Heavyweight

At 101 years old, Deborah discovered a box she'd stashed away a lifetime ago. What was inside reignited an old love and turned her life upside down. This is an episode from a podcast we love, Heavyweight https://lnk.to/HWSnap. We are so excited to share it with you! Heavyweight, hosted by Jonathan Goldstein, creates space for difficult conversations and resolving long-standing regrets and unanswered questions. Balancing humor and empathy, host Jonathan Goldstein helps his subjects pinpoint the moment things went wrong and joins them on a quest to make them right. Find Heavyweight https://lnk.to/HWSnap wherever you get your podcasts! Or connect on Instagram: @pushkinpods, @heavyweightpodcast Season 17 - Episode 23 Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices https://dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:07Glynn Washington?

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• 2:34Glynn Washington?

  Okay, so about a decade ago, I wandered into the wrong Chicago Hilton conference room, and there's this guy, he shaggled, speckled, surrounded, speaking to a group of young writers, audio producers and makers. He's talking to them about how to speak to people. And he says something to the effect of, whoever you are, just be that, just do that. And really, since then, I've marveled, watching him do that. This unfolding, evolving, stretching into his own singular voice, now lauded as one of the most celebrated storytellers

• 3:17Glynn Washington?

  of our time, Jonathan Goldstein. His podcast is called Heavyweight. And on it, on Heavyweight, and you're gonna want to subscribe immediately, Jonathan sits down with people to help them solve one of those problems they don't know how to tackle any other way. Maybe a lost connection, unsolved mystery, perhaps a friendship that ended without closure, whatever it is. Jonathan digs in and tries to help them make it right. And I kid you not, what you're about to hear, I'm in a grocery store, and this episode stopped me, stopped me in my

• 3:56Glynn Washington?

  tracks. And I think it's gonna stop you too. I saw the setup there is Snap Judgment proudly presents, very proudly presents, Heavyweight.

• 4:16Speaker 01

  Hello.

• 4:18Speaker 02

  Hello, is this Barbara?

• 4:20Speaker 01

  No, this is Deborah.

• 4:22Speaker 02

  Uh, how are you related to Barbara?

• 4:25Speaker 01

  I don't know who Barbara is.

• 4:28Speaker 02

  Although this might sound like a classic Cheech and Chong routine, it's actually me phoning Deborah. Deborah, you should know, is 102 years old, yet it is I who is having the senior moment. Oh my, I'm so sorry. For some reason, I think I thought your name was Barbara.

• 4:47Speaker 01

  It's okay. I've lived long enough. I can take any name.

• 4:54Speaker 02

  I'm phoning Deborah, her name is Deborah, because she made a discovery recently that has turned her life on its head. It all began with a phone call from her daughter, Lee.

• 5:05Speaker 01

  She called me several months ago, and she said, "Mom, given your age, I'd like to help you clear out your storage room." So I said, "Fine, when are you coming?" She said, "Now."

• 5:23Speaker 02

  The storage room is a room in Deborah's Bronx apartment. She affectionately calls it "The Snake Pit." It's where expired vitamins and broken kitchen appliances collect. While cleaning it out, her daughter, Lee, saw something that caught her eye.

• 5:38Speaker 01

  And she walked out of the storage room with a cardboard box.

• 5:46Speaker 02

  Written across the top of the box were Deborah's initials, and beside those initials, underlined in black ink, were the words "Go Through." When Deborah lifted the lid, she uncovered something she'd stashed away long ago and had never gone through.

• 6:03Speaker 01

  256 letters written to me when I was 21.

• 6:13Speaker 02

  The letters, tied up in ribboned bundles, were from Deborah's first love, a man named Jerry Robbins.

• 6:21Speaker 01

  We were engaged to be married.

• 6:25Speaker 01

  He...

• 6:30Speaker 01

  Okay, I'm sorry.

• 6:33Speaker 02

  Jerry was killed in World War II on Christmas Eve, 1944.

• 6:38Speaker 01

  My future was shredded, as well as the man that I loved.

• 6:45Speaker 02

  And had you forgotten about these letters?

• 6:49Speaker 01

  I didn't forget. I just found his death so disturbing, I couldn't take it. So I sequestered that aspect of my prior life away and never looked at it again.

• 7:14Speaker 03

  She has a really powerful ability to flip the switch, as she calls it.

• 7:21Speaker 02

  This is Deborah's daughter, Lee.

• 7:23Speaker 03

  Put it away, not think about it.

• 7:26Speaker 02

  And that's just what Deborah did. To escape the grief of Jerry's death, she threw herself into graduate school, got a master's degree in social work, and from there, life just kept unspooling. She married a man named Irving, who was an attorney and a good provider, and together, they raised three kids. But all the while, through 64 years of marriage, through every move, every new chapter, Deborah kept the box with its lid closed shut. Until recently.

• 8:03Speaker 02

  Nearly 80 years after Jerry's death, and over a decade after the death of her husband Irving, Deborah was finally ready to open the box and start reading.

• 8:13Speaker 01

  Every letter, every postcard, and every v-mail.

• 8:21Speaker 02

  Email?

• 8:22Speaker 01

  V-mail.

• 8:24Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 8:24Speaker 01

  The letter V as in victory.

• 8:27Speaker 02

  Right. Right. Will you listen to me? V-mail, as I only later learned, was a method the government used to get soldiers' letters to their families. And as Deborah read these letters, something began to happen.

• 8:43Speaker 01

  I fell in love with Jerry again.

• 8:51Speaker 02

  Not only did the box contain Jerry's handwritten letters, but also a number of his poems and short stories. Jerry, Deborah tells me, was an aspiring writer with big dreams.

• 9:02Speaker 01

  His absolute motivation was to write, write, and compose. If he had a pencil or a pen in hand, he'd seek out paper to write on.

• 9:17Speaker 02

  The sheer volume of letters, their depth and detail, attest to this. And each day, sometimes all through the day, Deborah would read and reread Jerry's words. And as she did, she felt him return to her. It was like time had collapsed.

• 9:37Speaker 01

  How can a 101-year-old woman, whose hormones have long since shriveled, fall in love again?

• 9:53Speaker 02

  Deborah's daughter Lee noticed the change that came over her mother, how re-energized she'd become. And Lee thought that was wonderful, to a point.

• 10:02Speaker 03

  There's a thin line because she started slipping into what we would call Jerry-land.

• 10:09Speaker 02

  Oh, what is that?

• 10:11Speaker 03

  That is, not to label it too much, but a kind of overarching obsession with all things Jerry. All she did was live in Jerry-land.

• 10:26Speaker 02

  This is Deborah's other daughter, Lauren.

• 10:29Speaker 03

  And every time I called her up or would see her, it would be, "Jerry said this, and Jerry said that." She would spend all my conversations with her just talking about Jerry.

• 10:44Speaker 02

  It sounds a little bit, the way you describe it is like, you know, like when a teenager's in love, you know?

• 10:48Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 10:49Speaker 02

  They're just drawing, like, the person's name and heart, you know, in their notebook or something.

• 10:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, you just can't help but talk about it all the time.

• 10:59Speaker 02

  Lauren says their mother stopped watching movies, reading books, attending the classes she took online.

• 11:06Speaker 04

  I was concerned about it. Lee was concerned about it. We all kept saying, "Here, Mom. Here's a great book. Read this. Watch this. Why don't you invite people over?" And it was truly like she was in a bubble.

• 11:30Speaker 02

  Also concerning to Lauren is how, since the discovery of the letters, Jerry has threatened to eclipse her late father, Irving. For proof, you need look no further than Deborah's living room. On an entry table by the door is a photograph of Irving. But beside her favorite chair is one of Jerry.

• 11:49Speaker 04

  Sitting right next to her, and my father is off to the side. What the hell?

• 11:57Speaker 02

  How does that make you feel?

• 11:59Speaker 04

  Weird. Strange.

• 12:05Speaker 02

  Deborah, for her part, insists her feelings for Jerry have no bearing on the love she feels for her late husband. But this passionate side of Deborah is new to Lauren.

• 12:20Speaker 04

  They always say we become more of ourselves the older we get.

• 12:26Speaker 02

  Do you think so?

• 12:27Speaker 04

  I think so. Don't you?

• 12:30Speaker 02

  I'd like to think so, yeah. I mean, it certainly seems like with your mother, I mean, she continues to grow, you know?

• 12:36Speaker 04

  She does. There's a great line I love to quote. And it's from Metallica.

• 12:46Speaker 02

  Metallica?

• 12:47Speaker 04

  The heavy metal bands. And one of the lines is, "My lifestyle determines my death style."

• 12:58Speaker 04

  And I think it's a great line, like not, she's not dying, but you know, I, I think we just keep becoming more.

• 13:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:10Speaker 04

  And, oh, there, I'm sorry for all these texts. My husband just got nominated for two Emmys.

• 13:19Speaker 02

  Oh, my goodness, that's fantastic.

• 13:22Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 13:23Speaker 02

  As it happens, Lauren's husband is the award-winning documentary filmmaker, Joe Berlinger. Among his work, Some Kind of Monster, an exploration of Metallica's experience in group therapy.

• 13:37Speaker 04

  He just got nominated and my whole family is like, yay, that's great, congrats.

• 13:44Speaker 02

  Good for him. But you know what's also good? As good, if not better than being nominated for TV's most prestigious award? Helping people.

• 13:56Speaker 02

  And right now, I'm going to help Deborah with something she's taken to calling her mandate.

• 14:05Speaker 01

  When I was a daughter, I had an obligation to my parents, as a student, to my teacher in my school, as a wife and a mother, to my family. But now that I've lived this long, my mandate is to do something with these amazing letters.

• 14:31Speaker 02

  Deborah hopes to honor Jerry by giving his writing an audience. It occurs to me that I have an audience. And perhaps if Deborah and I read through the letters together, it would fulfill her mandate and allow her to move on. I put the idea to Lee. Do you think like getting something out there into the world would allow her to leave Jerryland?

• 14:56Speaker 04

  Yeah, I do. Because he'll always be 21. He'll always be a writer who never got to live his potential. So there's this quality of stuckness or stasis. Getting his work out there, it's almost like she gets to the end.

• 15:22Speaker 01

  Can you come to my apartment?

• 15:26Speaker 02

  Well, I'm in Minnesota.

• 15:30Speaker 01

  I wouldn't fly out where you are, but if you can come to my home, I would be eternally grateful. For as long as I last.

• 15:43Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, I would love to see the letters and it would be, uh, it would be really nice to meet you in person.

• 15:51Speaker 01

  Okay, Mr. Goldstein, so come look.

• 15:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:56Speaker 01

  Said the old lady to the young man.

• 16:02Speaker 02

  And so, it looks like this 56-year-old young man is heading off to New York. Because like the writing on the box says, maybe the only way out is to go through.

• 16:19Glynn Washington?

  The heavyweight episode continues right after the break. Stay tuned.

• 16:27Glynn Washington?

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• 18:16Glynn Washington?

  Welcome back to Snap Judgment, the heavyweight episode already in progress.

• 18:22Speaker 02

  256 letters. It took several weeks for my producer Phoebe and me to read them all. Many of the letters were missing dates and locations, but we puzzled our way through, doing our best to bring chronological order. And as we did, a life emerged and a portrait of the young man who lived it. We went through all 256 of the letters.

• 18:46Speaker 01

  Oh, boy. So you know Jerry.

• 18:50Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. So let's, why don't we just start off by reading the first letter?

• 18:57Speaker 01

  Here goes. Dear Deb, finding myself with a few spare moments.

• 19:05Speaker 02

  Jerry's first letters are from the spring of 1940, nearly four years before he enlisted.

• 19:11Speaker 01

  My mother advised me that she doesn't mind my staying in your house till all hours of the night. She likes you quite a bit, which practically makes it unanimous.

• 19:31Speaker 02

  Debra and Jerry had been friends since their elementary school days in Brooklyn. But their friendship was beginning to blossom into something more. What were you guys doing until all hours of the night?

• 19:45Speaker 01

  Talking. As passionate as it was, it was never consummated, which is my regret.

• 19:55Speaker 02

  It is a regret.

• 19:56Speaker 01

  Oh, intensely so.

• 20:00Speaker 02

  Debra says she was waiting for marriage.

• 20:02Speaker 01

  But we would have had a hot time together.

• 20:10Speaker 01

  I forgot that I'm being recorded.

• 20:21Speaker 02

  Jerry lived over an hour away by subway. And before texting, emails, and the prevalence of phone calls, weekend rendezvous were planned out over letters. Jerry's writing is clever. In one missive, he invites Debra out to a show for New Year's Eve. When she doesn't give him a straight answer, he sends a follow-up. "To help you make a decision and for your convenience, you will find on page four of this letter a ballot. Just check one and mail within the next week." The ballot shows two options: yes and yes.

• 21:02Speaker 02

  Be it in his letters or his short stories, Jerry had a way with a closing line. His fiction often showcased an ironic reveal in the final sentence. In one story, the peacenik babbling in the mental institution turns out to be a former war commissioner. In another, the motorist who stops to help a stranded woman turns out to be an executioner on his way to put the woman's son to death. They were like Twilight Zone episodes almost 20 years before the show went on the air.

• 21:34Speaker 02

  Jerry shared drafts of these stories along with poems. Deborah appreciated his lyrical turns of phrase.

• 21:41Speaker 01

  I call them Jerryism. Instead of war, he says man-made madness.

• 21:53Speaker 02

  As a student at Columbia studying to be a writer, Jerry was exempt from the draft. But in the winter of 1943, he decided to leave school and enlist. Aside from his parents, Deborah was the first person he told. "Since one of my guiding rules," he wrote, "has always been 'To thine own self be true,' I feel I can't stay out any longer just paying lip service to my beliefs." From boot camp, Jerry's letters arrived in Deborah's mailbox every day. His clever short stories with the tidy Twilight Zone endings gave way to reportage. Jerry detailed the eccentric characters he met: the sergeant with a jaw like a rock,

• 22:36Speaker 02

  the chaplain who was a secret lush. But he also shared his feelings. In one letter, he described the first time he stood before a mirror and saw himself in uniform, how it gave him chills. As training became more grueling and the thought of war more present and real, Jerry sought refuge in Deborah, summoning her presence during lonely evenings at camp or long marches in the heat. "I didn't mind walking because I wasn't alone. You were with me, walking by my side and keeping me company all the time. We spoke about a thousand things: my furlough, the invasion, what we're going to do together when I come back. I recited poetry to you,

• 23:20Speaker 02

  and when no one was watching, I put my arms around you, held you close to me, and whispered 'I love you' into your ears."

• 23:37Speaker 02

  Jerry and Deborah created a ritual which they enacted at 10 o'clock each evening. Jerry called it their nightly meeting. When the hour struck, they dropped whatever they were doing, and in the absence of a telephone, each would simply think of the other. "I close my eyes," Jerry wrote. "The world fades away, and then it's now."

• 24:02Speaker 01

  "Now" was one of our secret words. The only thing that was real was here and now. "Through the ebony of night, I reach out for you, and from across the wide expanse of sea, you come. Your eyes flashing, your body warm and curved. This is the only place. This is the only time. Here and now."

• 24:53Speaker 02

  Do you want to read another letter? This one will be a special one.

• 24:58Speaker 01

  Sure. "So here I go again, doing things crudely and probably very badly. Honey, I want to get engaged on my furlough. I needn't add that I'm anxiously and eagerly awaiting your reply. Just say yes."

• 25:23Speaker 02

  And here, Deborah recites from memory her reply from over 80 years ago.

• 25:29Speaker 01

  "My answer to you is yes, yes, yes."

• 25:35Speaker 02

  Back at boot camp, time marched on. And in the fall of 1944, Jerry received notice. He was going to be deployed. But before his deployment, he was granted a final furlough. So he went home to see Deborah, where he gave her a ring. Together, they made plans for the future, talked about everything that lay ahead once he was home for good. And then, standing on the subway platform in Washington Heights, they said their last goodbye.

• 26:04Speaker 01

  I could almost feel it. I remember kissing him and saying, "This isn't good. I don't know what's happening." And I went into the train, and I cried hysterically all the way till the last stop on that train.

• 26:35Speaker 02

  Jerry's company was shipped off to England, where American soldiers were preparing to join the fight in mainland Europe. Unbeknownst to them, they were destined for one of the deadliest campaigns of World War II, the Battle of the Bulge. But they never made it there. Jerry was among more than 2,200 men loaded onto a troop ship on Christmas Eve. The ship was bound for Cherbourg, France, just a short trip across the English Channel. But hours later, just five miles from the entrance to the harbor, a torpedo struck. A survivor described the slender silver missile cutting through the water and colliding with the ship as having shaken the vessel from stern to stern.

• 27:18Speaker 02

  Hundreds of men in the lower decks were killed instantly as the sea rushed into the massive gash. Those who made it to the upper decks weren't much better off. They'd not been briefed on how to lower the lifeboats or free the rafts that might have carried them to safety. That, they were told, was the job of the crew. But the crew, a Belgian outfit, spoke little English and had little loyalty to the American troops aboard. And so it happened that many crew members abandoned ship while the Americans aboard still had no idea they were slowly sinking.

• 27:55Speaker 02

  Many soldiers were presumed to have gone down with the ship. Others were lost to injuries and hypothermia. In the end, 763 men died. Jerry was one of them. After six months of training, he saw one day of war.

• 28:18Speaker 02

  The scale of death was so needless, the failed emergency response so poor, that for decades, the US government covered up the details. Survivors risk losing their veteran benefits if they talked. And so, when a family was notified that they'd lost a loved one, only the barest details were shared.

• 28:38Speaker 01

  I was in Jerry's parents' home. His mother and father were in the room. They handed me the telegram.

• 28:51Speaker 02

  In the months before he died, looking towards the war he was about to enter, Jerry wrote a poem. "All I ask for, God, in the brief second before eternity swallows me up, a glimpse of the world that is to be, where no man need make a prayer like mine. Then will I know there is meaning amidst this man-made madness."

• 29:18Speaker 01

  In a certain way,

• 29:22Speaker 01

  I've never verbalized this.

• 29:26Speaker 01

  But in certain way, the discovery of those letters have turned my life upside down because I don't feel as happy as I used to feel. I really don't.

• 29:46Speaker 02

  It's the first time I've heard Deborah say this. I thought for Deborah, Jerryland was a happy escape. And it seems it can be, but there's sadness there, too. After discovering the box, Deborah found herself having nightmares. The letters abruptly end in 1944. So in place of an actual ending, Deborah's mind crafted its own. She dreamt of Jerry in the water. She dreamt of him frozen in the English Channel. And it was like a piece of Deborah was stuck there with him. Recently, though, I learned something that might help Deborah to work herself free.

• 30:29Speaker 02

  A few months ago, a genealogist friend of the family was doing some digging and turned up something surprising, something that Deborah never knew. Jerry's body wasn't in the English Channel, nor was it buried somewhere in Europe. Jerry's body had actually been repatriated back to America and interred in a Jewish cemetery called Mount Lebanon. And it turns out, the cemetery is not an hour's drive from Deborah's apartment.

• 31:00Speaker 02

  To move on from Jerryland, maybe Deborah needs more than just to revisit the past or honor the past. Maybe she needs to grieve it. Leaving the house at 102 is not so easily done, and Deborah has yet to visit Jerry's grave. I ask if it might be something we can do together.

• 31:20Speaker 01

  Anything that brings me closer to him, some game.

• 31:28Speaker 02

  After the break, Jerry.

• 31:43Glynn Washington?

  The Heavyweight episode continues right after the break.

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• 34:08Glynn Washington?

  Welcome back to Snap Judgment. I'm Mr. Washington and we're listening to the Heavyweight episode, already in progress.

• 34:15Speaker 02

  Just as I'm about to book a minivan for our visit to the cemetery, I receive an invitation to a video conference.

• 34:24Speaker 02

  Hi, hello?

• 34:25Speaker 05

  Hey, sorry, I had to, uh, I guess login and...

• 34:29Speaker 02

  Debra's Emmy Award-winning son-in-law, Joe Berlinger, also wants to come to the cemetery to film for his own project about Debra.

• 34:39Speaker 05

  I mean, we're all such huge fans of Heavyweight that we're so excited that you're engaged.

• 34:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, uh, right back at you. Uh, we, um, you know, we love what you do, so...

• 34:54Speaker 02

  "We"? Have I a pet hamster in my fanny pack? Allow me to explain my lack of enthusiasm about Joe's participation.

• 35:03Speaker 05

  You know, when I go out and I do something for Netflix or whatever, it's a little...

• 35:06Speaker 02

  The world of documentary is a hierarchy that breaks down thusly. Netflix documentaries: the top-floor penthouse suite. Audio documentaries: the underground parking garage where audio documentarians park their used Ford Fiesta's. So as much as I love Joe's work, let's just say Metallica doesn't have two lead guitarists. Let's just say it only has one. And according to the internet, his name is Kirkley Hammett. And on this documentary shoot, I'm the Kirk.

• 35:44Speaker 05

  It's not like we're gonna be dueling interviewers or anything like that. I want to assure you of that.

• 35:49Speaker 02

  Oh, thank you.

• 35:49Speaker 05

  I just want to be a fly on the wall and observe what's happening.

• 35:52Speaker 02

  Canadian etiquette dictates my not saying no. But I will be documenting you, Joe Berlinger, documenting me, as I document Debra.

• 36:09Speaker 02

  On a sunny morning in October, we all meet at Deborah's. Hello. Hi. Hi. Hi, Jonathan. Hi, hi.

• 36:19Speaker 02

  Deborah is seated by the window, wearing a colorful kerchief around her neck. The sunlight illuminates her shoulder-length white hair in a puffy halo. I'd like to say a few words, if that's okay. Of course. Deborah has prepared a speech about Jerry that she'd like to recite at his gravesite. In fact, a few days earlier, she left a phone message, saying it would be four minutes long, suggesting she'd already timed it and practiced it, just to get it all right. My worry is that with a speech already committed to memory, Deborah might have already decided how and how much she wants to feel.

• 36:59Speaker 02

  Yep, thank you. We load into the van: Deborah, her aide Javi, her daughter Lee, and my producer Phoebe. Joe seats himself up front, the Papa. Ostensibly, it's so he can silently record Deborah and me in the seats behind him, silently.

• 37:21Speaker 02

  So Jonathan, what are we doing today? Well, uh... Being questioned on one's own podcast is not unlike being strapped into a baby seat in one's own 14-seater van, which, might I add, one paid for. Rather than demanding that everyone in the van pause their various recording devices so I can throw a full-on Kirkley/Hammett-level artistic tantrum, I instead do this. We are heading off to...to the Queen's Cemetery. I obey my master. Master. That's a Metallica reference.

• 38:10Speaker 02

  We ride through Washington Heights, where Jerry grew up, past the grounds of the World's Fair, where he and Deborah spent many a summer's afternoon. That was the greatest dates we ever had. Together, they marveled over futuristic architecture, the debut of the first television, portraits of a hopeful future.

• 38:40Speaker 02

  When we arrive at the cemetery, we consult the map. The cemetery is so large that it has streets, and the streets have names.

• 38:49Speaker 01

  Jerry's not on Paradise Avenue, is he?

• 38:53Speaker 06

  He actually is just off of there.

• 38:55Speaker 01

  He is? How about that?

• 39:03Speaker 04

  Okay. Okay. We're ready to go. Big face, Mom.

• 39:08Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 39:10Speaker 04

  I got two stones.

• 39:12Speaker 02

  We all get out of the car. According to the map, Jerry's grave isn't far. Their brazier wheels are towards the Isle of Tombstones.

• 39:22Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 39:24Speaker 01

  What's going through my mind now is a letter from Jerry saying, "There's so many things I want to do with you."

• 39:39Speaker 01

  Oh my, oh, there it is. Oh.

• 39:45Speaker 02

  And suddenly, there it is. The headstone. "Beloved son and dear brother, Private Jerome Robbins. Jerry."

• 39:59Speaker 04

  Oh, God.

• 40:09Speaker 04

  Do you want to do this?

• 40:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:16Speaker 04

  I can get Jerry.

• 40:24Speaker 02

  We brought along the kaddish, if you wanted to say it.

• 40:30Speaker 01

  You don't have to bring it to me. I know it.

• 40:32Speaker 02

  You know it. Okay. Yeah.

• 40:35Speaker 01

  "Dolby is Kaddish. Om Ha'Be'aravet Ge'ar. B'chayekom, be'ayekom, be'chayekachay. Shre'el, ba'galav is mankari.

• 40:53Speaker 02

  When she's finished with the prayer for the dead, Debra remains quiet. But then, something happens, something she hadn't planned for or prepared for. Taking in the sight of all those tombstones, she just starts talking.

• 41:10Speaker 01

  Ugh.

• 41:12Speaker 01

  What a waste. This one, nineteen. This beloved one, twenty-two. The other one, twenty. No more, no more wars. Please, please, no more wars. There are too many beautiful, healthy, young veterans who are lined up here and probably never had a chance to live. What thieves, war mongers are. War mongers are thieves

• 41:55Speaker 01

  of life that was never lived. Man-made madness. Man-made madness.

• 42:17Speaker 01

  Okay, I said enough, Jer.

• 42:28Speaker 02

  Debra will later tell me that she surprised herself. For all the words she'd prepared, these words, she said, came from the guts.

• 42:38Speaker 02

  To get through her long life, Debra learned to box up the pain and store it neatly away. But maybe, if you live long enough, everything, even those buried things, rise to the surface again, searching for light.

• 42:57Speaker 04

  Ready, one, two, three.

• 43:02Speaker 04

  One more step, Mom. I know.

• 43:06Speaker 02

  We all load into the van and settle back in for the journey back to the Bronx.

• 43:12Speaker 02

  How are you feeling?

• 43:15Speaker 01

  I thought it would be painful. And it wasn't painful. I got a refill of energy. It was a little bit of stealing from his strength. And that really came from being with Jerry.

• 43:44Speaker 02

  A young man, at a time when he needed love most, conjured a spectral companion to journey by his side. And now, almost a century later, an old woman does the same. It's the sort of ironic twist that could have flowed from Jerry's pen.

• 44:07Speaker 04

  Hey, Joe, you want some nuts?

• 44:09Speaker 01

  Or a banana?

• 44:10Speaker 04

  That'd be nice.

• 44:11Speaker 01

  What about a banana?

• 44:14Speaker 02

  Back in the van, Joe reminds Deborah that it's his daughter, Deborah's granddaughter's 31st birthday.

• 44:20Speaker 01

  Oh, that's right.

• 44:22Speaker 04

  Should we call her?

• 44:24Speaker 01

  Huh? Yes.

• 44:27Speaker 02

  When she gets home, Deborah will return some phone calls, maybe take a nap. All the little things that make up a life. All the little things that make up the here and now.

• 44:38Speaker 04

  Happy birthday.

• 44:40Speaker 01

  Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, Deborah. Off key.

• 46:05Speaker 02

  This episode of Heavyweight was produced by Phoebe Flanagan and me, Jonathan Goldstein. Our senior producer is Kalila Holt. Our supervising producer is Stevie Lane. Editorial guidance from Emily Condon. Special thanks to Chris Neary, Lucy Sullivan, Ben Nadif-Hafré, and Greta Cohn. Special thanks also to Daria O'Connor, Jack Eiferman, and Alan Andrade, the author of the book Leopoldville: A Tragedy Too Long Secret, which is a great read if you want to learn more about the sinking of Jerry's ship. Deborah is publishing a collection of Jerry's writing that will soon be available on Amazon. You can find more information about the book at waitformeworld.com. Her daughter

• 46:48Speaker 02

  Lee has been working on a screenplay about Deborah and Jerry. As for Joe, he has two Netflix documentaries coming out early next year. Emma Munger mixed the episode with original music by Christine Fellows, John K. Sampson, Blue Dot Sessions, Bobby Lord, and Emma Munger. Additional scoring by Chris Zabriskie. Our theme song is by The Weaker Dance, courtesy of Epitaph Records. This is the end of our season, the final episode, but we'll be back in the spring with some more fun stuff, so keep an ear out. And we've got a new season coming your way next fall, so if you have a story for us, don't be withholding, okay? Email us at [email protected]. Happy holidays to all, and thank you for

• 47:31Speaker 02

  your continued support and listenership. I'm Jonathan Goldstein.

• 47:36Speaker 02

  Ta ta, ciao for now, adieu. Don't use that stuff at the end. But you could put that part in, you could put in the part of me saying, "Don't use that, don't use that stuff at the end." And then you could put in the part where I'm saying, "Don't use this stuff." Okay? It'll be fun.

• 47:54Glynn Washington?

  Big thanks to Jonathan, to Pushkin, to the entire Heavyweight team, to Deborah. And if you enjoyed this episode of Heavyweight as much as I did, know there is more amazing heavyweight storytelling available right now, wherever you get your podcasts.

• 48:15Glynn Washington?

  Now, did you miss a part? Do you need to rewind? Do you need to have more Snap in your life? The good news is the entire world of Snap storytelling awaits at snapjudgment.org. And the bigger news, because there's more. At long last, go behind the story. Get extra Snap you won't hear anywhere else. Deep dive, Snap meetup secrets, all at Snap Plus. Learn more at snapjudgment.org. Take you to in San Francisco, it's Snap's Orbiting Hall of Justice. If you see some techie staring at you with glowing glasses, tell him, "Nice try." Because no Snap Studios content may be used for training, testing, or developing machine learning or AI systems without prior written permission.

• 49:00Glynn Washington?

  On Team Snap, the union represented producers, artists, editors, and engineers are members of the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, Communications Workers of America, AFL-CIO Local 51. And this is not the news. No way it says news. In fact, you could find some old letters from a former paramour before you open them. Consider, then decide, not today, Satan!

• 49:27Glynn Washington?

  And you would still, still not be as far away from the news as this is. This is PRX.

• 49:45Glynn Washington?

  This show is supported by Odoo. When you buy business software from lots of vendors, the costs add up and it gets complicated and confusing. Odoo solves this. It's a single company that sells a suite of enterprise apps that handles everything from accounting to inventory to sales. Odoo is all connected on a single platform in a simple and affordable way. You can save money without missing out on the features you need. Check out Odoo at O D O O dot com. That's O D O O dot com.