Speaker 1: Hey all, we hope you enjoyed your Christmas. We know
some of you are new here, so we figured we
take a trip down memory lane.
Speaker 2: Here's a deep dive replay that'll help you get to
know us just a little bit better. We hope you
enjoy it. Welcome to another deep dive edition of the
Chicks on the Right podcast. We have been in this
outfit our PJ.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like here, we're starting to reak you guys. It's
really getting ugly at this point.
Speaker 2: 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.
Speaker 1: But then we thought, why, why why would we do that.
Speaker 2: We're we're going to be real in this episode.
Speaker 1: I might as well just not shower. Yeah. So last
week my father passed away and I told you guys
at the 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,
a 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'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? Oh, And I'm like,
oh my god, that song. Yeah. So anyway, so my
husband encouraged me to do it, and then I talked
to you and Valin, our producer Valin, and I was like,
I don't know if I'm comfortably doing that, but I
but you guys encouraged me to do it, and so
I thought, you know what, 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 have the best community. Oh
my god, it's amazing, greatest people. 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 a 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 how should I like tell why I
should I tell?
Speaker 2: Like my perspective of this that's happening totally I should.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2: 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 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.
Speaker 1: Go yeah, So I was like, I wrote back, and
I go, wait, what is happening? Call me?
Speaker 2: Oh my what?
Speaker 1: I don't know what's happening.
Speaker 2: And then I was like, oh my god, I shouldn't
tell her.
Speaker 1: 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 you know, I'm
in shock, and she's bawling hysterically on the phone. 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. 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 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 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 rollercoaster 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. I have
a bunch of stuff written here because I have to remember,
because it's like the past thirty years of my dad
have been kind of a like a shit 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 pretty well adjusted up to that point, Like my.
Speaker 2: Seven houses away from my husband.
Speaker 1: 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
was three years ago.
Speaker 2: And so what happened that made that relationship go bad?
Speaker 1: Well, let me yeah, I should probably back up to
what made it go bad? Right, So thirty ish years ago,
thirty three ish 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 in 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 in everything was great, like my parents mad 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 we all just
sort of, I guess, recognize 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 you know, the
guy that I knew? Right, So everything flipped for me
that weekend, and I called a family meeting because I
think 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 get up.
And so he left, He packed his 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 very
much anymore. And because you called him on this shit,
I called him on his shit. 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 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 stop 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's 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.
Speaker 2: I always was the.
Speaker 1: One who extended the olive branch, and I always was
the one who was like, Okay, well I'm going to
try to, you know, go visit him. I'm going to
try to have a relationship with him. I'm going to
try to make this work. I'm gonna, you know, do
my best to 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 that stable footing, if you will. So we just
never got there. Like I remember, you know, when 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 going to go
ahead and pay for it on our own. We're going
to have something really casual. We ended up having like
a six hundred dollars wedding, you know, and it was
like the reception was at our house and I was barefoot,
and it was you know, really it was the way
that you do. 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 were like that. And so
that was. It was stuff like that all during this
like trying to have a relationship with them. As you know,
I am a chronic insomniac. I have trouble sleeping a lot,
and that's partly because of who I am, partly because
of menopause. But this stuff, this healthy cell stuff, them
sleep bomb you guys. I love it and it actually
works because you know other stuff that are taken in
the past. It's like a pill or whatever. It takes
a long time to digest this stuff. It gets right
into your bloodstream. It absorbs one hundred and sixty seven
percent faster than pills, and it's just awesome. It works.
And when you're trying to sleep, you don't want to wait.
You just want to go to sleep, you know what
I mean, and stay asleep right. And this stuff has
all the stuff in it. This is what healthy cell
is so wonderful at doing, is they combine all the
things that you been into right into.
Speaker 2: This is how many pills are in that packet.
Speaker 1: Packet of goo, which is yummy, yummy goo. I swear
I could eat more than one, but I don't. I
try to refrain. But anyways, it's great stuff. It actually works.
They have a line of other stuff that they got,
hair stuff, They've got you know, regular vitamins, but this
stuff for sleep specifically is fantastic. So encourage everything.
Speaker 2: And it's cherry flavored, cherry flavored. All you need to
do is go to healthy sell dot com slash chicks
and when you use cod Chicks you get twenty percent
off your first order. Try it, try or try one
of their other products. Yeah, they're all amazing, all of them.
Speaker 1: But then you know, like when my daughter was born,
I tried again to you know, have this relationship with them,
because I knew that since there was this this baby
girl there, that she may want to have a relationship
with them, and so I tried very hard to extended
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 plate. And so I invited him
to all those birthday He never came. 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.
Speaker 2: Always bitch to you about bringing Gwen to see him
in Florida when he is retired. She's working her assh
off basically in two jobs because that was.
Speaker 1: Corporate, sometimes sometimes three because I was also a professor
at the time, so I had some 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 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 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 during our entire I guess relationship
if you want to call it 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 the surgery. It 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 step mom 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 and 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 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.
Speaker 2: And when did when did the whole like Facebook like
social media block happen?
Speaker 1: Within a couple of weeks after that, then everybody 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 wanted to 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
was 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 ended
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 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 just really strange
to me.
Speaker 2: It's gaslighting.
Speaker 1: It is. It's kind of like gaslighting, it really is.
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 invite I wasn't invited her a marriage because
I wasn't invited to her 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.
Speaker 2: I was 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
of stuff going on, So there was, But.
Speaker 1: I mean, I also 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 right with
this person, and then now that he's gone, you want
me to be there for you for the funeral. That
was 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 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 husband about this,
and I think, Okay, you know, I he knew he
was going to 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 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, or mental an advance, when you
know that you're going to go, to not be able
to do not want to say something to them, or
to say something to your only grandchild, or.
Speaker 2: 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 grid. 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?
Speaker 1: 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 I it's just it's so and even.
Speaker 2: If there were that, no one would send her anything.
It would be us finding it on the internet.
Speaker 1: Right, I've 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, in my well, no family and friends combined.
Speaker 2: Excluding our community. Who's been amazing.
Speaker 1: 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
reach 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.
Speaker 2: That is fucked up.
Speaker 1: 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 their loved ones have passed away. Just
in the past year. I've been there for them. It's like,
and I nothing, not a pete. It's so it's you.
It's a eye opener. 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 done this. I
would have 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
for 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 in this 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 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, only 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 semi 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 fine, it's fine. But you know,
you would be surprised how many people are dealing with
stuff like this and that you know, they 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.
Speaker 2: And knowing you're not alone, right right, because it's way
more abnormal to have a normal.
Speaker 1: To be normal. So true, it's true, yeah, because I
mean that's the thing. It's families or families are dynamic.
They are complicated and dynamic and hard 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. 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 gonna correct.
Speaker 2: 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 was sympathy.
Speaker 1: 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 a good cry.
It's like a happy cry. I 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.
Speaker 2: Right, totally, right totally, and like I don't mean to
because that's a really beautiful way to end this. 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 dying. Maybe that sounds like shitty that
I wasn't saving about.
Speaker 1: Part of it 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 talked to
somebody and they've rejected you, you you already go through
periods of crying and warning over that person. I mean,
I imagine you guys understand that if you've been through that.
I mean I already did that.
Speaker 2: 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, right. So the
fact that he went to his death with that kind
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 that was how you
were finding out. I could not believe that her, entire
that side of the family would do that to her.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: That's a whole different man.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: It's not our typical dive, so weird.
Speaker 1: And I hope we're talking about like midget poor next time,
because this is really weird. But but you now, 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 no one out.
Speaker 2: There is alone.
Speaker 1: We're not alone, right, We're not alone? So wow, I
love you.
Speaker 2: Guys, Thanks for watching. We'll be back January sixth, so
make sure to tune in and bring a friend, Follow us.
Speaker 1: And subscribe on YouTube, iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get
your podcasts. Link in bio