How To Destroy Everything - How To Destroy Everything Presents: Toughen Up - Episode 8: Albertsons, Aspirin and Telling the Truth

Episode Date: June 10, 2025

With Stephen off to college, his mother strikes out on her own, renting a room in a house and scoring her dream job. Not long after, however, Maureen is diagnosed with terminal cancer and eventually makes peace with Eugene and her past. After her ashes are scattered at sea, she delivers a message to Stephen in a dream. Then, Darren looks back on Maureen’s life and wonders if she truly found peace. Get 15% off OneSkin with the code DESTROY at https://www.oneskin.co/ #oneskinpod If you would like to support this podcast, please consider becoming a patron at www.patreon.com/HowToDestroyEverything and please don't forget to share, rate, and review! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Episode 8. Albertson's Aspirin and Telling the Truth Not to be outdone by my leaving, my mother also decided to blow the Mission Viejo hatch and move to the neighboring town of Lake Forest, where they kept the lake, but lost the forest. Mom rented a small room in someone's home. She scored a little car, kept her factory job, and side-hustled at a doughnut shop before landing at age 57, the sweetest gig of all, rocking the deli bakery counter inside of an Albertsons grocery store. Now, instead of inbounding ham or throwing birthday cakes, she was slicing ham and decorating

birthday cakes, she was slicing ham and decorating birthday cakes. We were all quietly proud of my mom during this time, and I remember driving down to see her in her starched blue apron and new name tag. She came outside the store with me to have a smoke, covered in flour, frosting, and potato salad, and I remember her telling me lovingly that I looked...horribly thin. I was starting to assume the unmistakable, frighteningly lean angular shape of the Kirin brothers. Imagine a scarecrow, if scarecrows worked out a little.

Just standing in a field, pumping corn. Mom must have worked at Albertson's for about a year or so when I came to visit once. I stayed for the weekend and swung by the Deli Bakery one more time before I headed north, but Mom wasn't behind the counter. They told me she was shopping, and so I started walking the grocery aisles looking for her, and I found my Mom shopping halfway down the medicine aisle, and as I walked up, I could see that she was looking at little boxes of pain reliever and dropping them into her purse one at a time. I approached with caution.

Hey, Mom, I said, and she turned, freezing me with a look. Uh, what do you do? And she cut me off and said under her breath, Stop it, Steven. They don't pay us nearly enough here." I discreetly nodded to the row of two-way mirrors near the ceiling at the back of the store. Mom, I whispered, you see those mirrors up there? And she looked upon me with pity, disgusted by my naivete.

There's nobody up there, honey. That's what they want you to think. Now, go get some dish towels for your sisters." And I did. I went and stole dish towels for my sisters, because the head of our crime family told me to. I never asked my sisters what was going on during this time, that they both were in such desperate need of dish towels that we had to rob Albertsons for them. But it didn't matter. I was just a low-level cut purse in the operation, taking orders from the Don. This episode is brought to you by One Skin. Gentlemen, it's summertime. Or almost summertime.

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Give your skin the scientifically proven gentle care it deserves with one skin. After I was back in San Francisco, we found out that mom was stealing pain reliever because she was having a lot of headaches that wouldn't go away. And she wouldn't go to the doctor. So she just kept taking more and more aspirin until, eventually, she did go to the doctor. And they found that my mom's head was filled with cancer. Inoperable brain cancer that had started in her lungs from smoking. I remember they told her with cancer it's a straight shot from the lungs to the brain, and I never looked at smoking the same way again. Right after her diagnosis, Lisa, having recently received a peace offering of dish towels in the mail, called mom, and they officially began speaking again.

Sheila called her, then I spoke to her on the phone, and she said she was scheduled to start treatment immediately, both chemo and radiation. Mom had her own ideas about treatment. When you get here, she told me, maybe you could take me down to the San Onofre nuclear power plant that's on the beach. There's gotta be a lot of radiation in that water, right? So just take me down there, and I can just swim around. Maybe that'll help.

Mom, the only girl who jumped off the pier to swim with the boys was always a very strong swimmer, and I told her that sounded like a good plan. I remember life felt like we were now living in some sort of dream. When my friend Wes got news of my mother's cancer, he was a baggage handler for Alaska Airlines in Seattle. I will always remember him telling me that once your bag disappears behind that flap at the airport, may God help your bag. Wes said he wanted to see my mother, so he was going to fly to San Francisco and pick

me up, allowing me to travel with him on a buddy pass. He told me to meet him at the gate and to wear a suit and tie. I only owned one mismatched suit and one tie, and I'll always remember him being the last person off the flight, himself wearing a suit and tie, walking straight up to me with tears in his eyes. He showed the gate agent his employee pass, They issued us tickets, and we walked right back onto the plane together, disguised as young Alaska airline executives who flew for free. Wes no doubt requested two seats over the right wing of the aircraft as we flew the

short leg down to John Wayne Republican Airport, deep behind the orange curtain. Wes had to go back the next day, but my mother was grateful to see him, the one she called my eldest son. For those of us who weren't going through it, one of the hardest parts of mom's early treatment was watching her lose her thick red hair, because you know, like me, it was a big part of her brand, even if she did have to color it now. She couldn't really rock a bandana like Rhoda, so it was decided that my mother was going to get a wig, and I'm pretty sure that whoever escorted her wig shopping took her to the boutique at the hospital

and purchased for my mother a hairpiece from what we called the Zira Collection. As some of you may remember, Cornelius's wife in the original Planet of the Apes was the brilliant, long-suffering chimp-psychologist Zira, whose robust side panels of hair framed her curious face, then rose up into a discreet dome, finally descending into a modest widow's peak just above her brow line.

And being a chimpanzee, naturally, Zero was also a brunette. And now, to our collective horror, so was our mother. In between one of her rounds of chemo and radiation, when she was strong enough, we flew my mother up to San Francisco so she could get away for a couple of days. I met her at the gate and I remember her walking off the plane looking a little thin. Not horribly thin like myself, but thinner than usual. Mom was clutching her purse, a little leather cigarette case, and a lighter. As she got closer I could see that whatever she was wearing on her head was pushed up

and way back, exposing a little red tag at her former natural hairline. We hugged and I asked Mom how the flight was and if she was in a rush to make it to the airport. She said yes, she was running around like crazy before her ride got there. How did I know? In my opinion, if you can't tell if you've put a wig on forward or backwards, you're not only in a very big rush, but that's also a very bad wig, man. Thanks for nothing, person who helped her get ready." We were standing near a small coffee cart, and I told her not to move.

She froze as I grabbed two fistfuls of synthetic hair near her temples, and gave the whole rig a violent 180 degree turn. What the hell, she said. That thing was on backwards, this whole time. Why didn't anyone tell me? Fair question, so-called flight attendants. I molded the wig to her head the best I could and we headed outside so she could light up. I pointed to her hair and told her, we're going to fix that thing.

So I took her to my hair cutter and, god bless Michelle, but it got away from her. So what started out looking like Zira, now became a matted, bullet-shaped, yeti scalp skullcap without the luxury of that comforting old standby. Don't worry, it will grow back. Mom stayed with my girlfriend Diane and me for the weekend in our flat at 25th Anansa, out in the fog belt. I don't think my sisters thought I was up to the task. One of them discreetly asked if we had sheets and blankets for our mother, and I remember answering that our plan was just a wedger between two pieces of plywood up on the roof at night and hope for the best. My glib repartee was not received well.

The weeks went by. Mom continued her treatment and the doctors told her it wasn't working, but they suggested she continue. Lisa was married with kids by this time. Sheila was married too, and her firstborn Cory was going to be christened, so we gathered up our mother and took her down to Mission San Luis Rey near Oceanside. She opted to wear a peach-colored calf-length dress with a matching floppy oversized bridesmaids hat. Dad was going to be at the ceremony, and mom joked that this was her last best chance to finally win him back.

I remember one of the older women saying, You already have. And everyone went hmmm and nodded at the wisdom of this, but upon reflection, not only did this not make any sense, but the very idea of our parents being reunited made our blood run cold. Lest we forget, mom's doctors had allegedly equated, winning my father back, with a literal death sentence. And we all had had quite enough of that term lately.

Thank you. It was an unbearably hot day, and we were waiting outside the chapel for God to finish with another family. We sat in the courtyard on a wood planter that encircled the base of a giant olive tree, and it was so hot that mom just said, you know what, and she took off not only her big floppy hat, but her wig as well, and said she could give a damn what she looked like.

All of us were nervous because our parents hadn't seen each other in a long time, and they certainly hadn't seen each other in the presence of my aunt-mom Helen. It wasn't long before Dad's white Ford Granada pulled into the mission. We watched as Dad got out and walked around to open the door for Helen. Dad never had to open the car door for mom, because it was usually already open, and her shoe was smoldering. They started out across the broiling parking lot, and when they got close to the olive tree, Dad said something to Helen, and we all watched as he cut alone through the small crowd, walked right over to our mother, leaned over, and

kissed her right on the top of her bald little head. Sheila was close enough to hear him whisper, Hi, sweets. He then sat down and held her hand, and they talked, and none of us could believe what we were seeing. Eventually, Dad got up and walked back over to Helen and as he did, Mom said a little too loud, Jesus Christ your father looks old. Later at the reception, I remember looking over and seeing my father, Helen, and my mom,

all seated together at a little cocktail table, just talking and sipping coffee. I drove mom back home that evening, and as you come up the 5 freeway, before you get to Lake Forest, you've got to pass Mission Viejo. And the clearest sign that you're passing Mission Viejo are the big light stanchions of the football stadium of the Mission Viejo High School Diablos. Because apparently, that's where Satan prefers his football team, next to a major interstate highway.

Mom was quiet and blowing her smoke out the passenger side window, which was all blowing directly smoke out the passenger side window, which was all blowing directly back into the car. And as we were passing the town spread out on the hill behind the high school, she closed the window and turned to me, looking like Gollum in drag and said, I was crazy back then, wasn't I? And we sort of laughed and sort of didn't, all the way back to her little rented room in the house in Lake Forest.

A couple of weeks later, I lit my mother's last cigarette. She was in the hospital by then. We picked her up, put her in a wheelchair, and I rolled her down in between the buildings and lit a Benson and Hedges menthol, and I held it up to her lips. But she was too weak to even keep the end glowing, and she could barely keep her head up, and we knew she was rounding the corner, as they said. I rolled her back upstairs. It was getting late and my sisters were ready to go home.

It was my turn to spend the night on the two chairs pushed together, and I slept next to my mother, and when I woke up the next morning, she was in the fish breathing, just laboring to stay alive long enough for me to wake up I guess. And I was awake maybe five minutes when she breathed out one last time and didn't breathe in again. And I looked at the clock and it was 747, like she was getting on a plane to somewhere else. And I got up on the edge of the bed and I had to fight the urge to hit the button

to call the nurse, but there was nothing to do for her. So I leaned over my mother and her eyes were still open just a little bit. And I watched her green eyes turn gray. And whatever that was, my mother seemed to travel up her body and out the top of her head, up the wall, and out through the ceiling. And all I was thinking was, you'll never have to spend another stupid Christmas here again. Our mother, the tough and broken little box of nails, now in heaven, raising hell. Why do fintechs like Float choose Visa?

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You did not create a joyful noise for the Lord. You're fired, little boy. My sisters and I were seated in the front pew. Lisa was on my left and Sheila was on my right. Friends and family were coming up one by one and eulogizing our mother. One particular family friend, who knew her as a girl, was having the hardest time of it. He was holding both sides of the pulpit and his head was down, unable to collect himself. But when he finally did raise his head, he looked up and asked, speaking of our mother,

have you ever met an angel? I have." And Lisa beat Sheila to the punch when she leaned in and whispered, "'Are we at the right funeral?' When it came time for me to eulogize my mom, I remember looking out and seeing that no one was crying harder than our father. Helen appeared to be literally holding him upright in the pew. As was her illegal wish, we spread my mother's ashes off of Dana Point and nearly died doing it. Lisa McIntyre, Sheila's best friend, whose family had taken us in, had since married

a merchant marine sea captain. I always thought this was badass, because if anyone ever asked us who was taking us out to scatter mom's ashes, we could truthfully turn to them and say, a sea captain, just a sea captain that we know, is going to take us out on his personal vessel. He took us out on their small sailboat, and when the winds suddenly come up and the waves are now washing over the stern, and the skipper looks over his shoulder and with a salty edge in his voice says something to the effect of, We probably better do this.

You do it. So my brother-in-law grabbed the back of my pants and I leaned way out over the dark water and now I've opened this little wooden box and the boat is pitching around and I'm offloading as much of my mom as I can and the water is soaking my head and the wind is pitching around, and I'm offloading as much of my mom as I can, and the water is soaking my head, and the wind is blowing big clouds of mom dust into my mouth and all over my wet face, and I finally rinse the last of the ashes out of the little box in the ocean, and my brother-in-law reels me in, and I turn around,

looking like a former citizen of Pompeii. And her little smoking ghost shakes me and says, toughen up. Because we can't seem to stop crying, and we can't stop looking at the ash slick that used to be our mother slowly floating away on the surface of the angry ocean. Two weeks later, I was back home in San Francisco, and I had a dream where my mother appeared to me. She leaned right over the top of what looked like the edge of a giant box, and

looked inside at me, sitting at the bottom. And her face filled the dream frame, and she said, Tell the truth. And the shade and said, my mom just did that. Oh, wow. Yeah, man. That is an emotional episode to hear. Well, we are in the studio. It is Danny Jacobs alongside Darren Grotsky and the man of the hour, Mr. Stephen Kieran, who is gracing us with his really special presentation of his story. And we've just heard episode eight, which gets into the end of his mother's life. How was it for you, Stephen, just now listening to that here?

I think the hardest part was that the part where she, I felt, left her body. Everything else was, I don't know why it was, I just felt kind of shut down around it, but that was hard to listen to. But I also am reminded that something I loved about that moment is I feel like she really floored it. Wherever she was going, she was kind of in some ways glad to see this life in her rear view mirror, so to speak. As hard and challenging as it was. Yeah, and that's why I mentioned Christmas. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. I got that. I mean, I think about your mom's life in totality from her youth, as you say, is the girl who went swimming

with the boys back East. And the trauma with her mother from a very young age being kidnapped out West, meeting your father as the second choice, I guess, for the date. Yeah. Um. Sloppy seconds. Sloppy seconds. Exactly. Eugene Kieran.

Um, and, um, and then the saga that would unfold and one moment that really stuck out to me is driving past Mission Viejo and she looks and she says, I was crazy back then, wasn't I? Yeah. And I know she was probably referencing Mission Viejo in that particular moment, but it's, to me, I thought again about the total car from last week and just all of it, like she could have been referring to the whole thing, but it sounds like between Albertsons and between that sentiment, you know, maybe

I'm looking for a happy ending here, but it sounds like she found some degree of peace in the end. Yeah, I think she did. I think she did. Albertsons, I know it's funny, when you know someone's story, they may not look much like much just when you just see someone, but if you know someone's story, they may not look much, like much, just when you just see someone. But if you know the context and you know their story, my mom was heroic to me. My mom was a hero that she survived and maybe on the surface to somebody who didn't know her story. That's just this woman, she's renting a room and a house. She's got this little car she drives and she works in a grocery store. It's like, you know.

Where she steals aspirin from or Advil, yeah. Well, yeah, well, they had it coming to them. Yeah, they did. I mean, right? If you want to, you know, really. You were saying that. Yeah, you were saying, yeah. No, just, but when you know someone's story, I'd always, I always liken it to when someone steps off a plane back in the day when you could wait at the gate.

And, you know, a movie star could walk off the plane and everyone would be like, oh my gosh, that's that movie star. But when the person you're waiting for comes off the plane, they're as big, if not bigger, than the movie star, it makes your heart leap. Yes. You know, so it's like, to me, my mom,

knowing her whole story, especially now looking back as I get older, I'm older now than she was, you know, I've outlived my mom in a way. She died at 61. Wow, only 61. Yeah. Gosh, in my head, she was older. No. So much packed into those 61 years.

Yeah. Yeah, really for sure. She died in 94. I remember the OJ trial was on in her room. And she was, but once you know someone's story in the context, that's really when you can, I don't know. I really want that to come through. Yeah. I think it does.

She was happy to say she was as happy as she could be in her life. Because yeah, she had some autonomy, I guess. Sorry, Danny, cause you're off. No, no, well, I was, I was going to say something else, but that just made me think of, you know, she, um, cause was, wait, was she, her lineage was from where? Was it, was it Irish too? Yeah. The whole-

The Devlins, yeah. The Devlins, yeah. There's something, there's just something to me very Irish about her, this kind of gritty, there's so much tragedy and troubles and yet just like pushing through it all that just, I don't know, I don't know, it just feels very, when I think of what the Irish experience is, it just sort of matches that. Pete Yeah. Pete Through famine and whatever else may come. Pete Yes. Pete Persevere. Yeah. Yeah, and also with a, you know, hopefully with a laugh,

you know, the fact that mom said, why don't you take me down to the San Onofre nuclear power plant, I can body surf down there. I think she said body surf and then swim around. And we're like, okay. So she never, mom never seemed scared of her diagnosis, which is pretty, that's really amazing. That's amazing, yeah.

But she was also, she kind of took it all. It was 10 months. She just lasted 10 months from her diagnosis. When she said, you know, I was, what did she say? I was pretty crazy back then? I was crazy what did she say? I was pretty crazy back then. I was crazy back then, wasn't I? Wasn't I? And then you described the responses, I think you said like we laughed but sort of didn't. So I take that to mean that there was some recognition in that moment of-

Fully. Of the gravity of her behavior. Yeah, it was a fuck moment. Like we were looking at each other like, that kind of laughter like, yeah, that's one way to put it. We were both laughing, but also like, ooh, you know, that was really, really hard.

Was that- Get unlimited grocery delivery with PC Express Pass. Meal prep, delivered. Snacks, delivered. Fresh fruit, delivered. Grocery delivery on repeat for just $2.50 a month. Learn more at pcexpress.ca. The only time that she expressed that kind of sentiment?

That I can ever remember. Wow, yeah. Yeah, she, again, I've said a little about my dad, that kind of sentiment? That I can ever remember. Wow. Yeah. Again, I've said a little about my dad, but my dad dying before he died, that was a moment of my mom dying before she died. She had this awakening of perspective and seeing things completely clearly.

And again, I don't want to overuse the word grace, but that's an example of grace. However you define grace, with a big G or a small one. Right. Yeah. Why did Lisa stop talking to your mom? I think you said in that episode that that time had come to an end. Does this go back to when she ran away?

Yeah. You mean why they never spoke until my mom got full on? Yeah. That you mean why they never spoke until my mom got from that, from full on. Yeah. Wow. I was going to ask how long it had been. Cause I, that's what I assume when you said that, that they had a date taunt and it was since she was 17, 18. I guess in my head, I didn't realize. Yeah. Yeah. Mom's mom hit her and then Lisa hit her back. That was when back in the day when, when, hit her back. That was back in the day when, when, um, just before Lisa ran away and mom, mom was home from the hospital after the heart attack. And I think mom, you know, took a spoon to her, like a wooden spoon or something. And Lisa returned in kind and that was game over.

Yeah. So, and then, and then the bedroom then the bedroom was emptied and that was that. And we were not allowed to use her speaker name. Yeah. So did that continue throughout all these years? Until dish towels? Until dish towels. Wow. That was it. I mean, there was just no. Man, the resolve. You know, Darren and I talk about how like in our family is like, you've talked about how in your family,

there's like, they're like little, you know, angry spats and somebody's not talking to somebody, but it will be a chapter. Yeah, it's, it's months, you know, and then it will end. But wow, that is, it's a deep freeze. Yeah. Yeah. Very deep freeze.

Kind of along those lines, your mom and dad, they seem to have not really spoken for quite some time. Also like, you know, is it similar where like since the divorce, they hadn't spoken or seen each other? They would talk now and again. There were attorneys, right? And there were things back and forth or there were like, yeah, there were a few times, but yeah, for the most part, it was very spare contact.

You know, they wouldn't sparsely spread out. They wouldn't talk. Again, thinking about your mom, I mean, she had you and she had Sheila and she had some boyfriends here and there and other friends. Just one boyfriend, but yeah. One boyfriend, yes. And then of other friends though. And Connie. Connie. Yeah. Um, I kind of get why she filled her house or

her condo with all those people now, like the last week's episode, right? Where she was so alone, like she, um, she, she had lost her oldest daughter. She didn't have a relationship with her ex-husband, which maybe she preferred it that way, but like she, she had lost so much. Yeah, and I think that, but also she had, wherever she worked, she had the young people.

Oh, that's right. Yeah, the other teenagers, you know, who saw my mom as some teenager. That's right. There's a famous picture of my mom parasailing in Hawaii. They all pulled their money and said, come on, we'll take Maureen and it'll be a hoot. And she's like 40 something and these are like 18, 19, 20 year olds that she's hanging with. Yeah, 50 something even.

Like, and there she is just ripping across the sky. Wow. Yeah. You know, just so typical of my mom. Yeah. She went water skiing and she was like, fuck it. You know, just so typical of my mom, she went water skiing and she was like, fuck it, you know. One of the things that I was just thinking about is the, you know, the kind of special

experience that a youngest child gets to have with a parent in that, you know, for the older children, the years that they have alone with their parents, they don't remember. And, but the young, because they're infants, but the youngest child gets those last few years just with them and it creates this, you know, I just couldn't, it was just interesting to me the, how in the end here with your mom, it was just you and her. Just like it was just you and her at some point after Lisa and Sheila were gone. I don't have a question there.

It's just, there's this, just to notice that there's a special, there's a special bond there between you guys that nobody else has. I think my mom may have worried more about me. Yeah. Somehow. Like if I worried more about me. Yeah. Somehow. Like if I was going to be OK. Yeah. So maybe that was it.

And it was just the luck of the draw that I was there because had it happened the night prior, it would have been Lisa. The night prior, it would have been Sheila. Well, the universe works in mysterious ways sometimes. Right. And mom waited for me to wake up. That's right. I'll never forget that.

Yeah. Like she just totally waited for me. Man. It's so wild, you know, Lisa, you know, had joined a church, you know. Yeah. Which saved her life, I have to say. Saved her life.

I remember going out for lunch, like to grab a sandwich at the hospital and coming back. And when I came back, someone was sitting with my mom, a total stranger. And I said, excuse me, who are you? And she said, I'm with the church. So Lisa made the call and like someone would just filled in right when I was gone,

just like to stay on the bridge. Wow. Wow. Yeah. Wow. On mom watch. Yeah. Yeah. That's really interesting. And I also had the thought of how far you guys had come

in terms of thinking about your parents as a tandem, from you begging God to kill you to keep them together, to you in this episode literally saying that the idea of them being reunited would make your blood run cold is quite the journey. Pete Yeah. I mean, it just had to settle on us eventually. They were not meant to be together that, you know, anymore. Jared Yeah. But at the same time, there was so much love between them, clearly. I feel.

Yeah. I mean, the way that you described that your dad going up to her. Oh my God, kissing her on her head. Yes, I mean, there's so much love there. Yeah, and also him during the funeral. Yes. Yes. That was crazy.

I'll never forget that. I mean, he was completely destroyed by it. And all that he didn't say. There's also coming up in a couple of episodes, there's my mom appears again in a memory and says something about my dad. My mom had a lot of respect for his military service. Yeah.

Yeah, because my dad, as we'll be talked about later, had another job in the service, his last job in World War II that we can, we'll hear about later. It's interesting thinking about the love that your mom and dad, Stephen, had, I think, clearly until the end.

In contrast, Danny, to your mom and dad, I think about, you know, your dad's obsession with Sandy in his later years that never dissipated. Yeah. Just always, you know, not wanting to smile for Sandy in that photograph in Australia. Yeah. And your mom just trying to survive. And then by the end, almost laughing at your dad when he had that final threat where he was like,

I'm going to write a book online about, I married a she devil and your mom realized that. By the way, for anybody that's listening to this and has no idea what we're talking about because they started listening to this show with Tuffin Up. Oh yeah. Why don't you head back and fill it all in. Come on.

It's a wild story. Yeah. with the toughen up. Why don't you head back and fill it all in. Come on. It's a wild story. But I mean, I don't know, I can't recall any reuniting moments of Richard and Sandy. And if we did have them- Bridges were burned. No heads were kissed. No, certainly not.

No one was, I don't think Sandy was weeping uncontrollably at your dad's funeral. Nope. It's just interesting, you know, like. The coldness, the barrenness. Assuming that there was love there at one time, it was gone. Oh yeah. And I just think it's interesting that there clearly was love there and it was not gone despite everything.

Yeah, it makes me think it's like about your parents, Kieran, that they, it's almost like they loved each other, but the baggage, the trauma, the whatever that was attached to them wouldn't let them actually love each other in the way that they would need to be a couple. Mm hmm. No, it was too much. Yeah. They couldn't overcome that. It was so much more than them. Jared Yeah. Pete And of course, when they're married, that's when things, as you may have read, comes to the surface.

Jared Yes. Pete Yep. Jared We, you know, we call this podcast how to destroy everything, but I think one of the things that's so interesting to me are the things that cannot actually be destroyed, where the podcast is a misnomer and the love between your mom and dad, despite everything, could not be destroyed. No, I think that's really true and it's taken some time to realize that. I think the love of our family, just like there's something that just is like, I don't know. I don't know what that is, but.

I mean, how beautiful is it that, you know, you credit your sisters as, what are they credited as story editors on this podcast? Yes, yes. The three of you, these three kids came together to collaborate on this project. We have seen you do your one-man show and one of your sisters was there in the front

row. Yeah, Shiloh was there, yeah. And yeah, like it's the love has brought you together and it persists, it carries on and that's beautiful despite everything. I think it's inspiring. That's good to hear. You know, during the working on this, we became even closer. Oh, I'm sure.

We were on Zoom, but we were like, Lisa lives on the East Coast, but it's all very, it was amazing to see how going through this brought things up, but then things got processed. Things got processed. There's that word again. Yeah. What does it mean? I don't know. Process is movement. To me, it's like things are moving and resolving or at least changing form.

Yes. Yes. Changing form. I love that. As your mom did in this episode. Yes, she did. So. as your mom did in this episode. Yes, she did. She's around, whenever I see 333, and whenever I see 747 in my life, I always think of my mom at 747.

Yeah. She just took a, she just hopped out of flight out of here. Double-decker jet. Double-decker jet, she was way. Probably flipping the bird in the window as she had enough. Exactly, she was in the lounge, up top, up the spiral staircase. Yeah, exactly. Wow. Can I ask a question? And if this is weird, feel free to say no and we'll cut it. But

I noticed or maybe observation in this episode, you referenced Lisa having children and Sheila having obviously this baby who is a christening, um, right. That was the, the reuniting was the christening of Sheila's firstborn. Yes. Um, but you have not had children. Um, and you know, I, uh, I wonder if that is as a result of, I'm just curious about

if that was a choice that you made, obviously Danny and I are both people who had a hard time having children. So I don't mean to bring this up if, if that's what happened, or maybe there was a choice that you made not to have children. And if that was at all related to your own tumultuous childhood? I was walking the dog the other night and I thought, I wonder if they're gonna ask that question. That's the truth. I thought that. Look, I mean, we didn't decide not to have children. We joked that we forgot to have kids. But that's obviously a choice, right, to say that you didn't have children. I would never tie it, in my opinion, to because of my upbringing or our upbringing.

But that's just me consciously saying that. Is it possible that I made that decision subconsciously? Maybe. I don't know. I don't know why we didn't have kids. I love, love kids. I love all my nieces and nephews and their kids. I love my goddaughters. I love, I mean, there's no harder job than being a parent. There's no more noble profession, if you has me, from what I've seen.

It's the greatest thing. I honestly don't know why. We do joke that we forgot. One thing I do think that I never felt that I was gonna be able to provide properly because of the gypsy life, because of show business, and because I was not a household name quote yet, right? I was thinking that that may have played into it to some degree, but that's a

really good question and I knew it was coming, but I thought- I didn't know it was coming, so that was the only one apparently. Yeah. But I thought, you know, I don't know, but it has to be in there somehow. Yeah, I would imagine so. Yeah. Hey, we know you probably hit play to escape your business banking, not think about it. But what if we told you there was a way

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I mean, it's, it's interesting because Danny, obviously you though, had a tumultuous childhood and my memory is that when we were younger, not only did you want to have kids, but you kind of wanted to have like a lot of kids. I did. I was thinking three. That's a lot.

You have kids all over the place. It's so many families. So many families. So many states. I don't even know. Yeah. But the ones I care about are close by. No, I mean, that was always, for me, it was, I am

interested, my childhood was so disjointed and fragmented that I had this fantasy. The fantasy for me was everybody together, big family, all, it was that, that was the opposite. That was, to me, everybody together, big family. That was the opposite. That was to me was the opposite of that. With lots of mini pets. You wanted to have a big family with lots of mini pets.

Tiny, genetically engineered hippopotamuses and elephants. A menagerie. Yes, giraffes. Those three for me are the three that I, anyway. I will say this, my sisters, both my sisters in how they raised their families have at different times said, oh, you know, we're going to do it right. We're going to, you know, no, we're not going to do it like it was done to us. So they both seriously went out of their way and, you know,

they have incredible families in my opinion. I adore all of my nieces and nephews. Yeah, that's amazing. Well, and I think Danny, you have similarly, um, uh, done a, done a fine job. You're still in the process, but you obviously are so different as a father than your father. Um, consciously in every way. I think you said in an episode last season, um, that I think it was in one of the conversations with your brother that if you ever perceive discomfort from your kids about you're embarrassing them or something, that you would have been like, oh, this is what my dad would have done. You just stop immediately and go in the opposite direction.

Yeah, yeah, I do. Yeah. So anyway, yeah. Well, okay. This has been really great. Why don't we turn to next week's episode, episode nine, which is called Crushing Blossoms and the Burden. Yeah, we're going to take a jump in time here. Yes. And we're going to be focusing a lot on my father, obviously here down the stretch. And there's a big change coming in my father's life and then the burden as a result. All right, well let's hear a clip of next week's episode and we'll see you next week.

My sister cousin Diane and I took dad to the San Fernando Mission Catholic Cemetery to make arrangements for Helen's funeral. I remember dad wasn't moving too well that day, so we accepted the receptionist's kind offer of a wheelchair for him. This gracious gesture was met with the crack of a crooked smile and a look that spoke, I'll get you for this. We'd heard from Dad for years that anyone in a wheelchair was most likely faking it to some degree and would probably benefit more from getting a goddamn job.

How to Destroy Everything presents Toughen Up is written, performed, and created by Stephen Kieran. Executive produced by Darren Grotsky and Danny Jacobs. In partnership with Eastman Productions and 333 Productions. Story editing by Lisa Blair and Sheila Stephens. Music mixing and mastering by Arlo Sanders. Audio engineering by Glenn Eastman. Original theme music by Alan Simpson. Original artwork by Derek Yee. Kitchen pep talk by Joyce Kieran, thanks to Helen, Diane and Steve, Bob and Carla, Art and Joyce, Dave, Sean and the DeTye family. Special thanks to mom, dad, Lisa, Sheila and Joe. For questions, feedback and of course any stories about Danny's dad we can be reached at

I know Richard Jacobs at gmail.com if you would like to support this podcast Please consider becoming a patron at www.patreon.com forward slash how to destroy everything and of course you can find us on Instagram and blue sky as well How to destroy everything presents toughen up is available on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Special thanks to Spotify Studios for the use of their beautiful recording space in downtown Los Angeles.