Speaker 1: The following episode contains references to suicide. If you or
Speaker 1: someone you know is in need of help, please contact
Speaker 1: the Suicide in Crisis Lifeline by dialing nine eight eight.
Speaker 1: Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2: I slept through an early morning text for my mom,
Speaker 2: and when I wake up and check my phone, I
Speaker 2: find her message. Your grandmother passed away this morning around
Speaker 2: three am. I call my mom immediately. My grandma, who's
Speaker 2: ninety four, hasn't been in good health for a while now.
Speaker 2: We were close, but as her health declined, our monthly
Speaker 2: phone calls tapered off, and whenever I'd visit, we'd often
Speaker 2: just sit together in silence. But this news still comes
Speaker 2: as a shock to me. The funeral is set forward
Speaker 2: two and a half weeks from now. As I think
Speaker 2: about the trip home, my stomach tightens into a knot.
Speaker 2: Everyone in my family will be at the funeral, including
Speaker 2: my cousin Vivian. Years ago, when she walked out of
Speaker 2: that car after coming out to me, we stopped talking.
Speaker 2: I have no idea where she's at today. I don't
Speaker 2: even know what city she lives in, and there's a
Speaker 2: version of the funeral where I could show up and
Speaker 2: greet her politely and then never talk to her again,
Speaker 2: continuing the streak. But I think about Alana and there's
Speaker 2: absolutely no way that I can let that happen. A
Speaker 2: friend suggests I write to Vivian before the funeral. She
Speaker 2: could read my message or ignore it, but it would
Speaker 2: still give her an opportunity to know what's on my heart.
Speaker 2: So over the course of a few days, I draft
Speaker 2: this email. Dear Vivian, I know it's been a while
Speaker 2: since we've spoken. You may not have any interest to
Speaker 2: hear from me, which I totally understand, but I hope
Speaker 2: you'll give me a chance, as it contains a lot
Speaker 2: of things that I've been afraid to tell you and
Speaker 2: which I think you deserve to hear first. I'm gay.
Speaker 2: It's taken me the last twenty years to come to
Speaker 2: terms with this, the first fifteen of which were spent
Speaker 2: running away by seeking desperately to get rid of it.
Speaker 2: Everything I told you that time in the car about
Speaker 2: finding counseling for your sexuality, I pursued myself. I thought
Speaker 2: that by working hard enough God would take this away.
Speaker 2: It didn't happen, and I'm still working through the shame
Speaker 2: and self hatred these efforts perpetuated. I'm sad that at
Speaker 2: a young age we both had to suffer in isolation. Second,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry. I'm sorry for not having the courage to
Speaker 2: be honest about my own struggle. I'm sorry for the
Speaker 2: ways my words alienated you and made you feel so
Speaker 2: alone and misunderstood. I'm sorry for trying to change you.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry for my pride that kept me from saying
Speaker 2: any of these things earlier. And I understand if they're
Speaker 2: all too little, too late. You know, I've often thought
Speaker 2: about how much courage it took for you to come
Speaker 2: out at the age and time you did. I certainly
Speaker 2: didn't have this courage, and at one point I thought
Speaker 2: you were making a big mistake or moral concession. It's
Speaker 2: been humbling to recognize how wrong I was, and so
Speaker 2: I ask for your forgiveness. We may never be as
Speaker 2: close as when we were kids, but I hope at
Speaker 2: some point we could restart things. I'm always curious what
Speaker 2: you're up to. Hope this doesn't make everything more awkward
Speaker 2: next week, looking forward to seeing you from Tenderfoot TV.
Speaker 2: I'm Simon kent Fung, and this is Dear Alana. Part eight.
Speaker 2: The Saint. It's been over two years since Alana's death,
Speaker 2: and on a Sunday afternoon, a group of around thirty
Speaker 2: people holding red roses is gathered in front of Saint
Speaker 2: Thom's Alana's church. Joyce stands at the front of the group,
Speaker 2: next to a smiling portrait of Alana. They're here today
Speaker 2: to conduct a peaceful vigil, a demonstration of sorts in
Speaker 2: memory of Alana. This was Joyce's idea.
Speaker 3: Yeah, singing, singing for us.
Speaker 2: The crowd is a mix of Joyce's friends and family,
Speaker 2: supporters from out Boulder County, the LGBTQ organization that helped
Speaker 2: organize the event, and other locals who've joined the vigil.
Speaker 2: It's the first time that Joyce has done anything this public,
Speaker 2: and although the turnout is small, it's enough to bring
Speaker 2: out the local news who asked Joyce to talk about
Speaker 2: why she's here.
Speaker 3: I just wanted to let them know we know, and
Speaker 3: you know that if other people come up to us,
Speaker 3: it's students. It's usually young people, ca students. I want
Speaker 3: them to know that this is wrong. You can love
Speaker 3: God and be any religion. If you're LGBTQ or anybody,
Speaker 3: that this is a bad teaching force someone to die
Speaker 3: by suicide.
Speaker 2: Joyce is hopeful that she'll be able to speak to
Speaker 2: students as they show up for the six pm Mass,
Speaker 2: but the vigil is largely ignored, except for a middle
Speaker 2: aged member of Saint Tom's who watches from the door
Speaker 2: with his arms crossed. Students brush by Joyce without saying
Speaker 2: a word, and only one person stops to talk, sharing
Speaker 2: the recent loss of her own brother to suicide. As
Speaker 2: the vigil concludes with a few more songs and the
Speaker 2: loss of Joyce's friends have gone home, the man who's
Speaker 2: been watching from the top of the stairs picks up
Speaker 2: the roses left from the vigil and throws them in
Speaker 2: the garbage. I knew at some point I'd be right here,
Speaker 2: standing inside Saint Tom's with the goal of talking to
Speaker 2: Father Peter. The sunlight filtered through the small windows along
Speaker 2: the side aisles, making the church extra cozy. I take
Speaker 2: a seat at the back as the pews fill up
Speaker 2: with students. They're all nodding along to Father Peter, who's
Speaker 2: reflecting on the Gospel reading where Jesus brings over a
Speaker 2: child and tells his apostles that whoever wishes to be greatest,
Speaker 2: must be the least, the first, must be the last.
Speaker 2: I'm kind of mesmerized listening to him. He's goofy and
Speaker 2: self deprecating and personal. He talks about how we need
Speaker 2: wisdom to encounter each other truthfully. He builds to a
Speaker 2: passionate crescendo, saying, I want someone to encounter me like
Speaker 2: Jesus does. Not their idea of me, not their anger
Speaker 2: about me. I want someone to encounter me. And I
Speaker 2: find myself nodding along, but I feel mixed up inside.
Speaker 2: This hipster priest who seems to be doing such great
Speaker 2: work for the church in the community, who's doing exactly
Speaker 2: what I've always wished I was doing with my life.
Speaker 2: This is the same guy whose church, according to the
Speaker 2: Denver Post, hosted Alana's Catholic therapist, the therapist who Alana
Speaker 2: said made things worse. It was Father Peter who insisted
Speaker 2: that Alana applied to the Living Waters program that claims
Speaker 2: to heal the sexually and relationally broken, the one she
Speaker 2: couldn't afford. It was under Father Peter's watch that those
Speaker 2: books filled with conversion therapy theories were stocked in the
Speaker 2: Saint Thom's library and yet I know that at some
Speaker 2: level he's simply doing his job, and I'm beginning to
Speaker 2: see how messed up that actually is. I reached out
Speaker 2: to former staff and students at Saint Thom's. Of the
Speaker 2: ones who agreed to talk, they said that after Alana died,
Speaker 2: there was a deafening silence. They don't recall anything officially
Speaker 2: organized by Saint Thom's to acknowledge Alana's passing, but the
Speaker 2: parish did make a public statement.
Speaker 4: Now, he did reach out to the Saint Thomas Aquinas
Speaker 4: Church in Boulder, the church chen attendant. They released the
Speaker 4: following statement, reading, in part, she will be greatly missed.
Speaker 4: Striving to be a community who welcomes anyone and everyone,
Speaker 4: as Jesus did, we reject any practices that are manipulative
Speaker 4: and forced. We believe that every person is a beloved
Speaker 4: child of God and should be treated with dignity, mercy,
Speaker 4: and reverence.
Speaker 2: As I listened to this statement from Saint Thom's, I'm
Speaker 2: feeling frustrated. It strikes me as an empty thoughts and
Speaker 2: prayers kind of statement, and its denial of practices that
Speaker 2: are manipulative and coerced seems like a semantic cover. The
Speaker 2: controversy over the role of the church in Alana's death
Speaker 2: spreads locally, and the Archdiocese of Denver spokesperson doubles down
Speaker 2: with a stronger statement. In an interview with the Denver Post,
Speaker 2: he says, quote, never once was conversion therapy practiced. It
Speaker 2: was never discussed with her or suggested to her. It's
Speaker 2: not something we do.
Speaker 5: In a statement from the archdiocese, they say if someone
Speaker 5: wants to better understand the church's teaching on marriage and
Speaker 5: sexual relations, that they lovingly try to share with them
Speaker 5: what Catholics believe is God's design for sexuality. They say, quote,
Speaker 5: it is not conversion therapy to teach about the beauty
Speaker 5: of a life of chastity.
Speaker 2: Now, normally I would rush to defend the church from
Speaker 2: unfair media attacks. I once wrote a letter to the
Speaker 2: editor defending the church's moral authority in the face of relativism.
Speaker 2: But I just don't know what to make of these
Speaker 2: official statements. They feel heartbreakingly dishonest. Never once was conversion
Speaker 2: therapy practiced. From the pages and pages of Alana's own
Speaker 2: words to the therapists and church ministries, Alana sought out
Speaker 2: over the years that taught her to view her sexuality
Speaker 2: as a pathology that needed to be repaired. I don't
Speaker 2: know how this denial makes any sense. Alana, like me,
Speaker 2: sought out these therapies and ministries precisely to follow the church.
Speaker 2: We took the advice of our spiritual mentors, pursuing all
Speaker 2: of the resources they directed us to. How can they
Speaker 2: say that none of this ever happened. After Mass, I
Speaker 2: wait in the pews, and as the church clears out,
Speaker 2: I knock on the door of the priest change room.
Speaker 2: Father Peter answers, surprised, and I introduce myself. He's cordial,
Speaker 2: but Kurt, he makes it clear that he's not willing
Speaker 2: to talk about Alana. She was a beloved member of
Speaker 2: this community, he says, adding my previous public statement is
Speaker 2: so deeply true, I cannot add any more. Father Peter
Speaker 2: and I have mutual friends, and I learned from them
Speaker 2: that after Alana's death, the church building was vandalized. So
Speaker 2: I understand his weariness, but I'm still disappointed. Joyce tells
Speaker 2: me that to this day, Father Peter has not reached
Speaker 2: out to her family. I ask her about the other priest,
Speaker 2: Alana's spiritual director. Father Dave.
Speaker 3: Oh, he has a blog that's really sick. He has
Speaker 3: a picture of Alana in Rwanda because she did a
Speaker 3: trip with him in this group, and he says her
Speaker 3: new age mother is the one that wouldn't let her
Speaker 3: go to church, and that's why this happened.
Speaker 2: I look up the blog posts she's referring to. They
Speaker 2: were written after Alana's passing. Father. Dave is pretty defensive,
Speaker 2: posting the letter that Alana wrote advocating for him while
Speaker 2: he was being moved around. He alleges that quote Alana's
Speaker 2: friends would all say today that the closer she was
Speaker 2: to the Catholic Church, the better was her mental health
Speaker 2: end quote. But according to Joy, Alana's oldest friend, this
Speaker 2: is patently false and it contradicts Alana's own statement to
Speaker 2: the Denver Post. I think the.
Speaker 6: Church's council is what led me to be hospitalized. I
Speaker 6: was feeling so much shame that I was comforted by
Speaker 6: the thought of hurting myself.
Speaker 2: He continues, quote Alana was never abandoned by her Catholic
Speaker 2: clergy and religious sisters, but rather she was abruptly cut
Speaker 2: off from the lifeline she chose for herself and loved
Speaker 2: the Catholic Church by the interventions of her own mother. Wow,
Speaker 2: he's shifting the blame omitting key details about Alana's life.
Speaker 2: But we know the truth from Milana's own words.
Speaker 6: When I went to treatment, Rachel, father Peter, Father Dave,
Speaker 6: and the sisters were the only ones that I trusted.
Speaker 6: They were the only ones that stayed by my side.
Speaker 2: But as I.
Speaker 6: Became more true to myself, I guess they didn't see
Speaker 6: the need to mentor me. I feel misled and abandoned.
Speaker 2: We know that it was Alana's own choice to step
Speaker 2: away from the church in order to protect her mental health.
Speaker 2: We even have that publicly on the record. Father Dave's
Speaker 2: opinion seems woefully uninformed by Alana's own words, but shouldn't
Speaker 2: he know better. In their last text exchange two years
Speaker 2: before her death, when he warned her about speaking against
Speaker 2: the church, Alana told.
Speaker 6: Him, I don't speak against the church because I have pride.
Speaker 6: I speak against the church because I have real and
Speaker 6: deep pain. I'm distancing myself from the church right now
Speaker 6: because I don't feel safe, or loved or accepted.
Speaker 2: Father Dave may not have realized that one day their
Speaker 2: texts would be uncovered and directly contradict his public statements.
Speaker 2: Looking at his blog now, it strikes me what great
Speaker 2: lengths he's going to to define the narrative around Alana's death.
Speaker 2: Unlike Father Peter, who stayed out of the public eye,
Speaker 2: Father Dave has gone out of his way to try
Speaker 2: to make himself look better by again pitting Alana against
Speaker 2: her own mother. I reached out to Father Dave for comment,
Speaker 2: but he didn't respond. I can see now why all
Speaker 2: of this has been so maddening for Joyce. The furtive
Speaker 2: denials from Saint Thom's, the brazen blaming by Father Dave,
Speaker 2: all of this on top of the unspeakable grief of
Speaker 2: losing her daughter. It all feels so unjust, and I
Speaker 2: wish I could help Joyce find some sort of closure.
Speaker 2: But how do you hold a person, or, better yet,
Speaker 2: an institution accountable in the situation, an institution that so
Speaker 2: many of us, like Joyce did, have willingly entrusted our
Speaker 2: families to. What do you say to religious leaders who
Speaker 2: operate in this self regulated space, whose words and actions
Speaker 2: behind closed doors in private texts often fall in this
Speaker 2: gray area between spirituality and mental health. Who is responsible
Speaker 2: when something goes wrong. It's almost as if by design
Speaker 2: no one is the church can stay in its own
Speaker 2: protected spiritual lane and claim that it leaves the mental
Speaker 2: health to the therapists. But what if the line between
Speaker 2: religious practice and mental health is a lot more worry
Speaker 2: than that? Theology can have real consequences on how we
Speaker 2: see ourselves? Are we ready for that conversation? I get
Speaker 2: in the car and start driving, my head spinning processing
Speaker 2: all of this, I see the rushing water of the
Speaker 2: Boulder Creek and decide to pull over. Alana would often
Speaker 2: hammock here with me and their friends, and I feel
Speaker 2: comforted knowing she was here. I begin to think about
Speaker 2: the years after I stopped trying to change my sexual orientation.
Speaker 2: Day after day I lived in a kind of quiet shame.
Speaker 2: No one inside or outside the church understood what it
Speaker 2: was like to fail the spectacularly, so I wanted to
Speaker 2: become invisible. My vocation was shot. I'd let everyone down, God,
Speaker 2: the Church, myself, And the reason was that I thought
Speaker 2: I was simply too broken to be healed, too disordered,
Speaker 2: a lost cause. But what drove me closest to despair,
Speaker 2: the kind that Alana often writes about, was not the failure,
Speaker 2: or even the sense of brokenness. I could find a
Speaker 2: way to live with that. What I couldn't live with
Speaker 2: was the thought that God, my father, my only friend,
Speaker 2: had somehow forgotten me, that I had been abandoned by him,
Speaker 2: cast aside, without a place in his kingdom. I was
Speaker 2: back in the schoolyard, all alone, back in the swimming pool,
Speaker 2: left to drown. Today, however, fresh from hearing about the
Speaker 2: church's public handling of Allana's death, it's not despair that
Speaker 2: I feel. It's anger. There's just no excuse for the
Speaker 2: way they've treated Joyce and her family. The pious dismissals,
Speaker 2: the sanctimonious pr the public blaming, the abandonment cuts so
Speaker 2: deep I strip down and wade into the creek. I
Speaker 2: feel my chest tighten and my pulse race, and I
Speaker 2: look up at the cloudless sky. I just want to say,
Speaker 2: fuck you, Fuck you for all of this, for all
Speaker 2: the trust I placed in you and your church, that
Speaker 2: same church that now denies doing the very things it
Speaker 2: told us would save us, would heal us. I'm done
Speaker 2: defending you. I'm done with your platitudes like how good
Speaker 2: things come to those who are patient, or how suffering
Speaker 2: purifies the soul for your love. If inflicting suffering is
Speaker 2: how you make your people love you, that's a fucked
Speaker 2: up way of loving someone. I plunge into the creek,
Speaker 2: letting the cold, rushing water return me to my body,
Speaker 2: push me along the rocks, and engulf me before I
Speaker 2: come up for air. As I travel back home, I'm
Speaker 2: anxious about seeing my cousin Vivian at the funeral. I
Speaker 2: don't know how it'll go, and I start to regret
Speaker 2: ever sending her that email. The way things were before
Speaker 2: the status quo suddenly feels safer. At my parents' house
Speaker 2: this afternoon, I'm lingering with my dad at the kitchen table.
Speaker 2: We're talking about all sorts of things, my time in Colorado,
Speaker 2: the egregious San Francisco rent and when the conversation takes
Speaker 2: on a more reflective tone about our family, I ask
Speaker 2: him if I can turn on the mic. My dad,
Speaker 2: who's a shy and private person, agrees. He's in the
Speaker 2: middle of telling me about his own dad.
Speaker 7: I remember he worked really hard, my dad, because he
Speaker 7: worked for those departments store. And when we eat this,
Speaker 7: you know he's not always to you, not to be
Speaker 7: with us with dating diners.
Speaker 2: My dad grew up in a time when his dad
Speaker 2: taught him how to ride a bike by dropping him
Speaker 2: off at the park to figure it out himself. So
Speaker 2: when it came time for my dad to teach me,
Speaker 2: he put in a little more effort, but not as
Speaker 2: much as he would have liked. Ever since our time
Speaker 2: in therapy together, the topic of bonding has often come
Speaker 2: up between us. I ask him what he remembers from
Speaker 2: those years I was in conversion therapy.
Speaker 7: When you told me there's one thing why I am
Speaker 7: being gay. One of the reasons that you found was
Speaker 7: because the parent of father, especially father's you know, I'm
Speaker 7: short temper, I'm angry and things like that. You miss
Speaker 7: the father's figure and so as a result to become gay.
Speaker 8: How did that make you feel?
Speaker 7: It make me feel a little bit. I feel hurt, No,
Speaker 7: not really hurt, but unhappy right, and I'm not happy
Speaker 7: about that. But I want to amend That's the thing.
Speaker 7: If that is something I did wrong, I want to
Speaker 7: amend that relationship. Yeah, I was looking for a solution.
Speaker 8: What what did you think would be a solution.
Speaker 7: I think at that time, mainly the main solution would
Speaker 7: be I want to create a father figure to you.
Speaker 7: I remember saying Mary. In my Greate church, there's a
Speaker 7: statueh Joseph and holding Jesus. I remember pray quite a
Speaker 7: number of times for that.
Speaker 8: And I mean I thought that too, right, I mean
Speaker 8: I think I was giving you a lot of this information.
Speaker 7: Right right, mm hmm. You work very hard trying to change,
Speaker 7: trying to overcome. That's the kind of thing that I
Speaker 7: really I can sense you know how hard you work
Speaker 7: on this, and I feel kind of helpless. You know
Speaker 7: what we can do at this end, you know, kind
Speaker 7: of helpless.
Speaker 8: Did you think that I would eventually achieve the outcome.
Speaker 7: Of no longer no longer being gay? No, I wouldn't
Speaker 7: say eventually you achieve your goal, because I really think
Speaker 7: that there is something you're born with it.
Speaker 9: M hmm.
Speaker 7: Yeah, we thought that. I thought that. I thought that. Yeah,
Speaker 7: I thought that.
Speaker 8: Yeah, because we never talked about this, I don't know.
Speaker 7: No, we didn't learn him talk about about this, that's right.
Speaker 8: But like there was a point when you were thinking, oh,
Speaker 8: maybe this is not gonna work, but I still felt
Speaker 8: like I still want to try.
Speaker 7: Me But you never told me that you thought that, right,
Speaker 7: why not. I didn't want to destroy your whole. Eventually,
Speaker 7: I think me and Mom I feel that we already
Speaker 7: accept yeah, this is this is it, this is you.
Speaker 7: You know that is and especially to me, I I
Speaker 7: start to to learn more, explore more, and read more,
Speaker 7: especially that really recently, you know pub Benedict when it
Speaker 7: was cardinal, he said that being gay is intrinsically diseased
Speaker 7: or something disorder. Yeah, that's right, right, and that tripped
Speaker 7: me is kind of oh no, you know so in
Speaker 7: such a way that totally wrong. How could you know
Speaker 7: somebody say something and still being to me just damning
Speaker 7: the you know, gay people, so that I totally not
Speaker 7: not agree with. I was still in a in a
Speaker 7: mode of my previous how I understand religion? M oh oh,
Speaker 7: I need just to pray, pray and pray. Oh, one
Speaker 7: day some would change. But as time moves on, I
Speaker 7: learned more that I have different concepts religion and how
Speaker 7: we live our religious life. Pray, yeah, pray. It's not
Speaker 7: just words. You're not by words. No, I had to
Speaker 7: do something else, you know, that's just praying.
Speaker 2: No, all those years I was in conversion therapy, my
Speaker 2: dad wasn't just praying he was busy doing something else changing.
Speaker 3: I would like to leave my everybody have forward to
Speaker 3: say in five of the b and waiting for us
Speaker 3: to cross the casket, and then.
Speaker 7: We will move out a cascade to the culture.
Speaker 2: I met my grandmother's funeral early with my parents, and
Speaker 2: I stare down at my grandma's eyelashes. Her glasses are smudged,
Speaker 2: so I wipe them clean with the crumpled tissue in
Speaker 2: my pocket. Suddenly everyone starts to arrive, my sister, my
Speaker 2: brother in law, my nephews, and then my cousin, Vivian.
Speaker 2: She greets my parents and then walks over to me,
Speaker 2: looks me directly in the eye, and gives me a
Speaker 2: big hug. Let's talk later. She says, the service is brief,
Speaker 2: and our families take turns bowing to my grandmother a
Speaker 2: final gesture of respect. After the burial, at the reception luncheon,
Speaker 2: Vivian and I are seated next to each other. She'd
Speaker 2: read my letter and she wants me to know that
Speaker 2: she accepts my apology, that this was all she ever wanted.
Speaker 2: We catch up about what we've each been up to
Speaker 2: over the past decade, mostly ignoring everyone else at the table.
Speaker 2: As the meal ends, she wants to continue the conversation,
Speaker 2: and days later, Vivian invites me to her house, where
Speaker 2: I'm sitting at her kitchen table in total disbelief that
Speaker 2: we're having this heart to heart. Tell me about because
Speaker 2: you'd mentioned before we start recording, like you had read
Speaker 2: my letter and how that made you feel? Like, what
Speaker 2: was it like reading it?
Speaker 10: No, not expecting anything. My sister had actually asked me,
Speaker 10: She's like, how are you gonna act at the funeral?
Speaker 11: Like are you gonna?
Speaker 10: And I was like, I'm a normal adult human. I
Speaker 10: will be courteous. It's not about me, like, it'll be
Speaker 10: perfectly fine. So when I got your your email, it
Speaker 10: was a Sunday evening and I was reading it, and
Speaker 10: I thought to myself, this must have taken him so
Speaker 10: long to write. To be able to own up and
Speaker 10: say like I was wrong is already a very difficult thing.
Speaker 10: When it's inane. You think about like arguments with siblings,
Speaker 10: like the stupidest, tiniest little things, and being able to
Speaker 10: say like I was wrong, I am wrong. These are
Speaker 10: tremendously infrequently sequenced words. So I think, for me, I know,
Speaker 10: and I understood right away how much it would have
Speaker 10: taken to get to the point, and as I made
Speaker 10: my way through it, it just made me so sad.
Speaker 10: Like I was very saddened at some of the things
Speaker 10: that you shared around your journey around how it wasn't
Speaker 10: just about acceptance but rather trying to see if there
Speaker 10: were other ways of changing who you were. You had
Speaker 10: spent all this time and ergo money on trying to
Speaker 10: change who you were. It just made me really sad
Speaker 10: that you spent so many years struggling through that alone.
Speaker 2: Vivian recalls what it was like as kids.
Speaker 10: I just remember like you were like the older brother
Speaker 10: that like I didn't have, right you had like that
Speaker 10: that huge room and like all your CDs. You know,
Speaker 10: it was just it just had hurt so much because
Speaker 10: it was like we grew up as kids, Like what
Speaker 10: changed all of a sudden that we were no longer
Speaker 10: these kids that played together and enjoyed hanging out together
Speaker 10: and running around. That this got in the way of everything,
Speaker 10: you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, she tells me about why she's chosen to
Speaker 2: talk to me again.
Speaker 10: By the time I had finished reading your note, like
Speaker 10: there was no question in my mind that that was
Speaker 10: how I was going to respond. It was like I
Speaker 10: had read it, and I was like, I accept it,
Speaker 10: like no questions asked, like no, like no conditions, Like
Speaker 10: we've been apart for so long that like I have
Speaker 10: no interest in continuing this. So I was just really
Speaker 10: thankful that, like, you know, and very appreciative that you
Speaker 10: admitted that, yeah.
Speaker 7: You were wrong.
Speaker 2: As we talk, I still feel ashamed for the ways
Speaker 2: I chose self preservation over supporting her all those years ago,
Speaker 2: and I tell her about how for so long I've
Speaker 2: thought of myself as a hypocrite, but not the dishonest kind,
Speaker 2: the kind of hypocrite who genuinely believed what he was doing.
Speaker 10: For the record, I don't think hypocrite is the correct word,
Speaker 10: because I agree with you. I think that you genuinely
Speaker 10: believe what you were saying at the time. Yeah, and
Speaker 10: even reading your note, I didn't think of you as
Speaker 10: being hypocritical. I think it was deeply seated insecurities around oneself,
Speaker 10: trying to figure out who you were, internalized homophobia and
Speaker 10: like just you know, dealing with a lot of self discovery.
Speaker 10: But truthfully, like we're part of the same community and
Speaker 10: it's an incredibly lonely journey to kind of get to
Speaker 10: this point, especially like I know it's different for everyone,
Speaker 10: and you can't just turn to everyone and be like
Speaker 10: accept yourself, Like, there's so many things that go into it.
Speaker 10: I know that sexuality is a huge part of one's
Speaker 10: identity and for people to be able to live out
Speaker 10: and open is very important, but there's many other aspects
Speaker 10: to who you are and even accepting who you are
Speaker 10: on many levels sexuality aside. It takes a lot and
Speaker 10: it's a journey to get there.
Speaker 7: How do you feel today?
Speaker 2: I mean, there's the immediate impact of like this week,
Speaker 2: and I feel extremely relieved and lighter and happier. And
Speaker 2: I don't feel like I have to pretend to be
Speaker 2: someone else in front of you in order to represent
Speaker 2: some ideal that you know, I'm still struggling to live
Speaker 2: up to. Like it just doesn't that pressure is no
Speaker 2: longer there. I feel like it's a more authentic. I'm
Speaker 2: more authentic in my relationships and you know, even in
Speaker 2: our conversation, like I'm not there's no agenda, Like I'm
Speaker 2: not trying to get you to believe anything else or whatever.
Speaker 10: Right, Yeah, get me to not be gay, get me
Speaker 10: to be gay, pick away. She closes with this, Listen,
Speaker 10: I'm always here like you like really like I I
Speaker 10: don't want it to be like okay, like we got
Speaker 10: to do this like soft ramp up period. If you're
Speaker 10: just like Nope'm gonna hit you with a question or
Speaker 10: like gotta like can we talk like I'm totally down
Speaker 10: for it.
Speaker 7: I just we've lost enough time.
Speaker 9: Thank you. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I never thought this could happen. All these years of
Speaker 2: separation and hurt, our families torn apart, but now a
Speaker 2: new chance to reconnect, to restart, to rebuild. It's kind
Speaker 2: of a miracle. And I couldn't have started down this
Speaker 2: road to reconciliation were it not for Alana. I make
Speaker 2: my way back to Colorado. It's a windy day and
Speaker 2: I'm at Cup for a good old fashioned Alumni versus
Speaker 2: Student Ultimate frisbee game. But this isn't just a regular match.
Speaker 2: It's a memorial game for Alana. In the past few years,
Speaker 2: Alana's childhood friends have organized all sorts of things, from
Speaker 2: a trail run around Davidson Mesa known as Run for Alana,
Speaker 2: to an annual USA Ultimate tournament known as the Elana.
Speaker 2: Alana's friends remember her infectious encouragement, and it's great to
Speaker 2: see a whole new generation of players learn about her.
Speaker 2: But there's also a sadness that maybe after this next
Speaker 2: cohort graduates, so too, might Alana's memory fade.
Speaker 3: Thank you all for doing this. This means so much
Speaker 3: to our family and friends Alana. This was like one
Speaker 3: of the best parts of Alana's pretty.
Speaker 12: Much her life.
Speaker 6: Yeah, should we do like a like a big like
Speaker 6: ass paddle like I don't know really myself.
Speaker 9: I believe in myself.
Speaker 11: I believe in myself.
Speaker 2: I believe this tea I myself.
Speaker 9: Why why.
Speaker 2: That night I check in with Joyce. Even with all
Speaker 2: that's happening in memory of Alana, she's still filled with
Speaker 2: so much regret.
Speaker 12: I have one friend say to me, if you knew
Speaker 12: what you know now, you would have done everything that week,
Speaker 12: wouldn't you have? And I'm like, yeah, but it doesn't
Speaker 12: help because I shouldn't known like I should have known
Speaker 12: like suicide series, my cousin died by suicide. Yes, I
Speaker 12: look at her face and I'm excited.
Speaker 9: I can't think of her not being here. It's too.
Speaker 2: Joyce's grief has not let up. She still texts me
Speaker 2: in the middle of the night, but I'm starting to
Speaker 2: see small glimmers of change in her. She's speaking out
Speaker 2: more publicly about Alana's life and legacy and hopes that
Speaker 2: just one person can learn from it, that it might
Speaker 2: inspire some change. Sometimes I don't know if our friendship
Speaker 2: is too triggering for her, an unwelcome reminder of her loss.
Speaker 2: We wouldn't have met if not for Alana's death. But
Speaker 2: Joyce tells me that she sees so much good in
Speaker 2: the podcast that she senses Alana's hand in it, and
Speaker 2: that maybe I'm being changed and healed by making it.
Speaker 2: I feel my heart squeeze, and I hold back my
Speaker 2: emotions as I say goodbye to her for the night.
Speaker 2: I step outside and breathe in the late summer air.
Speaker 2: It smells like honeysuckle, and the stars are out. It's
Speaker 2: been nearly three years since I've learned of Alana, and
Speaker 2: the ways in which her life have twined with mine
Speaker 2: haven't been lost on me. Who could have imagined that
Speaker 2: I'd be here in Colorado reading her most intimate thoughts,
Speaker 2: retracing her life, and revisiting the most shameful parts of
Speaker 2: my own. Lately, my prayers to God have been angry
Speaker 2: and bitter, and often I don't even bother talking to him.
Speaker 2: But tonight I'm inspired to pray to someone who I
Speaker 2: know will understand. Dear Alana, I don't know what to say.
Speaker 2: I don't know why you did this, why you left,
Speaker 2: why any of this happened. But I know that because
Speaker 2: of you, nothing is the same. I can look ahead
Speaker 2: and start to let go, let go of all the
Speaker 2: hate towards myself, let go of the shame. Why because
Speaker 2: I can see how bright you were, how deeply you
Speaker 2: loved and gave and trusted. So I can look at
Speaker 2: myself and begin to believe that maybe I'm not the
Speaker 2: damaged person I thought I was, and that God hasn't
Speaker 2: answered my prayers because he can't heal what isn't broken.
Speaker 7: The playing to right up against the fence behind us.
Speaker 2: Okay, I need you guys to evacuate the arey.
Speaker 3: Okay, I'm getting rid of Baig, but I can't get
Speaker 3: my animal.
Speaker 11: With them with me.
Speaker 10: Nass evacuations in suburban Demo.
Speaker 4: Fire broke out south of Bulger just after eleven this morning.
Speaker 2: And Louisville residents racing home from work to save their
Speaker 2: pets and keepsakes.
Speaker 8: I don't know where to go out towards Denver.
Speaker 9: Evacuate now.
Speaker 2: On December thirtieth, twenty twenty one, I get a text
Speaker 2: from Joyce. A wildfire broke out in Boulder and high
Speaker 2: winds are spreading it rapidly throughout the area. The Chen's
Speaker 2: family house is located smack in the middle of the
Speaker 2: fire's path, and over thirty seven thousand residents have to
Speaker 2: evacuate the area immediately. Sophia Alana's younger sister rushes home
Speaker 2: to grab her stuff.
Speaker 11: And we're driving up to her house that we can
Speaker 11: barely see, and the whole front lawns on fire. And
Speaker 11: I run out the car with dust like hitting me
Speaker 11: in the face and all these smoke and ash, and
Speaker 11: I pause on our front steps and just see this
Speaker 11: like fire so close to me. I just looked at
Speaker 11: my house. I was like, it looked like I was
Speaker 11: in a completely different place, even though I knew I
Speaker 11: was at home.
Speaker 5: Since then, nearly six hundred homes have been burned.
Speaker 8: To think of the many families tonight who have lost everything, walked,
Speaker 8: all their belongings, locked their home.
Speaker 2: The Chens would lose their house, Alana's childhood home in
Speaker 2: the Marshall fire, the very house that her sister Carrissa
Speaker 2: brought me to. It would burn to its foundations, with
Speaker 2: nothing structural left standing. Sophia, I remembers the emotions from
Speaker 2: that day.
Speaker 11: I just was really really upset because I was trying
Speaker 11: to cherish those memories of my sister, and I had
Speaker 11: all these things of hers, Like when she first died.
Speaker 11: I would rum into their own room and try and
Speaker 11: find answers, try and find the writings for her to
Speaker 11: me that like saying that she loves me, like just
Speaker 11: writing about me. I like to hear that selfishly. But yeah,
Speaker 11: it was we wanted to keep her room to remember,
Speaker 11: and it was like another thing was just taken away.
Speaker 11: What was left of her was just completely stripped away.
Speaker 2: It's almost too much loss to bear her sister. And
Speaker 2: now this the room they preserve to remember Alana, with
Speaker 2: her clothes and artwork and books, was being engulfed by
Speaker 2: uncontrollable flames, and Sophia had precisely one minute to find
Speaker 2: something from it to save.
Speaker 11: But I ran up right to my room. I grabbed
Speaker 11: a box of the stuff I had taken from college
Speaker 11: and some pictures, and then I ran into my sister's
Speaker 11: room and I didn't know what to grab because there
Speaker 11: were so many things in there, but I grabbed a
Speaker 11: poem she had written a little note, and then I
Speaker 11: ran out, Do.
Speaker 2: You happen to have the poeme? I do.
Speaker 13: Yeah, It's actually quite beautiful because I kind of associate
Speaker 13: rainbows a lot with my sister, and I kept saying,
Speaker 13: I was like, I feel like I'm getting signs from
Speaker 13: my sister.
Speaker 11: I feel like my sister is sending me double rainbows
Speaker 11: for some reason.
Speaker 9: But it goes.
Speaker 11: I am mortally wounded, deeply unstable, but I stand between
Speaker 11: the Lord and the shining sun, his promise of mercy,
Speaker 11: and the twofold rainbow, the solid ground and the shifting sands,
Speaker 11: the holy wind, the dark clouds, the lightning strikes, the thunder, the.
Speaker 2: Rain, the grassy plain and the velvet foothills. The sun
Speaker 2: shines from far beyond the mountains to well past my house.
Speaker 2: Surely I will fall tonight, but I will rise again tomorrow.
Speaker 2: I am deeply unstable and mortally wounded, yet I stand
Speaker 2: between the Lord and his holy covenant. I'm deeply troubled
Speaker 2: and completely unstable. But I'm held by his gaze. He
Speaker 2: slumbers not now, I wake to the shadows of his face.
Speaker 2: Tomorrow that shadow will fade into a brilliant light, and
Speaker 2: the shadow will never return. You've been that brilliant light
Speaker 2: for me, Alana, mystically guiding us on this journey. They
Speaker 2: were right about you all along. You are a saint.
Speaker 9: I will follow you, follow you wherever you might go.
Speaker 1: There is.
Speaker 2: Dear Alana was created, hosted, and written by me Simon
Speaker 2: kent Fung and is a production of Tenderfoot TV in
Speaker 2: association with a Slept Audio in the Center for Independent Documentary.
Speaker 2: It was produced by Lori Pulisky and edited by myself
Speaker 2: and Laurie. Executive producers are myself, Donald Albright, and Payne Lindsay.
Speaker 2: Our supervising producer is Tracy leeds Kaplan. Additional production by
Speaker 2: Matthew Pusti. Original music, written, recorded, and produced by Lori Pulisky.
Speaker 2: Additional music by Makeup and Vanity, Set story editing by
Speaker 2: Donald Albright and Lauri Polisky, and mixing and mastering by
Speaker 2: Cooper Skinner. Sales and distribution by iHeartMedia. Our voice actor
Speaker 2: is Alana Rabor and our credit song I Will Follow
Speaker 2: You is by to Loose Yeah.
Speaker 11: I remember I added it to my New York playlist
Speaker 11: on Spotify because we used to watch Sister Act all
Speaker 11: the time as kids and they sing that song like
Speaker 11: the choir sings that song, and we.
Speaker 9: Used to sing the song. Bye.
Speaker 11: Textit to her October seventh, twenty sixteen. Alana, you should
Speaker 11: listen to the song I Will Follow You by Toulouse.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 11: It's so pretty.
Speaker 9: I will follow you ever since you've touched. Thank you.
Speaker 2: Special thanks to Orren Rosenbaum, Shelby Shankman and the team
Speaker 2: at UTA, the Nord Group, Sean Gordon and backmedia and marketing.
Speaker 2: Show notes and resources can be found on our website,
Speaker 2: Dearlana dot com. If you enjoyed the show, please take
Speaker 2: time to follow it, rate and review. Your feedback is
Speaker 2: greatly appreciated. So many people supported me in the two
Speaker 2: year journey of making this show, but I couldn't have
Speaker 2: done it without my producer, composer, and friend, Laurie. This
Speaker 2: truly was a labor of love. Thank you to Emily Shaw,
Speaker 2: Tracy elits Kaplan and Shannon Minter for your day one support.
Speaker 2: To Bill Glenn, Father, James Allison and Eunice Park for
Speaker 2: your mentorship, Jonathan Gaily, Josh and Brooke, Harrison, Lucas and
Speaker 2: Avon Fernandez, David and Carrie Clark for hosting me at
Speaker 2: your homes, Matt Polus for your studio, SoundSpace and Boulder.
Speaker 2: To my friends Danny and Newton, Christopher Dowling and my
Speaker 2: Impact team, and all those who gave feedback along the way.
Speaker 2: Thank you to Donald for believing in this story and
Speaker 2: for all the late nights. To my entire family, Mom, Dad, Margaret,
Speaker 2: Kevin forgetting me the tape recorder for my birthday, and
Speaker 2: of course Vivian. Finally, my deepest gratitude to the Chen
Speaker 2: and Calvo family, Carrisa, Sophia, Sammy, Mike, and to Joyce.
Speaker 2: Thank you for trusting me with Alana story.
Speaker 9: There is in notion Sudi Monton so high keep me
Speaker 9: away away from lone