I wrote back and I go, wait, what is happening? Call me
what? I don't know what's happening. And then I was like, oh
my god, I shouldn't tell her. Yeah, she was like, oh
my god, she doesn't know this weird feeling of betrayal. Like I was
sad. I was like all the emotions, every emotion you can think of.
Welcome to another deep dive edition of the Chicks on the Right Podcast.
We have been in this outfit our pjs for like three straight days. Yea,
Like, seah, we're starting to wreak, you guys, it's really
getting ugly. It's fine, it's getting to be but you know what,
we could have showered between our live stream of this morning and the recording of
this episode. But then we thought, why, why why would we do
that. We're not We're gonna be real in this episode. I might as
well just not shower. Yeah. So last week my father passed away and
I told you guys at the end end of last week that that had happened
after a full week of just not I just wasn't myself the whole week,
and people were like, what's going on with you? Are you? You
know what? You just are not yourself. And so I think it was
Friday that I told everybody. I was like, it was a yeah,
week ago tomorrow. I told, well, now we're recording this, it
would be a week ago yesterday that I told everybody you know that my dad
passed away. And I was like, I should probably, you know,
do something a little deeper about this and tell people, give people a little
bit more information about what's going on. My husband prompted me to do that
first of all, because he was like, you just don't share enough,
and you you're like, you keep things you know. And then it's funny
because Pastor Shelley wrote me something the other day. She's like, you're like
Melissa Manchester. He's like that whole remember that song Don't Cry Out Loud?
Yeah aside and I'm like, oh my god, that's song. Yeah.
So anyway, so my husband encouraged me to do it, and then I
talked you and Valin are producer Valin, and I was like, I don't
know if I'm comfortable of doing that, but I but you guys encouraged me
to do it, and so I thought, you know, we'll just talk
a little bit about that because I figured I'm like the only person that has
family issues or a dysfunctional family. And you were like, I assure you
that you're not the only person. And when you said that out loud,
you would not believe. I mean, already I started getting a lot of
people writing and saying, Daisy, like, I have a really dysfunctional family,
let me tell you about it. And just the support that I've already
gotten with people not even knowing what's going on so or what had happened in
my family at all. So it just the support, the love, the
encouragement, the sweet words, so appreciative of people in our community. We
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So backing up to last Monday, two mondays ago, I got a
text from Miriam. I was in the car with my family. It was
the Monday before my daughter went back to school, and so we were all
getting back from eating at Cracker Barrel and I get a text from Miriam and
she was like, I just saw your sister's Facebook. She still she was
still friends with my sister on Facebook. She's like, am I reading right?
Oh my god? It's stupid to ask if you're okay? But are
you okay? What can I do? And I should? I? Like
tell why I should? I tell? Like my perspective of this that's happening
totally, I should? Yeah, okay. So the reason I texted her
that is because I'm not on Facebook super often where I would see her sister's
posts. But for some reason I was on it and I saw her sister
post photographs of her, her their dad, and her sisters now deceased husband
together with a caption that said together again, I miss you both so much,
And I'm like, what the hell? So I'm thinking that surely that
can't mean that her father passed away. That can't mean that, right.
I immediately go to text her, and when I said that that text,
I got one of those auto things that says, Amy Joe has notifications silenced.
And I thought to myself. Well, of course she does, because
she just found out her father passed away, and so of course she's not
taking text messages right now. And I just sort of sat back and waited.
But then I scrolled down on her sister's Facebook and saw the official announcement,
and so then I knew one hundred percent that her father had passed away.
Go yeah, So I was like, I wrote back, and I
go, wait, what is happening? Call me? God what? I
don't know what's happening. And then I was like, oh my god,
I sheold tell her. Yeah, she was like, oh my god,
she doesn't know. So Miriam called me and so I'm on the phone in
the car with my husband and my daughter, and Miriam is having to tell
me that my father has passed away and reading me what is going on?
And then, you know, come to find out after Yeah, I'm in
shock. And she's bawling hysterically on the phone because she's having to be the
one to do this. And you know, listen, it's not that I'm
having to console her, but she's like, you shouldn't be consoling me.
I'm just like, I don't. I can't believe I'm having to tell you
this, Oh my god, and she feels terrible and she's saying, I'm
glad it was her that you know that she's the one that told me.
I mean, I can't think of a better person to tell me in that
moment, right, but she told me. And then I'm like what,
like, what is even going on? And then come to find out he
had had he had had lung cancer for four months and I didn't know about
that. And then after, you know, you you kind of have to
backtrack, you have to go backwards after that. So, you know,
during that day, I sort of things were unraveling, like the onion was
peeling back, and I started learning things about like there are other people in
my family that knew that not immediate family obviously, but there are other people
in my extended family that knew that he was sick and I didn't know.
And I guess some of the people were sworn to secrecy and they weren't supposed
to tell tell me that he was sick. And so it was just like
this weird feeling of betrayal, Like I was sad. I was like all
the emotions, every emotion you can think of, a big roller poster of
emotions. So I had not spoken to my father for the last time I
spoke to my father was three years ago this February. The past thirty years
of my dad have been kind of a like a ship storm. The first
eighteen years of my life with my dad were great. I had a great
childhood. I grew up in a really loving household, two great parents.
I feel like I was you well adjusted up to that point, like my
seven houses away from my husband. Yeah, I grew up in a good
neighborhood. You know, everything was wonderful and then and I can backtrack to
that, but there's just lots of stuff leading up to that. But the
last time I talked to my dad was three years ago, and so what
happened that made that relationship go bad? Well, let me yeah, I
should probably back up to what made it go bad? Right, So thirtyush
years ago, thirty three ash years ago, I was what nineteen? When
I was nineteen, I came home from college and I just remember, like,
I didn't come home from college much when I was around a junior in
college because by that time, you're pretty established in college and you don't like
coming home. You like being at college more than you like being at home.
And so I came home and I remember my mother wasn't she just wasn't
well, Like she was real thin. You could tell she was just like
something was going on. She was frazzled. Things were not good in the
house. And I don't know if I can't remember if that was the reason
I came home, but I just remember coming home that weekend and I found
out that my dad was he had been cheating on my mother. And so
up to that point, everything and the everything was great, like my parents
marriage was, at least to me, I thought it was a wonderful marriage.
Everything was great, the house was great, our family was perfect.
Everything was wonderful. So I'd found out that he had been cheating on my
mom, and I know we all just sort of, I guess, recognized
the fact that he had probably been doing this for several years. And so
in that moment, like I just I figured, Okay, well the guy
that I knew was no longer that, you know, the guy that I
knew, Right, So everything flipped from me that weekend and I called a
family meeting because I think he he was just going to assume that he was
going to go on living his life, like he was going to keep cheating
on my mom and then being married to my mom. And so I said
family meeting. And so I called a family meeting, and I was like,
all right, here's a deal. So you can't stay married to mom
and keep doing this. You need to GTF up. And so he left,
He packed a step and he left. And so in that moment I
became I went from being a daughter to being like this object of opposition from
my dad. And so it wasn't just him changing for me. I changed
for him. I think that I went from being, you know, like
this this person that he liked to somebody that he probably didn't like pretty much
anymore. And because you called him on his sh I called him on his
ship. Yeah, And so it wasn't just me that looked at him differently.
He looked at me differently, and we just were never the same after
that moment, ever, And so it was both of us, you know,
it was a mutual thing, and we just kind of butted heads from
that point forward. It just it never recovered. My sister always looked at
him, even in the times where I think she was sort of like on
my side where she was pissed off, and you know, she was like,
you know, I'm mad at Dad for this, and I'm I'm you
know, looking at him a little. She just she still really you know,
adored him, and that's okay, that's fine. That was like her.
She had every right to do that. It's just that I didn't.
And so we just didn't have the same relationship from that point forward. And
it never recovered. And thirty three years were just like you know, ups
and downs, ups and downs. There were times where I tried to have
a relationship with him, like you always try. I always was the one
who extended the olive branch, and I always was the one who was like,
Okay, well, i'm gonna try to, you know, go visit
him. I'm gonna try to have a relationship with him. I'm gonna try
to make this work. I'm gonna, you know, do my best at
have some semblance of a father daughter thing here. And it just never stuck.
You know, we never got to the point where we could get back
to the place that we were. It just never got that stable footing,
if you will. So we just never got there. Like I remember,
you know, my husband and I I was married once before and that we
were never close during that marriage. And then when I got divorced and I
got married to my husband, my now husband, we were getting ready to
get married and my dad was like, hey, you know, we'll pay
for the whole wedding. And I remember going through that whole process and it
was like this, he wanted this over the top thing, and I just
I went to him and I said, you know what, it's not really
our style. We're more casual. We don't want all this like you know,
steak and lobster stuff. We don't want anything fancy. And so we
butted heads about that, and I said, you know what, we're just
gonna go ahead and pay for it on our own. We're gonna have something
really casual. We ended up having like a six hundred dollar wedding, you
know, and it was like the reception was at our house and that was
barefoot, and it was you know, it was the way that it was
the way that we wanted it right, and he hated that. He just
hated it. So we butted heads about that. I mean, just little
things along the way that we're like that. And so that was it was
stuff like that all during this like trying to have a relationship with them.
Okay, we traveled recently and you know what it makes me really appreciate is
my pillow pillows. Yes, and even though we were in an airbnb with
very lovely Betting, very lovely Bettice is fine, it's just not the same.
Every Airbnb should have my pillow pillows, like, yeah, it should
be mandatory, like Airbnb should make a deal with my brids. Yeah that
every my pillow accommodation ever should be equipped with my pillow pillows because then they
would get great reviews all the time, slam done. Every Airbnb review would
be like the pillows were amazing, and all the sheets everything should be from
my pillow and the towels. Ye. So literally everything Mike Lindale touches turns
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pillow dot com slash ships. But then, you know, like when my
daughter was born, I tried again to to you know, have this relationship
with him because I knew that since there was this this baby girl there,
that she may want to have a relationship with him, and so I tried
very hard to extend it. Olive branch. I would invite him to every
single birthday party that she had for the first five years of her life,
you know, because those birthday parties are like people standing around and watching this
sweet little baby, you know, shovecake all over the place. And so
I invited him to all those birthdays. He never came. He never There
was always an excuse for him not to come, whether it was some weird
logistical thing or if it was you know weather, I remember there was.
But then he would always bitch to you about bringing Gwen to see him in
Florida when he's retired. She's working her ass off basically in two jobs because
that was corporate, sometimes three, sometimes three because I was also a professor
at the time, so I had there were times where I had three jobs
and it was really hard for me to get away, and I was like,
you know, you can come here and see her. And there were
times where he would fly into town, into Indianapolis and bypass us and just
go see his brothers in South Bend and we would be like, you can
stop here and come see your granddaughter. And so it was it was always
that I had to make arrangements to do the things, and I felt like
there was just again, it was like, it's just this reject this feeling
of rejection and abandonment that was just lingering all the time in our relationship.
It was just there, it was like right there on the surface, and
so I felt like I was always the one having to do that. And
then he would complain that I was trying to somehow keep my daughter from him,
which was absurd. It was completely absurd, and so that was that.
So anyway, so that kind of hung out during our entire I guess
relationship if you want to call a relationship. And then there were times we
just didn't talk, you know, because we would argue and we would fight
a lot, and there was that. So anyways, the past three years
we have not spoken. And what happened three years ago was my sister was
getting ready to get married. Her husband is now deceased. He passed away
unfortunately, gosh after a year married a year they were married a year and
he passed away during a surgery. Was awful. But she was getting ready
to get married, and she told me that she was going to have a
very very small wedding and no one was going to be invited and that so
nobody was nobody's going to be there, So my mother and I were not
going to be invited, and nobody's going to be there, And come to
find out, she was inviting people. However, my mother and I were
not invited, and so this was going to be broadcast on Facebook and it
was going to be on social media. And I was devastated for my mother.
I mean, I could handle it because I thought, Okay, no
big deal, because you know, like whatever I'll see, We've seen some
stuff, We've been through some stuff, so whatever, I can handle that.
But my mother was going to be devastated by the fact that, like
my dad was going to be there, my stepmom was going to be there,
his whole family was going to be there, and my mom was going
to be left out of this. And she was going to be watching this
in social media, devastated because she was not invited to her daughter, her
oldest daughter's wedding, right. So I was pissed, and so I called
my dad and I said, I cannot believe she lied about this. She
is a liar. And he hung up the phone on me, and that
was that, and that was that. He never he never reached out,
He never called me again. He just hung up on me because he didn't
want to hear that. And so they went through with the wedding and they
were all there and my mother and I were excluded, and they they just
left us out of everything. And when did when did the whole like facebook
like social media block happen? Within a couple of weeks after then, everybody
like we were blocked, everybody was blocked from every like we were just completely
like shunned. We were done. So that was it. So that was
the That was it. That was And there was never a time where he,
you know, reached out and and wanted to say, gush, I'm
really sorry about that, or we should get together, or he wanted to
even have some semblance of a relationship with my daughter or my husband for that
matter, I mean, there's just nothing, absolutely nothing over the past three
years. So I didn't pursue it. I didn't. I just kind of
thought, well, this is what he wants, and so I'm I'm done
with that, and I have I've extended a lot of olive branches at this
point in my life. I just figured, Okay, I'm done with that.
And so the weird thing about it is that there's a weird narrative in
my family that I am somehow the reason for it. Like I'm somehow the
reason for the space, like the reason for the distance and the reason for
the rejection and the abandonment. And it's it's so weird how that's somehow put
off on me and I just sort of own it, like I kind of
go, okay, well, I guess if that's the narrative, then I
just kind of go with it. And but it's weird how you after years
of it and you just if you don't push back, you end up with
that label on you. It's just bizarre. It's bizarre how narratives get formed
in families and you just if you don't push back, that's you end up
owning those narratives. It's it's just really strange to me. It's gaslighting.
It is. It's kind of like gaslighting, it really is. And and
I wasn't when my sister's husband died, I you know, I didn't really
I wasn't invited to her wedding. I wasn't really invited. I wasn't invited
her in marriage because I wasn't invited her a wedding, And so I wasn't
there. And so when he passed away, she somehow expected me to be
there for the funeral, and I didn't show up for the funeral. I
did call her, and I you know, told her, listen, you
know, I'm very sorry, and and you know, basically I love you
and if you need me, you can call me. But I'm I didn't
show up for the funeral because I wasn't. You had like you had some
serious life going on at the time, because I feel like there was a
part of you that you would have gone had you not had a lot of
other obligations personally with Gwen and swimming, and there was just a lot that
a lot of stuff going on. There was. But I mean, I
also so it's just a strange. It was very strange for me because I'm
like, okay, I'm you know, I wasn't. I wasn't invited to
your life with this person. And then now that he's gone, you want
me to be there for you for the funeral. That was just an odd
thing for me, and she is so she hates me for that. I
mean, she just hates me. So it's that was a that was very
strange for me. And the family hates me for that too, because they
think that I should have been there, but they didn't think that I was
good enough to come to the wedding and the and be there for the life
they had together. It's just a very bizarre thing. And my family wasn't
good enough to be there for the either of those things. I just it's
it's just bizarre. So the whole, you know, the abandonment thing is
real. Now. I look at like my dad and I think, okay,
so for four months he knew he was going to leave this earth.
And you know, I've had discussions over the past week with my with my
has been about this, and I think, Okay, you know, I
he knew he was gonna go. I mean, it's you think that in
your in your last days, you would I just wonder what I would do.
You would not do this. I wonder like with my children, and
I wonder if I if I had some sort of beef with my first of
all all three of our children. I mean I would always I just I
feel like I would never stop communicating with my children. I just can't imagine
not not communicating with them. That's just me. I mean, everybody to
each their own right, but I just can't imagine taking anything to my grave
if I were, if I were angry, or if I can't imagine having
that much hate for one of my children where I would not want to say
something to them before if I knew I was going to go. It's one
thing to not know, but when you know, for ment an event,
when you know that you're going to go, to not be able to do
not want to say something to that, or to say something to your only
grandchild, or to want to leave the earth with that cloud hanging over your
head and not wanting resolution yourself Like that's just bizarre to me that he wanted
to go to the Great specifically gave instructions to her sister, do not tell.
Don't tell her when I die, right, don't tell what the hell
is that. Don't tell her that I'm that I am dying and don't tell
her, Yeah, I don't. And there's there's been no funeral, there's
been there was no obituary, there's been nothing. I'm just it's just it's
so And even if there were, no one would send her anything, it
would be us finding it on the internet. Right, I've not been privy
to any information about any of this. It's like, it's like I don't
exist. It's like the family wants me to know. They're so like,
you're not you don't exist, You're not even a daughter. It's I've gotten
four messages from people since he's passed in your family, well, no family
and friends combined excluding our community. Who's been amazing. You guys have been
amazing. You guys have been absolutely amazing, like above and beyond. But
I've gotten, let's see, from my family. I've received one person in
my family that has reached out to me. It was a cousin, my
first one of my first cousins has reached out to me to say that they
were sorry. And then I've had three friends, you know, three friends,
three childhood friends reached out to me. Who you know, know that
this happened, right, and that's that's it, and that's it. That's
it. One person in my family has reached out to me. That stop.
One person and that's it. And I'm astounded by that. I mean,
these are people who I've It's like, I've been there when they're loved.
Ones have passed away just in the past year. I've been there for
them. It's like and I nothing. Okay, people need to think about
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will be the star of the neighborhood and your guests will be loving it.
It is the Grillers Labor Day Feast at Omaha Steaks dot Com. It's been
an eye opening week or two for me. And and then another thing that's
super eye opening is that I normally would have just not said a thing.
I would have not done this. I would not I would have just talked
about it with her and would have kept it with my family. But I
think that there are a lot of people that deal with this kind of stuff.
I think they're One thing that you know has been very eye opening from
me is the amount of emails and messages I've received from people who I don't
know personally, who are writing me their personal stories and saying you are not
alone and this kind of stuff like here's my family story, this is what
happened to me. I was a strange from my father, I was a
strange from my sister and my brother and my mother, and this is what
happened, and like similar stories and and that has really touched me because I
you know, I honestly when I last week, when I mentioned this to
you guys, I was like, I'm the only person who's dealing with Oh
my god, like my family is so messed up. And I honestly thought,
like, it's so hard for me to be able to even share this,
like with people that I send my note, like even people that I
work with, because I'm just like, you kind of want to act like
you have everything together, you know what I mean, and you're just like,
it's fine, I've got it's it's totally fine, like my family's it's
fine. But you know, you would be surprised how many people are dealing
with stuff like this and that you know, they go to work, they
have friends, they have you know, their lives, and then they have
this looming in the background and they do feel abandoned by summoning their family,
or they do feel rejected, or they're dealing with just the emotional upheaval of
stuff like this and you have no idea. So I appreciate the messages and
the love and the support of all y'all, because man, it made such
a huge difference just reading some of that stuff and knowing you're not alone,
right, right, because it's way more abnormal to have a normal, to
be normal. It's true, It's so true. Yeah, because I mean,
that's the thing. It's families are. Families are dynamic. They are
complicated and dynamic and hard. They can be really hard. And you know,
I'm I'm listen. I'm grateful that I've been able to build an immediate
family that is awesome. You know. I'm so grateful for my husband,
who is an amazing father. God, he's so he's such a great father.
I'll get really emotional talking about him. And I and my kids are
amazing. And I have the greatest friend in the whole world, and I
have this great community. I'm so grateful for so many things. So I
mean, like I win you know what I mean, I win the lottery
with that. Like seriously, I've won the lottery with life. It's like,
I cannot, I cannot be more grateful for all that stuff. So
I didn't think I was going to cry. Why did you do that?
Because I'm like, we made it. We're like almost to the end,
and you lose it, and I will sympathy cry. You know, I
will know. I've been so good about that for the past couple of days.
I've been so good about not crying. But I'm just I am,
I'm truly that's it's it's a good cry. It's like a happy cry because
I'm really am grateful for all that stuff. You guys, so, and
that's what you have to do. You have to be grateful for the good
stuff, right, totally, right totally, and like I don't mean to
because that's a really beautiful way to end this. Yeah, but I also
have like vengeance in my heart about this whole thing, and so the other
the other good thing, the other thing to be grateful for is she's never
going to be the kind of person who would go to her deathbed with this
kind of vendetta against a member of her own family. That is fucked up.
And the reason that I was sobbing when I called her was rage.
It had nothing to do with being sad about her father. Maybe that sounds
like shitty that I wasn't a part of this is I'd already mourned him over
the past right two years. I mean, I've had my moments over the
past week, but when you haven't talk to somebody and they've rejected you,
you you already go through periods of crying and mourning over that person. I
mean, I imagine you guys understand that if you've been through that. I
mean I already did that. Yeah, but he was there was always a
chance, oh you know what I mean, and now there isn't. And
that is one hundred percent on him. So the fact that he went to
his death with that kind of of thing hanging like a cloud hanging over that
he controlled is just that's a sickness. That's that's fucked up, and she
will never be that fucked up. So yeah, I was just in a
rage like that was how you were finding out. I could not believe that
her, entire that side of the family would do that to her. I
love my kids and I cannot I cannot wait to have grandkids, and I
just, yeah, I just I don't get it. I just I don't
get that. That's a whole different mint. I don't get it. And
you know what, I'm still glad I don't get that, Yeah, exactly,
I'm just glad I don't get it. And I'm grateful for that too,
So you know, and grateful for all this, So thank you for
giving me the opportunity to do this. It's really weird, so not our
dive, so weird. And I hope we're talking about like midget poorn next
time, because this is really weird. But but you know, I'm grateful
that I have this platform to be able to do this. Right, What
a blessing, What a blessing it is, And what a blessing you guys
are. And and no one out there is alone. We're not alone,
right, We're not aloned. So