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Part 8: The Saint
In Part 8 of 'Dear Alana', the narrative explores the aftermath of Alana's death, focusing on a vigil held in her memory and the complex dynamics between her family, friends, and the ch...
Part 8: The Saint
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Interactive Transcript
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This is an I Heart Podcast.
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Hey Wisecrack, Jody here.
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I want to tell you about a podcast called Unexplained.
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Every week, host Richard McLean Smith takes you on a journey into the unknown with hauntings,
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UFO encounters, and moments where even time itself seems to break.
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Unexplained is not just eerie, but its story with style and atmosphere.
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Honestly, if you like anything strange or left of center, this is the podcast you've been looking for.
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Unexplained is available now on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get
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your finest podcasts.
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And it's the Return of Tony's Horror Show,
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Die Quest Written and narrated by yours truly.
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We'll also be doing a full episode reading with commentary.
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The following episode contains references to suicide.
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If you or someone you know is in need of help, please contact the Suicide and Crisis
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Lifeline by dialing 988. Listener discretion is advised.
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I slept through an early morning text from my mom, and when I wake up and check my phone,
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I find her message. Your grandmother passed away this morning around 3am.
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I call my mom immediately. My grandma, who's 94, hasn't been in good health for a while now.
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We were close, but as her health declined, our monthly phone calls tapered off,
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and whenever I'd visit, we'd often just sit together in silence.
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But this news still comes as a shock to me. The funerals sat forward two and a half weeks from now.
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As I think about the trip home, my stomach tightens into a knot.
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Everyone in my family will be at the funeral, including my cousin Vivian.
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12 years ago, when she walked out of that car after coming out to me, we stopped talking.
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I have no idea where she's at today. I don't even know what city she lives in.
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And there's a version of the funeral where I could show up and greet her politely,
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and then never talk to her again, continuing the streak. But I think about Alana,
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and there's absolutely no way that I can let that happen.
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A friend suggests I write to Vivian before the funeral. She could read my message or ignore it,
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but it would still give her an opportunity to know what's on my heart.
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So over the course of a few days, I drafted this email.
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Dear Vivian, I know it's been a while since we've spoken.
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You may not have any interest to hear from me, which I totally understand.
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But I hope you'll give me a chance, as it contains a lot of things that I've been afraid to tell you,
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and which I think you deserve to hear. First, I'm gay.
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It's taken me the last 20 years to come to terms with this, the first 15 of which were spent
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running away by seeking desperately to get rid of it. Everything I told you that time in the car
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about finding counseling for your sexuality, I pursued myself. I thought that by working hard
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enough, God would take this away. It didn't happen. And I'm still working through the shame and
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self-hatred these efforts perpetuated. I'm sad that at a young age, we both had to suffer
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in isolation. Second, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for not having the courage to be honest about my own
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struggle. I'm sorry for the ways my words alienated you and made you feel so alone and misunderstood.
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I'm sorry for trying to change you. I'm sorry for my pride that kept me from saying any of these
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things earlier. And I understand if they're all too little, too late. You know, I've often thought
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about how much courage it took for you to come out at the age and time you did. I certainly didn't
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have this courage. And at one point, I thought you were making a big mistake or moral concession.
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It's been humbling to recognize how wrong I was. And so, I ask for your forgiveness.
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We may never be as close as when we were kids, but I hope at some point we could restart things.
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I'm always curious what you're up to. Hope this doesn't make everything more awkward next week.
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Looking forward to seeing you.
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From Tenderfoot TV, I'm Simon Kent Fung. And this is Dear Alana. Part 8. The Saint.
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It's been over two years since Alana's death, and on a Sunday afternoon, a group of around 30 people
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holding red roses is gathered in front of St. Thomas, Alana's church. Joyce stands at the front of
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the group next to a smiling portrait of Alana. They're here today to conduct a peaceful vigil,
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a demonstration of sorts, and memory of Alana. This was Joyce's idea.
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Singing for our lives.
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The crowd is a mix of Joyce's friends and family, supporters from out Boulder County,
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the LGBTQ organization that helped organize the event, and other locals who've joined the vigil.
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It's the first time that Joyce has done anything this public, and although the turnout is small,
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it's enough to bring out the local news, who asked Joyce to talk about why she's here.
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I just wanted to let them know we know, and if other people come up to us,
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students, it's usually young people, college students, I want them to know that this is wrong.
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You can love God and be any religion, and if you're LGBTQ or anybody, this is a bad teaching
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for someone to die by suicide.
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Joyce is hopeful that she'll be able to speak to students as they show up for this 6 p.m. mass,
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but the vigil is largely ignored, except for a middle-aged member of St. Thomas,
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who watches from the door with his arms crossed. Students brush by Joyce without saying a word,
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and only one person stops to talk, sharing the recent loss of her own brother to suicide.
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As the vigil concludes with a few more songs, and the loss of Joyce's friends have gone home,
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the man who's been watching from the top of the stairs picks up the roses left from the vigil,
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and throws them in the garbage.
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I knew at some point I'd be right here standing inside St. Thomas with the goal of talking to
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Father Peter. The sunlight filters through the small windows along the side aisles,
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making the church extra cozy. I take a seat at the back as the pews fill up with students.
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They're all nodding along to Father Peter, who's reflecting on the gospel reading,
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where Jesus brings over a child and tells his apostles that,
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whoever wishes to be greatest must be the least, the first must be the last.
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I'm kind of mesmerized listening to him. He's goofy and self-deprecating and personal.
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He talks about how we need wisdom to encounter each other truthfully.
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He builds to a passionate crescendo, saying,
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I want someone to encounter me like Jesus does. Not their idea of me,
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not their anger about me, I want someone to encounter me, and I find myself nodding along.
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But I feel mixed up inside. This hipster priest who seems to be doing such great work for the
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church and the community, who's doing exactly what I've always wished I was doing with my life,
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this is the same guy whose church, according to the Denver Post,
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posted Alana's Catholic therapist, the therapist who Alana said made things worse.
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It was Father Peter who insisted that Alana apply to the Living Waters program that claims to
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heal the sexually and relationally broken, the one she couldn't afford. It was under Father
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Peter's watch that those books, filled with conversion therapy theories, were stalked in the
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St. Tom's library. And yet, I know that at some level, he's simply doing his job.
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And in beginning to see how messed up that actually is.
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I reached out to former staff and students at St. Tom's. Of the ones who agreed to talk,
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they said that after Alana died, there was a deafening silence. They don't recall anything
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officially organized by St. Tom's to acknowledge Alana's passing. But the parish did make a public
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statement. Now we did reach out to the St. Tom's Aquinas Church in Boulder, the church
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Chen attended. They released the following statement reading in part. She will be greatly missed,
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striving to be a community who welcomes anyone and everyone as Jesus did. We reject any practices
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that are manipulative and forced. We believe that every person is a beloved child of God and should
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be treated with dignity, mercy and reverence. As I listen to this statement from St. Tom's,
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I'm feeling frustrated. It strikes me as an empty thoughts and prayers kind of statement.
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And its denial of practices that are manipulative and coerced seems like a semantic cover.
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The controversy over the role of the church in Alana's death spreads locally,
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and the Archdiocese of Denver spokesperson doubles down with a stronger statement.
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In an interview with the Denver Post, he says, quote,
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Never once was conversion therapy practiced. It was never discussed with her or suggested to her.
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It's not something we do. In a statement from the Archdiocese, they say,
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if someone wants to better understand the church's teaching on marriage and sexual
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relations that they lovingly try to share with them, what Catholics believe is God's design
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for sexuality. They say, quote, it is not conversion therapy to teach about the beauty of a life
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of chastity. Now, normally I would rush to defend the church from unfair media attacks.
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I once wrote a letter to the editor defending the church's moral authority in the face of relativism,
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but I just don't know what to make of these official statements. They feel heartbreakingly dishonest.
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Never once was conversion therapy practiced. From the pages and pages of Alana's own words,
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to the therapists and church ministries Alana sought out over the years,
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that taught her to view her sexuality as a pathology that needed to be repaired.
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I don't know how this denial makes any sense. Alana, like me, sought out these therapies and
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ministries precisely to follow the church. We took the advice of our spiritual mentors,
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pursuing all of the resources they directed us to. How can they say that none of this ever happened?
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After Mass, I wait in the pews, and as the church clears out, I knock on the door of the
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priest's change room. Father Peter answers, surprised, and I introduce myself. He's cordial, but
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curt. He makes it clear that he's not willing to talk about Alana. She was a beloved member of
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this community, he says, adding, my previous public statement is so deeply true, I cannot add anymore.
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Father Peter and I have mutual friends, and I learn from them that after Alana's death,
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the church building was vandalized, so I understand his weariness, but I'm still disappointed.
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Joyce tells me that to this day, Father Peter has not reached out to her family.
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I ask her about the other priest, Alana's spiritual director, Father Dave.
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Oh, he has a blog that's really sick. He has a picture of Alana in Rwanda because she did a trip
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with him in this group, and he says her new age mother is the one that wouldn't let her go to church,
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and that's why this happened. I look up the blog posts she's referring to. They were written
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after Alana's passing. Father Dave is pretty defensive, posting the letter that Alana wrote,
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advocating for him while he was being moved around. He alleges that, quote,
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Alana's friends would all say today that the closer she was to the Catholic church,
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the better was her mental health, end quote. But according to Joy, Alana's oldest friend,
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this is patently false, and it contradicts Alana's own statement to the Denver Post.
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I think the church's council is what led me to be hospitalized. I was feeling so much shame that I
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was comforted by the thought of hurting myself. He continues, quote, Alana was never abandoned by her
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Catholic clergy and religious sisters, but rather she was abruptly cut off from the lifeline she
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chose for herself and loved, the Catholic church, by the interventions of her own mother. Wow,
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he's shifting the blame, omitting key details about Alana's life. But we know the truth from Alana's
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own words. When I went to treatment, Rachel, Father Peter, Father Dave and the sisters were
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the only ones that I trusted. They were the only ones that stayed by my side. But as I became more
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true to myself, I guess they didn't see the need to mentor me. I feel misled and abandoned.
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We know that it was Alana's own choice to step away from the church in order to protect her mental
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health. We even have that publicly on the record. Father Dave's opinion seems woefully
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uninformed by Alana's own words. But shouldn't he know better? In their last text exchange, two years
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before her death, when he warned her about speaking against the church, Alana told him,
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I don't speak against the church because I have pride. I speak against the church because I have
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real and deep pain. I'm distancing myself from the church right now because I don't feel safe or
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loved or accepted. Father Dave may not have realized that one day their texts would be uncovered
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and directly contradict his public statements. Looking at his blog now, it strikes me what great
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lengths he's going to to define the narrative around Alana's death. Unlike Father Peter, who stayed
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out of the public eye, Father Dave has gone out of his way to try to make himself look better,
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by again pitting Alana against her own mother. I reached out to Father Dave for comment, but he didn't
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respond. I can see now why all of this has been so maddening for Joyce, the fervent denials from
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St. Tom's, the brazen blaming by Father Dave, all of this on top of the unspeakable grief of
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losing her daughter. It all feels so unjust, and I wish I could help Joyce find some sort of closure.
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But how do you hold a person, or better yet, an institution accountable in this situation?
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An institution that so many of us, like Joyce did, have willingly entrusted our families to.
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What do you say to religious leaders who operate in this self-regulated space, whose words and
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actions behind closed doors and private texts often fall in this gray area between spirituality and
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mental health? Who is responsible when something goes wrong? It's almost as if by design, no one is.
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The church can stay in its own protected spiritual lane and claim that it leaves the mental health
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to the therapists. But what if the line between religious practice and mental health is a lot more
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blurry than that? Theology can have real consequences on how we see ourselves. Are we ready for that
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conversation? I get in the car and start driving. My head spinning, processing all of this.
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I see the rushing water of the Boulder Creek and decide to pull over.
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I feel comforted knowing she was here. I begin to think about the years after I stopped trying to change my sexual orientation.
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Day after day, I lived in a kind of quiet shame. No one inside or outside the church understood what it was like to fail, the spectacularly.
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So I wanted to become invisible. My vocation was shot. I'd let everyone down, God, the church, myself.
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And the reason was that I thought I was simply too broken to be healed, too disordered, a lost cause.
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But what drove me closest to despair, the kind that Alana often writes about, was not the failure or even
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the sense of brokenness. I could find a way to live with that. What I couldn't live with was the thought that
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God, my father, my only friend had somehow forgotten me. That I had been abandoned by him, cast aside
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without a place in his kingdom. I was back in the school yard, all alone, back in this woman pool, left
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and drowned. Today, however, fresh from hearing about the church's public handling of Alana's death, it's not despair that I feel.
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It's anger. There's just no excuse for the way they've treated Joyce and her family. The pious
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dismissals, the sanctimonious PR, the public blaming, the abandonment cuts so deep.
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I stripped down and weighed into the creek. I feel my chest tightened and my pulse race, and I look up at
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the cloudless sky. I just want to say, fuck you. Fuck you for all of this, for all the trust I placed in
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you and your church, that same church that now denies doing the very things it told us would save us,
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would heal us. I'm done defending you. I'm done with your platitudes like how good things come to
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those who are patient or how suffering purifies the soul for your love. If inflicting suffering is how
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you make your people love you, that's a fucked up way of loving someone. I plunge into the creek,
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letting the cold, rushing water return me to my body, push me along the rocks, and engulf me
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before I come up for air.
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But the humility in knowing that life is this classroom that we should never graduate from is what
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is going to keep you growing, and that's all that matters.
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World Mental Health Day is around the corner, and on my podcast,
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Jess Heel, with Dr. J, I dive into what it really means to care for your mind, body, and spirit.
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From breaking generational patterns to building emotional capacity, healing is a journey,
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and wholeness is the destination. I'm going to walk away feeling very healed and killing like,
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yes, I'm going to continue my healing journey, and I'm going to get some keys from you.
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Listen to Jess Heel, with Dr. J from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeart
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Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.
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As I travel back home, I'm anxious about seeing my cousin Vivian at the funeral.
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I don't know how it'll go, and I start to regret ever sending her that email.
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The way things were before, the status quo suddenly feels safer.
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I'm my parents' house this afternoon, I'm lingering with my dad at the kitchen table.
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We're talking about all sorts of things. My time in Colorado, the egregious San Francisco rent,
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and when the conversation takes on a more reflective tone about our family,
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I ask him if I can turn on the mic. My dad, who's a shy and private person, agrees.
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He's in the middle of telling me about his own dad.
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I remember he works really hard about that, because he worked for those department store.
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And when we eat dinner, he's not always to be with us, with eating dinners.
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My dad grew up in a time when his dad taught him how to ride a bike by dropping him off at the
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park to figure it out himself. So when it came time for my dad to teach me, he put in a little more
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effort, but not as much as he would have liked. Ever since our time in therapy together,
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the topic of bonding has often come up between us.
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I ask him what he remembers from those years I was in conversion therapy.
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When you told me, there's one thing. Why I am being gay,
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one of the reasons that you found was because the parent or father,
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especially father, you know, in short time, I'm angry and things like that, you miss the father's
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figure. And so as a result, to become gay, how did that make you feel?
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It makes me feel hurt, no, not really hurt, but unhappy, right? I'm not happy about that.
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But I want to amend. That's the thing. If that is something I did wrong, I want to amend that
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relationship. Yeah. I was looking for solution. What did you think would be a solution?
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I think at that time, mainly the main solution would be I want to create a father figure to you.
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I remember St Mary in Maccorderly Church. There's a statue, Joseph and holding Jesus.
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I remember pray a number of times for that.
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I mean, I thought that too. I mean, I think I was giving you a lot of this information.
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Right. Right. You work very hard trying to change, trying to overcome,
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that's the kind of thing that I really, I can sense, you know, how hard you work on this.
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And I feel kind of helpless, you know, what we can do at this end, you know, kind of helpless.
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Did you think that I would eventually achieve the outcome of no longer being gay?
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Yeah. No, I wouldn't say eventually you achieve your goal because I really think that there is
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something you're born with it. Yeah. You you you you saw that? We thought that. I thought that.
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Really? I thought that. Yeah. I thought. Yeah. Because we never talked about this. I don't know.
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No, we didn't we didn't talk about about this. That's right. But like, there was a point when you were
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thinking, oh, maybe this is not going to work. But I still felt like I still want to try.
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But you never told me that you thought that. Right. Why not? I didn't want to destroy your whole.
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Eventually, I think me and mom, I feel that we already accept. Yeah. This is this is it. This is you.
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You know, that is an especially to me, I I start to learn more, explore more and read more.
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Especially that read recently, you know, pop banded it when it was Cardinal. He said that being gay is intrinsically
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disease or something disorder disorder. Yeah. That's right. Right. And that trip me is kind of, oh, no, you know. So in
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in such a way that totally wrong, how could you know, somebody say something and still being to me,
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just damning the, you know, gay people. So that I totally not not agree with. I was still in a,
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in a more of my previous, how I understand religion. Oh, and it's just to pray.
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Pray and pray. Oh, one day, something will change. But as time moves on, I learn more. I have different
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concepts or religion and how we live our religious life. Pray, yeah, pray is not as words, you know, by words. No.
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I have to do something else. You know, don't just pray. No.
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All those years I was in conversion therapy, my dad wasn't just praying. He was busy doing something else.
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Changing.
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I met my grandmother's funeral early with my parents and I stare down at my grandma's eyelashes. Her
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glasses are smudged. So I wiped them clean with the crumpled tissue in my pocket.
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Suddenly, everyone starts to arrive, my sister, my brother-in-law, my nephews, and then my cousin,
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Vivian. She greets my parents and then walks over to me, looks me directly in the eye, and gives me
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a big hug. Let's talk later, she says. The service is brief and our families take turns bowing to my
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grandmother a final gesture of respect. After the burial at the reception lunch in, Vivian and I
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are seated next to each other. She'd read my letter and she wants me to know that she accepts my
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apology, that this was all she ever wanted. We catch up about what we've each been up to over
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the past decade, mostly ignoring everyone else at the table. As the meal ends, she wants to continue
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the conversation, and days later, Vivian invites me to her house where I'm sitting at her kitchen
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table in total disbelief that we're having this heart to heart. Tell me about, because you'd mention
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before you started recording, you had read my letter and how that made you feel. What was it like
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reading it? No, I was not expecting anything. My sister had actually asked me, she's like, how are you
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going to act at the funeral? Are you going to, and I was like, I'm a normal adult human, I will be
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courteous. It's not about me. It'll be perfectly fine. So when I got your email, it was a Sunday evening,
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and I was reading it, and I thought to myself, this must have taken him so long to write.
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To be able to own up and say, I was wrong is already a very difficult thing when it's
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enane. You think about arguments with siblings, the stupidest, tiniest little things, and being able
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to say, I was wrong, I am wrong. These are tremendously infrequently sequenced words.
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So I think for me, I know and I understood right away how much it would have taken to get to that
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point. And as I made my way through it, it just made me so sad. Like I was very saddened at
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some of the things that you shared around your journey, around how it wasn't just about acceptance,
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but rather trying to see if there were other ways of changing who you were. You had spent all this time,
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and air go money on trying to change who you were. It just made me really sad that you spent so many
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years struggling through that alone. Vivian recalls what it was like as kids. I just remember like,
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you were like the older brother that like I didn't have, right? You have like that huge room.
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And like all your CDs, you know, it just it just had hurt so much because it was like we grew up as
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kids, like what changed all of a sudden that we were no longer these kids that played together and
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enjoyed hanging out together and running around that this got in the way of everything, you know what I
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mean? So yeah, she tells me about why she's chosen to talk to me again.
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By the time I had finished reading your note, like there was no question in my mind that that
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that was how I was going to respond. It was like I had read it and I was like I accepted like
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no questions asked like no like no conditions like we'd been apart for so long that like
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I have no interest in continuing this. So I was just really thankful that like you know and very
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appreciative that you admitted that yeah you were wrong. As we talk I still feel ashamed for the
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ways I chose self-preservation over supporting her all those years ago and I tell her about how
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for so long I've thought of myself as a hypocrite but not the dishonest kind, the kind of hypocrite
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who genuinely believed what he was doing. For the record I don't think hypocrite is the correct
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word because I agree with you. I think that you genuinely believed what you were saying at this
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time. Yeah. And even reading your note I didn't think of you as being hypocritical. I think it was
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deep deeply seated insecurities around oneself trying to figure out who you were internalized homophobia and
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like just you know dealing with a lot of self-discovery but truthfully like we're part of the same
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community and it's an incredibly lonely journey to kind of get to this point especially like I know
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it's different for everyone and you can't just turn to everyone and be like accept yourself like
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there's so many things that go into it. I know that sexuality is a huge part of one's identity and
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for people to be able to live out and open is very important but there's many other aspects to who
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you are and even accepting who you are on many levels sexuality aside it takes a lot and it's a
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journey to get there. How do you feel today? I mean there's the immediate impact of like
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this week and I feel extremely relieved and lighter and happier and I don't feel like I have to
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pretend to be someone else in front of you in order to represent some ideal that you know I'm
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still struggling to live up to like it just doesn't that pressure is no longer there. I feel like
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it's a more authentic I'm more authentic in my relationships and you know even in our conversation
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like I'm not there's no agenda like I'm not trying to get you to believe anything else or whatever
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right yeah. It's not be gay, get me to be gay, pick a lane. She closes with this. Listen I'm always here
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like like really like I I don't want it to be like okay like we got to do this like soft ramp up
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period if you're just like nope gonna hit you with a question or like gonna like can we talk like
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I'm totally down for it I just we've lost enough time. Thank you. Yeah.
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I never thought this could happen all these years of separation and hurt our families torn apart
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but now a new chance to reconnect to restart to rebuild it's kind of a miracle and I couldn't
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have started down this road to reconciliation were not for a Lana.
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I make my way back to Colorado it's a windy day and I'm at CU Boulder for a good old-fashioned
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and alumniversist student ultimate Frisbee game but this isn't just a regular match it's a memorial
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game for a Lana. In the past few years Lana's childhood friends have organized all sorts of things
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from a trail run around Davidson Mesa known as Run for a Lana to an annual USA Ultimate tournament
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known as the Lana. Lana's friends remember her infectious encouragement and it's great to see a
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whole new generation of players learn about her but there's also a sadness that maybe after
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this next cohort graduates so too might a Lana's memory fade. Thank you all for doing this this
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means so much to our family and friends. A lot of this was like one of the best parts of a Lana's
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pretty much her life. Should we do like a like a big like asphalt like I don't know what's
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like. I believe in myself. I believe in myself. That night I check in with Joyce
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even with all that's happening in memory of a Lana she's still filled with so much regret.
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I have one friends say to me if you knew you know now you would have done everything that week when
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you have and I'm like yeah but it doesn't help because I shouldn't know like I shouldn't
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like suicide series my cousin type I suicide. I look at her face and I'm like Simon I can't
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think of her not being here.
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Joyce's grief has not led up she still texts me in the middle of the night but I'm starting to see
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small glimmers of change in her. She's speaking out more publicly about a Lana's life and legacy
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in hopes that just one person can learn from it that it might inspire some change. Sometimes I don't
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know if our friendship is too triggering for her and unwelcome reminder of her loss. We wouldn't
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have met if not for a Lana's death but Joyce tells me that she sees so much good in the podcast
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that she senses a Lana's hand in it and that maybe I'm being changed and healed by making it.
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I feel my heart squeeze and I hold back my emotions. As I say goodbye to her for the night I step
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outside and breathe in the late summer air. It smells like honey suckle and the stars are out.
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It's been nearly three years since I've learned of a Lana and the ways in which her life
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have intertwined with mine haven't been lost on me. Who could have imagined that I'd be here in
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Colorado reading her most intimate thoughts retracing her life and revisiting the most shameful parts of my own.
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Lately my prayers to God have been angry and bitter and often I don't even bother talking to him
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but tonight I'm inspired to pray to someone who I know will understand.
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Dear Lana, I don't know what to say. I don't know why you did this, why you left, why any of this happened.
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But I know that because of you nothing is the same. I can look ahead and start to let go.
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Let go of all the hate towards myself. Let go of the shame. Why? Because I can see how bright you were,
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how deeply you loved and gave and trusted. So I can look at myself and begin to believe that maybe
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I'm not the damaged person I thought I was and that God hasn't answered my prayers because
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he can't heal what isn't broken.
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But the humility in knowing that life is this classroom that we should never graduate from is what
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is going to keep you growing and that's all that matters. World Mental Health Day is around the corner
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and on my podcast, Jess Heel with Dr. J, I dive into what it really means to care for your mind,
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body and spirit from breaking generational patterns to building emotional capacity. Healing is a
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journey and wholeness is the destination. I'm going to walk away feeling very healed and feeling like
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yes, I'm going to continue my healing journey and I'm going to get some keys from you.
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Listen to Jess Heel with Dr. J from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeart Radio app,
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Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcast. The internet is something we make not just
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something that happens to us. I'm Bridget Todd host of the Tekken Culture Podcast,
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there are no girls on the internet. There are no girls on the internet is not just about tech.
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It's about culture and policy and art and expression and how we as humans exist and fit with one
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another. In our new season, I'm talking to people like Emil Dash, an OG entrepreneur and writer
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who refuses to be cynical about the internet. I love tech. I've been a nerd my whole life,
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but it does have to be for something like it's not just for its own sake. It's a fascinating
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exploration about the power of the internet for both good and bad. They use WhatsApp to get the
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price of rice at the market that is often 12 hours away. They're not going to be like we don't
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like the terms of service therefore we're not trading rice this season. It's an inspiring story
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that focuses on people as the core building blocks of the internet. Platforms exist because of
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the regular people on them and I think that's a real important story to keep repeating. I created
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there are no girls on the internet because the future belongs to all of us. New episodes every
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Tuesday and Friday listen to there are no girls on the internet on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcast
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or wherever you get your podcast. The place you're right up against the fence behind us.
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Okay I need you guys to evacuate the area okay. I'm getting ready to evacuate but I can't get my
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animal with them with me. Mass evacuations in suburban Denver. Tire broke out south of bulge or
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just after 11 this morning. Superior and Lewisville residents racing home from work to save their
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pets and keep sakes. I'm out of ice door and I don't know where to go. Oh, towards Denver.
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Evacuate now! On December 30th 2021 I get a text from Joyce. A wildfire broke out in Boulder
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and high winds are spreading it rapidly throughout the area. The Chens Family House is located
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smack in the middle of the fire's path and over 37,000 residents have to evacuate the area
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immediately. Sophia, Alana's younger sister, rushes home to grab her stuff.
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We're driving up to our house that we can barely see and the whole front lawns on fire
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and I run out the car with dust hitting me in the face and all these smoke and ash and
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I pause on our front steps and just see this fire so close to me. I just looked at my house. I was
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like it looked like I was in a completely different place even though I knew I was at home.
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Since then nearly 600 homes have been burned to think of the many families tonight who have
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lost everything lost all their belongings lost their homes. The Chens would lose their house,
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Alana's childhood home in the Marshall Fire. The very house that her sister,
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Carissa, brought me to. It would burn to its foundations with nothing structural,
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left standing. Sophia remembers the emotions from that day. I just was really really upset because
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I was trying to cherish those memories of my sister and I had all these things of hers.
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Like when she first died I would rummage through a room and like try and find answers.
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I would try and find writings for her to meet that saying that she loves me or just writing about me.
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I'd like to hear that so officially but yeah it was we wanted to keep her room to remember her and
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it was like another thing which was taken away. What was left of her was just completely stripped away.
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It's almost too much lost to bear her sister and now this. The room they preserved to remember
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Alana with her clothes and artwork and books was being engulfed by uncontrollable flames and
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Sophia had precisely one minute to find something from it to save. But I ran up right to my room,
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I grabbed a box of the stuff I had taken from college and some pictures and then I ran into my
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sister's room and I didn't know what to grab because there were so many things in there but I grabbed
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a poem she had written a little note and then I ran out. You happen to have the poem? I do.
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It's actually quite beautiful because I kind of associate rainbows a lot with my sister
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and I kept saying I was like I'm getting I feel like I'm getting signs from my sister. I feel like
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my sister sent me double rainbows for some reason but it goes I am mortally wounded, deeply unstable but
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I stand between the Lord and the shining sun, his promise of mercy and the twofold rainbow,
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the solid ground and the shifting sands, the holy wind, the dark clouds, the lightning strikes,
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the thunder, the rain, the grassy plain and the velvet foot hills, the sun shines from far
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beyond the mountains to well past my house, surely I will fall tonight but I will rise again tomorrow.
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I am deeply unstable and mortally wounded yet I stand between the Lord and his holy covenant
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I am deeply troubled and completely unstable but I am held by his gaze, he slumber is not.
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Now I wake to the shadows of his face, tomorrow that shadow will fade into a brilliant light
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and the shadow will never return.
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You've been that brilliant light for me Alana, mystically guiding us on this journey.
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They were right about you all along. You are a saint.
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I will follow you, follow you wherever you may go.
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There is an notion to deal.
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Dear Alana was created, hosted and written by me, Simon Kent Fang and is a production of
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a music by Lorie Polisky.
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It was produced by Lorie Polisky and edited by myself and Lorie.
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Executive producers are myself, Donald Albright and Payne Lindsay.
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Our supervising producer is Tracy Leeds Kaplan,
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additional production by Matthew Pusty.
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Original music written and recorded and produced by Lorie Polisky.
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Additional music by Makeup and Vanity said.
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Story editing by Donald Albright and Lorie Polisky.
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And mixing and mastering by Cooper Skinner.
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Sales and distribution by I Heart Media.
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Our voice actor is Alana Rabore and our credit song, I will follow you, is by Toulouse.
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And I remember I added it to my like New York playlist on Spotify because we used to watch
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Sister Act all the time as kids and they sing that song like the choir sings that song
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and we used to sing the song by Texita.
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October 7th, 2016.
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Alana, you should listen to the song, I will follow you by Toulouse.
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I love it. It's so pretty.
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I will follow you.
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Never since you touched my hand.
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Special thanks to Orn Rosenbaum, Shelby Shankman and the team at UTA,
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the Nord Group, Sean Gordon and Back Media and Marketing.
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Show notes and resources can be found on our website, deeralana.com.
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If you enjoyed the show, please take time to follow it, rate and review.
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Your feedback is greatly appreciated.
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So many people supported me in the two-year journey of making this show,
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but I couldn't have done it without my producer, composer and friend, Lorie.
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This truly was a labor of love.
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Thank you to Emily Shaw, Tracy Leeds Kaplan and Shannon Minter for your day one support.
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To Bill Glenn, Father James Allison, and Eunice Park for your mentorship.
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Jonathan Galey, Josh and Brooke Harrison, Lucas and Avon Fernandez,
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David and Carrie Clark for hosting me at your homes.
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Matt Polis for your studio, Soundspace and Boulder.
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To my friends, Danny and Newton, Christopher Dowling and my impact team,
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and all those who gave feedback along the way.
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Thank you to Donald for believing in this story and for all the late nights.
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To my entire family, mom, dad, Margaret Kevin,
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forgetting me the tape recorder for my birthday, and of course Vivian.
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Finally, my deepest gratitude to the Chen and Calvaux family,
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Carissa, Sophia, Sammy, Mike, and to Joyce.
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Thank you for trusting me with Alana's story.
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Mountain so high, it could keep, keep me away.
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Away from alone.
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Welcome to Decoding Women's Health.
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I'm Dr. Elizabeth Pointer, Chair of Women's Health and Gynecology at the
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Adriah Health Institute in New York City. I'll be talking to top researchers and clinicians
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and bringing vital information about midlife women's health directly to you.
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A hundred percent of women go through menopause, even if it's natural why should we suffer through it?
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Listen to Decoding Women's Health with Dr. Elizabeth Pointer on the iHeartRadio app,
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Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Oh, October alone, we're bringing you the horror.
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Book it, book it, book it, we kick enough this month with some of my best horror games to keep
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you terrified. Then we'll be talking about our favorite horror and Halloween movies,
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and figuring out why black people always offer it.
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And it's the return of Tony's horror shows,
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Dye Quest Written and narrated by yours truly. We'll also be doing a full episode
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reading with commentary. And we'll camp it off with a horror movie battle royale.
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Open your free iHeartRadio app in search trap nurse podcast and listen now.
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It may look different, but native culture is alive. My name is Nicole Garcia,
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and on Burn Sage Burn Bridges, we aimed to explore that culture.
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Somewhere along the way it turned into this full-fledged award-winning comic shop.
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That's Dr. Lee Francis IV, who opened the first native comic book shop.
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Explore his story along with many other native stories on the show,
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Burn Sage Burn Bridges. Listen to Burn Sage Burn Bridges on the iHeartRadio app,
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Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart podcast.