Lindsey Culli and Tyler Miller

00:03 Hi, I'm Lindsay Kelly. I am 30.

00:09 8:38 it is Saturday. May 8th, 2021. I am in Baltimore, Maryland and my conversation partner is Tyler Miller and he is my brother.

00:24 Tyler. Miller, I am 34 years old. Today's date is Saturday May 8th. I too am in Baltimore Maryland. My the name of my conversation partner. She's my sister.

00:39 I don't think I'm 38 time. I wanted to start.

00:56 And ask you generally he's going to Jump Right In. Do you remember where you were when you found out that dad died?

01:08 I was in Camp, ondessonk. I remember when he went into the hospital. They have summer camp, so the whole touch, but they called me and have a phone call with Mom. And this is 1989.

01:32 Call me in and it was very weird to have a phone call at summer camp, but I did and Mom.

01:42 It's just precaution and don't worry, and I kind of knew things were bad. But I have no car and no Viet, you know, there was a means for me to do. And then two days later, they pulled me out of archery practice. And yeah, I almost feel bad for the camp and they didn't tell me anything at that point.

02:24 Old Explorer tried to put it in drive and then just put it. Do you think you knew when you're playing Yahtzee with some random person? I was at Jackie Loehmann's randomly her sleepover birthday party. It was the same thing, though. We're supposed to go to Six Flags. Next day. We spend the night and we were going to get off at

03:11 5 a.m. Or whatever to drive to st. Louis.

03:15 And,

03:17 We are watching Silence of the Lambs the night before I had one does but you know, there's that scene where like Clarisse is standing over the casket of her. Father. I cannot it's not the creepiness of Silence of the Lambs. It's not what's his face. He was in on Monk and his deep gravelly voice is like that. The casket, the part that supposed to be like human that seen for me. I cannot watch it with the lotion on the skin and when he probably was passing with almost the same kind of fiery actually. And so, you had Uncle Chris. I had an George hsieh 2nd. I start walking up to Jackie's sidewalk at, you know,

04:09 Half an hour before we're supposed to leave. Nobody called she just came to get me. And and you and again, I think she also was driving the Explorer at the time. It was the same thing. Like she couldn't even put it in July. We just had to sit there and cry for a good long while.

04:29 Yeah, I think losing dad hurt, a lot of people. Yeah. Yeah. He was one of those people that just like so many people.

04:41 He impacted and not just not doing anything. Extraordinary didn't win. Nobel Peace prizes. He didn't, you know, cure cancer. But like one of those really decent human beings and I think there are still many people who have impacted just by being. We was

05:02 Which is a good segue. My other question for you was, what is your best memory of Dad?

05:12 Ocean Prime you for that, but I like the way.

05:35 I can't go to a gas station and silly little bags of Hershey Kisses like five or even know who actually buy a whole bar like the same price, but he would always have one that always station.

06:01 So, that is so I can eat those.

06:06 You know, being being in Theodosia with that.

06:12 Is that what we got to like, drive a boat, you know, obviously didn't drive a car but traffic is kind of. Where is the father-son relationship? Obviously always there. But it kind of, do you think? I think that's so interesting because that's the thing that we miss out, when your dad dies when your 12 is that, you never get to experience that. Man, that now? Oh goodness. Yeah. So end. And even like, yes, honey, I guess what that is. Always kind of Senator. I like power tools of Motor Vehicles.

07:12 Let's find out. How does that work? I don't know.

07:20 The worst that could happen.

07:24 You may have a scar to get story.

07:33 So what would you ask Dad then if he were here today?

07:41 Are you proud?

07:45 I feel like you do lose some guys when you're young like that.

07:49 You kind of he was still like a demigod to me. I'm like nothing's going to happen to me all of that. But I was human and you feel very fallible and you feel very vulnerable. And so I kind of work my entire life.

08:26 Takes a part of me away. Like I want to be that the baseball card, not the human and so,

08:36 In a way. Hearing him say that. Yeah, you've done. All right.

08:47 Not, you know, professionally successful or personally like Dad you seem to have that capacity to impact people wherever they are whatever they're doing. Not in again. You haven't wanted but it's not like the big giant thing or even. I mean, and it's actually is not today.

09:22 But I think it's just like, who you are and that ethos of dad, definitely got a heavy dose of that. You you all, so, well.

09:37 You also have his last there is you have is laugh and you chew or look that way that you do, you do that. That is also that.

09:55 Yeah, I mean, yeah, so, how do you think Dad would want to be remembered?

10:14 Does he deserve to be remembered or how does he want to be remembered?

10:22 What we talked about how he deserves, I think you. How would, how do you think he would want to hear?

10:27 You know, I think.

10:31 And maybe, maybe this is a connection to Dad. But there's no, you couldn't you couldn't tell him. He was great enough cuz it it would never get to.

10:44 Popular music, early kind of popular across Generations without them. I really appreciate that now is a parent to because like there are some some of my parents friends and they do they get them and then they walk away and then it's like what do I do with them now? And dad was like, no. I'm a cancer swords or whatever through

11:26 Yeah.

11:33 I was thinking about the question myself and I

11:39 I think that.

11:41 I think I lied about Sean is probably the way he went to for just being a person who cares about other people and impacts of the people in small ways, large ways ways that still reverberate Through the Ages.

12:00 I have a feeling that the the Venn diagram of how he would want to be, and how he is remembered, are almost to Circle that burial.

12:14 Because it just feels so, like, Dad is distant, you know, and there's this, like, there's this emblem of him. That is like a very physical real because it's so far away. Have you ever visited?

12:38 And it makes me sad cuz it's like he's so much bigger than I thought about this stuff too because there's so many people who have passed not even during the season and the way that we are now able to grieve and mourn is so starkly different right now, exhume funerals are terrible and I sort of always resented the idea of a funeral because it just feels like like that, like this moment that you're supposed to come to appreciate.

13:19 What proper ceremony on grieving and Collective, grieving how that can actually help even if it's therapy for awhile or whatever. But it, it's just, there's something about that, like, sort of experience as a community that I really, really feel for people who have lost loved ones right now and haven't been able to, to do that to watch the parade of mourners. It's either pay their respects to, you know, one of the things Dad I think would have loved about his own funeral is how long that procession was and how many traffic lights? He always always always complained about the traffic lights in our town extinct. Like honestly, that's one of my favorite memories and just listening to him.

14:19 How many traffic lights, like his last grandma? Got him over 10 minutes?

14:31 Fitting send-off.

14:34 Is there something you know about dad that you think no one else knows?

14:40 A hard question.

14:48 I mean to me he was as part of his charm as it was always about pretty predictable open book and like the best way and I don't think he had any opinions that he expressed to me that he wouldn't Express though anyone.

15:11 Mine is like media-related. He loved that movie that nobody else even knows what it is, but I talked about it all the time. It's chanted Forest like some Croatian. Yeah, and honestly, how do you not remember this? Freak me out as a kid, and now I watch parts of it on, you know, YouTube or whatever. I don't even know how he came there. May have been marijuana states, but I remember him loving that. I don't know anybody else. I just remember to be a chess.

16:02 Yeah, I'm sure you would talk to anybody like nobody. Yeah, and he like he taught me to kind of phone that, you know, only what you love.

16:23 You know, I'm cool and I like fantasy story. Don't let anyone tell you.

16:31 The Dark Crystal Last Unicorn. All the darker. Jim Henson stuff. I really appreciate that. I think it really messed me up cuz I was six at the time but I know I'm right. I feel like part of my my Flair for stabbed is not a writer, but part of my Flair for storytelling, comes from those early things that he introduced me to Jim Henson. I think he felt

17:10 How are you different now than you were before? We lost dad. Very complex question. Obviously, I think I was very sensitive kid, and I was very worried about, oh my God.

17:46 And I think I mean, part of it was very distant at first. It was a very negative thing, but I think

18:13 I think as the years passed even just, yeah, maybe ten years past. I really could have came to channel more of Dad's energy as a proxy for him. At least amongst the friends that knew him. You know what I mean? And well, she's doing either.

18:57 Shut up, and my friend group, all kind of came around and helped me through that. I mean

19:08 The world that kind of if I was in over my head on a house project. I would have four people there helping me with it.

19:17 Really stepped up and kind of recognize that.

19:20 I think helped me get over some of those kind of character flaws that I had early. The sensitivity four-year from group in particular. I just remember a lot of those boys are now. Men, obviously, but I know, but I know Dad has like a relationships with each of them, but I think it's just different cuz you were, you know, what? Mom was a picture of who died was, and how

20:13 Yeah, your friends mourned him not in the usual. Like I'm also feeling this love. Yeah.

20:38 He loved everyone and everything, but he was like off jumping off a railing or something.

20:48 I don't know. He really loved ya.

20:53 Yeah, yeah.

20:57 Yeah, that's polka similar language. I mean a lot of emotional and social he really was and caring about it. I feel like I can enter in and speak at levels of people really did. Mine is more like myself.

21:30 Do you know, where is his? How can I, you know?

21:41 Pretty dad. Dad had a way. Yes, like Dad had a way of kind of crafting the way he spoke to people and approach people differently based on.

21:56 I'll never forget and George, you know, after his passing is going through his paperwork and she's obviously

22:30 I always wanted to help people and it was a tight-knit community and his business was such that it was helping other small businesses kind of get get going. And so I was like, okay, that's fine. You know. Yeah, it's just unfortunate that the long-term I was like he was everything was really out of his time in Springfield.

23:15 All of that investment in that work that he put in and it didn't ever get to take off the way. It's really kind of, you know, it wasn't that long before his passing, but they moved locations, right?

23:35 I remember the time I had a girl, I had a crush on.

23:49 How do you have a message to help you build your office and hang corrugated sheet, metal steam at school. Like I wish I could have been, right.

24:27 Right. Well, I mean location now because I realize

24:45 I'm sure you knew that. Do you currently have any Traditions to honor? Dad, you do anything that's like

24:55 Three. Heineken.

25:05 I don't either. It's disgusting, but every once in awhile, I just need to

25:15 You don't even if I'm going to have a job for that reason, I don't do that somehow.

25:53 Thinking about how things are put together is, it's all reflecting on things. I learned from Dad and it's all get my energy. There's a lot of hard days, but just thinking about that's what we used to do for fun. I forgot that we were in Washington Park. One dead, are there beavers?

26:34 But I'll never forget. You know, he kind of he and Uncle Chris came over. We were expecting.

26:44 We have to take the salt out and instead they went and found the biggest tree and carried over.

26:58 It was like a nod to, you know, him being like you have to do this with me all the time and I support it.

27:06 Yeah, I heard our family tradition. So my birthday July 1st, dad was July 2nd. So I've been reduced my kids to what our family tradition was was we always get a really good ice cream cake from Baskin-Robbins for my birthday. And then Dad would like we don't need a second cake for me. But to make it special eat ice cream cake for breakfast on July 2nd, to this day, still at we do my kids think it's the greatest thing. They also think they should get ice cream cake for breakfast after they're over. The thing is that the second was also a birthday. So to make this not just like he hears.

27:51 So we still do that to my kids, think it's Sunday.

27:58 Do you have like an image of dad that persist for you? And you talked a little bit about this about the idea of like?

28:11 Where you see him in the working in the Bible?

28:21 As a kid whose cars are so loud and you feel, so I was always a little scared Rumble, in your likes chest, and they're going so fast. If it's like, you could never react wrong.

28:42 But he would go that race and like a kid just be right up on the fence and it was the excitement you there with him. While he always had his inner child is very close to it. I think a lot of adults recognize this that we sort of very that, that's weird.

29:24 I wonder why it was always there and it was very close to the surface. Even when he was super professional super, you know.

29:43 Yeah, with it kind of adult human but he still had that ability to like but that's what you speak in all of things and my for Dad and persist for me is the funny one. Now because I

30:07 I married a man who has the same thing only with you. I'm sure he did it with me too. But I remember watching him do it with you like you were upset or you with me know, something you were supposed to do or whatever. And he would get down looking at you either level to talk about whatever it was and my husband does the same thing with our middle child, who is also a sensitive little boy. Like there are so many shades of Tyler and that's one of the sticking point in my mind. I never knew that so.

31:07 Tell me what's going on. Talk to me about your thought process.

31:20 Yeah, it's a really profound thing to dad being an adult, not as an adult communicate better. Even though, they're not here is but there's something about his spirit and his heart. That was very, you know.

31:42 I felt like a friend to children not in a creepy way in older. I get the more jaded I become and I wish that were around to help me like something out of it. Do you have any other stories you want to share that Dad?

32:12 I know.

32:17 I think for me was even interesting to is like, how mom took on some of that role as she knew, how to, like, deal with blood. I don't care if it hurts, give me some medicine and that's not fair to her because you could just be the day-to-day, like, like she really is soft. And it's funny because my wife. She sees mom as what I think we saw that, you know, is this like fun, loving life of the party?

33:14 And that is not the mom. I grew up with necessarily not, not like, it was bad, but it was just like she kind of she had to pay the balance. And then she, and I think she really Channel a lot of dead patients that she has on that patient because otherwise we would have been floated. And now I think I'm sure you probably agree as a person with a spouse. I understand more.

33:59 Intimately what she was going through and I are about me. And then now I realize, like, yes, it was about me, but Mom like lost her.

34:17 Everything everything and like I think now, too, like to be married to a man like Todd and avoid the fact you wouldn't have been really hard for her to have to.

34:34 To do and I appreciate that a lot more. Now, as both an adult and a person with a spouse that's like

34:42 I don't I don't know how you, I don't know how you afford and she did, and she did it with Grace and compassion and honesty. Like, she's very office, Network days, that really sucks for her. And she was very honest about that.

35:03 Yeah. Oh, yeah, it is. Yeah, I mean it is.

35:20 And I think I understood that then, and now, I just understand it, you know, so much more deeply and it makes me appreciate the relationship with Mom and where

35:36 Where that come from and and how we got there.

35:46 The last thing I wanted to just say, is like, is there anything else that you want?

35:59 That's a good job.

36:03 Yes. Oh, yeah, but we also have a lot of really great people.

36:19 Couldn't could never fill that void, but certainly made an effort. I think just making the effort even possibly name all the little things, and big things people did to kind of keep us first. It was seeing a triage Mojo then,

36:49 How do we, how do we move forward and how do we not just survive, but mine and I would say,

36:57 As a trio, you me and Mom.

37:02 Am I I love watching the the ways that our family has changed and shifted and telling my kids about their grandpa, you know, Grandpa Rick Mickey.

37:28 Mickey McKay neck is really, really good about honoring and making space for Dad.

37:35 And I really appreciate that about him. I didn't you tell him that more? Because I think he never wants to, you know, for 10 minutes.

37:46 Mom deserves someone that. Yeah, I think he was the time enjoys the role of Mickey.

38:14 Yeah.

38:23 I thought and then I just lost it.

38:28 Is there any lasting thing you would say?

38:37 I wish you would have to come in sooner.

38:40 I'll see about that, and how like we both went through this. You know, she usually Transformer, I think about my life, even in terms of like before, dad died, and after dad died.

38:54 We have never really talked about it. And I think we probably both have.

39:08 You know, our lives would look markedly different if that hadn't attacked like that such a transformative experience that we both went through and then just

39:20 We are halfway across the country in ya got you to move here. So, you know each other I think a lot of people that, you know, that Divergence gets greater. And yeah, yeah, it does they would never let that happen.

40:03 Lucky, we are.

40:07 Well, thanks for talking with me today, Tyler.