:36] I had quite a bit of freedom to get around that area of town, and it was a liquor store down the street. And I thought, you know, what the heck? I remember buying it. I remember drinking it. I remember thinking, feeling like an idiot because I'd done it and feeling shameful and guilty and all those emotions that come with that. [00:39:57][20.8]
Nora McInerny: [00:39:59] Did you feel like you had sort of crossed? A line that you couldn't go back from or did you feel like just this one time? [00:40:07][7.8]
Bob: No, that's never the way it feels the first time after a relapse, it's always, yeah, I'm just going to this time. Then I'm done. And you know, it may be another week before I do it again, but eventually, over the course of time, it just becomes the habit where you kind of need it every day. And that's when the real. Misery begins.
Nora McInerny: By the time Laura's phone rang in London, Bob was deep into the misery of his disease. And for many reasons he couldn't keep living where he was living. So he called the nursing home he was first in when he was learning how to use his new prosthetics and they happened to have a bed and he took it. So Bob is sober now. I mean, it's a requirement for living in his nursing home and it's a different living environment. But still, there's no alcohol and no alcohol around means no temptation, means no drinking. It means that Bob can just be and turns out Bob is actually a really interesting person.
Bob: Also, another perk of that place. One of the reasons I moved there is because they have built in Wi-Fi and I have a laptop and a smart TV, so that allows me Internet access 24 seven and I literally on any given day, read 6 to 8 hours a day about just anything.
Nora McInerny: Sounds like heaven. It really does.
Bob: Rarely watch television. I mean, I watch sports. I like sports. So I watch baseball when it's on.
Nora McInerny: And it can take 8 hours.
Bob: So, yeah, that's true.
Nora McInerny: Baseball can work for you.
Bob: Yeah, but I don't sleep a lot either. I sleep four or 5 hours a day, so I'm up a lot. And most of it reading. I mean, I just started a new project where I'm going to read the history of every country on the planet. For the last 20 years. And then try to connect them all and see how they all work within each other.
Nora McInerny: Laura still lives in Texas, and she and Bob still have their long distance relationship. Skype calls, Facebook messenger photos sent back and forth. And one day last fall, they get on Skype.
Bob: All right. Can you hear me now? Yeah.
Laura: I can see you, too. Oh, so I'm going to send you an email because I was going to show this to you, but I'll just send you this email first.
Bob: Okay. Don't know. Okay, There it is. Oh, okay. Is this what I think it means?
Laura: What do you think it means?
Bob: You're having a baby?
Laura: Yes.
Bob: Yes. Oh, God. Oh, my God. Wow. Wow. Congratulations.
Nora McInerny: You know who? We also don't deserve? Our grandchildren. I don't even have any yet, but I know I don't deserve them. And that baby of Laura's is also going to love Bob unconditionally because babies are magical. They have this innate ability to bring to the surface all the best feelings a family can have. Good love and support and excitement, just pure anticipation. And with that. They also help to surface the less pleasant things in a family, too. Our anxieties, resentments, our worries.
Laura: I mean. I worry about how often he'll see his grandchild. I struggle with, like going up there. It's really hard emotionally for me to go. It's hard just to be there in general because of all of the things that have happened to him. When I'm there, he wants to project as much normality as he can. It's just a lot. And I worry like the times I've gone, it's been in the winter time and it's like slippery. And I'm like constantly, like I'm going to catch him if he falls. Like, it's like, stressful. And I'm sure he's going to, like, hate hearing that. But I find myself, like, avoiding going. And today, right now, I haven't been there in several years and I've just been avoiding it because I was mad at him. I was. Not sure. Like, I just wasn't sure how to how to deal with it.
Nora McInerny: Would you consider yourself close to your dad?
Laura: No.
Nora McInerny: Do you want to be?
Laura: I mean. I think. Yes. But then I don't know that I if I ever will be. Yeah, it's it sucks because I feel like he isolated himself from me for so long that now that he's here, I don't know how to be his daughter. And I do things out of guilt, and then I feel guilty that I'm doing things out of guilt. But it's like it's just a lot for me to take in. Like, I don't feel like I have a bad relationship with him. It's just a very different relationship. I probably make it harder than it needs to be in my head, but I think it's going to take a long time for me to get to a place where. I'm, like, seeking out his, like, company. Because he just wasn't there for so long. I got used to just pretending like he wasn't a real person.
Or his dad is a real person. And unfortunately, real people are often a real people. Like we're all real people who really, really mess up. And to me, this is what it's all about. It's that Bob wants to be worthy of this unconditional love that Laura gives him, and Laura wants for her dad to be worth it. And they are both trying to protect themselves and protect each other from the reality of the situation, which is. That Bob's disease, alcoholism hurt him and hurt Laura. And knowing that he hurt his daughter, hurts Bob and Laura, knowing that her dad knows he hurt her, hurts her to plagiarize something I wrote somewhere.
We are all just a bunch of feelings and skin suits doing our best impression of capable and okay grown ups. As a person who has parents, I really don't know if there's anything more shocking than the realization that your parents are just people like. How disappointing. Especially when the myth of the ideal father lays for people of of my age, senior millennials. Is that a father is stalwart and steadfast, that he does not know how to change a diaper, but he knows how to change your oil. My dad did not know how to change my oil. He knew how to pay someone to change my oil.
Dads are hardly ever expected to be emotionally available or emotionally competent, but they are expected to just keep their shit together. That's problematic for a lot of reasons, but I'm just naming what I see out in the world. I mean, there are far more mugs that say, number one, dad, than there are actual number one dads. Bob is sober now.
Last time we talked, at least he's a grandfather. He hasn't yet met his granddaughter, but he's seen her through photos and Facebook. And some day he does want to go to Texas to meet her. Maybe Laura will bring the baby to Boston. Maybe Bob will become the kind of father Laura wanted. Or maybe he'll just be Bob, and then I'll be okay, too.
CREDITS