Michal Yadlin and Katharine Rawlins

[00:03] MICHAL YADLIN: Hi, I'm Michal Yadlin. I am 37 years old. Today's date is Friday, August 19, 2022. I'm in Boise, Idaho, and I get the pleasure of reviewing or interviewing Katie Rollins, one of my best friends.

[00:21] KATHERINE ROLLINS: My name is Katherine Rollins. I go by Katie. I am 37 years old. Today is Friday, August 19, 2022. We are in Boise, Idaho. I will get to interview today Michal Yadlin. She is a former professor of mine, now turned dear friend.

[00:45] MICHAL YADLIN: So I think that's kind of the perfect way to start, is how we met, because we are. One of the things I always found fascinating about us is that we are four days apart in age. And we met because you took my class on Downton Abbey and the british aristocracy. And I thought that was special, because clearly, that means we are of absolutely the same generation, the princess Diana generation. So, yes. What do you remember about that day?

[01:24] KATHERINE ROLLINS: I remember the very late at night being at home in the living room of the breaking news and the headlines and the crashed car and that footage over and over of her leaving the hotel after dinner. And did it really happen? Did it not? And then later on, as an adult, finding out. We found out before her own voice.

[01:46] MICHAL YADLIN: Yeah. The weird thing about time differences and time zones is that breaking news in the middle of the night in one place is afternoon or morning someplace else. And we just. That's how I just found out about my grandfather passing away, is that it was middle of the night for me, but it was daytime there. And so found out before a lot of people over here, I was babysitting, and the family came home. The couple came home, and it was probably, like 1011 o'clock at night. And they came in, and the first thing that the mom said to me was, Princess Diana died. And I just remember sitting there and thinking, wait, what? Wait, what? Because I was not the typical kid who, as soon as the kids went to bed, know, the babysitter would watch television. I. I was typically reading, and so I had no idea that any of that happened. And it wasn't like today where you could just hop online and figure out what was going on. So I just remember watching the next day the reports that were coming out about everything that was happening and not really knowing some of the ins and outs until much later in terms of the relationship between Diana and the royal family and. And things like that. And. But that definitely helped spark not just my love for England, but my fascination with the british aristocracy. The. The other part of why I love England is obviously soccer.

[03:26] KATHERINE ROLLINS: You bound to slip that in there.

[03:28] MICHAL YADLIN: I gotta throw that in there for my love of Liverpool football club, which is the complete opposite of the aristocracy, as it's a very working class town. But both of those things kind of came together, and that kind of is that full circle moment of coming back together into how you and I met and just being able to dive into all of the insanity and craziness and opulence of the british aristocracy for an entire semester. What were things that you liked about that class? And that's not it. That's not being asked as.

[04:10] KATHERINE ROLLINS: So here's my purpose in it. The reason that I took that class was one. I loved the theme of it, but I was a 34 year old grown up that still did not understand the difference between England and the United Kingdom and how it all worked together. And that was my main goal in taking that class. And I never imagined this would come from it. I want to circle back, though. Tell me about the funeral, because my mom was huge on current events, so when Princess Diana died, it was this whole session. It was a sleepover with my friend. We pulled out the heidelbed in the living room and watched the whole thing unfold start to finish, including the boys walking behind her coffin. And you know that whole thing, because you are one of the only people in the world I can look at and say, tell me about that moment. Where were you?

[05:04] MICHAL YADLIN: Well, it's funny that you say that, because I wonder now, thinking about memory, how many of the images that I have in my head from that moment are from seeing them so many times afterwards and seeing them at the time when I was, what we were, what, 7th grade, when that happened. And so I think so much of it, of the memories that I have come from watching things afterwards, whether it was watching the film recreation that they did in the queen, that movie with Helen Mirren as the queen, and how long it took for the palace to make any sort of announcement after her death. But I definitely still have seared into my brain the image of the two boys. Cause who didn't have a massive crush on either Prince William or Prince Harry.

[06:00] KATHERINE ROLLINS: Same time growing up.

[06:02] MICHAL YADLIN: I mean, I remember. Did you have scholastic book fairs?

[06:07] KATHERINE ROLLINS: Yes.

[06:08] MICHAL YADLIN: So I remember buying with my own money, probably made babysitting, probably at that babysitting event. I remember buying a teen biography about Prince William and just being like, just flipping through the pictures and being like, oh, he's so pretty. Oh, he's so pretty. Oh, and he has an accent. It's all about the accent. The accent is always a huge, you know, something that I always appreciate, but just those pictures of the two of them walking, you know, behind the funeral cart and just thinking about how the repercussions of that were not just for them, but it was, you know, it was something. The entire world was going along with them as well. There's no way that they could really ever have private grief moments, because it was also public. And that's what happens when you're the people's princess. You know, she kind of, in a way, ended up belonging to everybody. And those are the things I think about when I think about that moment and how it was just. It was everywhere, and it still is. You know, you think about the. The weddings that have just happened and, you know, Prince Philip's memorial service. I mean, it's all. It's all on display for everyone to see, for better or for worse.

[07:32] KATHERINE ROLLINS: It's odd that even this far into life, you find someone born within four days of you. You're about the same height, the same build and everything. And that means that as you grew up, you're going through the grocery lines and seeing the tabloids at the exact same height, which is perfect height for an eleven and twelve and 13 year old. And we're seeing all of these current events in our own respective sides of the world, and then come together at 34.

[07:59] MICHAL YADLIN: The amount of People magazine or issues that I bought over the years of, like, one or two of them on the COVID or even just a little cor. I mean, so too many. Think about the amount of money I probably spent as a teenager and a, you know, early twenties on those types of magazines, just because there was a tiny little picture somewhere. Oh, it's. Maybe I'd rather not think about that.

[08:29] KATHERINE ROLLINS: So what led you to teaching that course?

[08:34] MICHAL YADLIN: So when I decided to come back to school and get my master's, I had no idea what I wanted to study, other than I knew that it wanted to be something related to England. And I met up with a former professor of mine. I popped over to his office one day and I asked him, I basically said, straight up, what should I study? And I said, have you ever heard about the Mitfords? And I said, no. Who are they? And as good historians, we took to Wikipedia. And there were six sisters, which, as someone who comes from a big family, both, like, in your generation and your next generation, I was fascinated by the fact that there were seven children and how each of them did something so totally different. Like, one was a duchess, one was a communist, one was a nazi, one was a fascist one was an authorization one wanted to be a horse. You know, every family has one of those as well. And so as I started to do more research into them, I started to research the british aristocracy. And in thinking about how could I leverage my love for these crazy people who have a lot of money and don't know what to do with it, because all of their money comes from their land and their house, not actually physical cash. When I found out that for the CWI 101 course, you could really kind of do whatever you wanted, content wise, I said, all right, this is my chance to teach this stuff, and I wanted to teach it in a face to face or a hybrid model, because I felt like it wasn't a topic that I could just let people watch a bunch of videos on or have discussion board discussions about it. I felt like it was something, because if you don't grow up with it, if you don't grow up understanding how the aristocracy works, if you don't understand the hierarchy, if you don't understand the difference between the UK and England and Great Britain and Ireland and Northern Ireland, it's something that I wanted to be able to talk to people face to face, and I knew that, for the most part, people coming into the class, we're gonna have zero information on it. And so I wanted to be there in person to not only talk about these things, but also use it as an opportunity to share my enthusiasm for it and how excited I got about being able to talk about debutantes, or being able to talk about the houses, or being able to talk about the fashion and the clothes they wore and their schooling and all of those things that are so foreign to us in the United States, I managed to think about when we talked about, you know, the relationship between older and younger boys and aristocratic schools. And we watched those clips from the crown about Prince Charles going to school and Prince Philip going to school, and how just, it's not like going to a Boise elementary school or something like that. And so I know that in the grand scheme of things, it's nothing that most of those students are ever going to use in the future. Obviously, the important part of the class was the note taking, the test taking, the goal setting time. It was a general class.

[11:54] KATHERINE ROLLINS: It was totally general when I was.

[11:56] MICHAL YADLIN: But being able to teach it alongside of stuff that I loved and I found so exciting and so fascinating and just so unfamiliar to most people is just. I loved it. And for the most part, they seem to really dive into it. You know, I think you. You said, I remember, you sent me an email saying, like, you got a couple of farm kids from Emmett to learn about the british aristocracy and to go watch the Downton Abbey movie with their girlfriends. And we did. And that's, you know, I kind of. I kind of love that, because I'm not sure I'll ever again get an opportunity to teach a class like that for a lot of different reasons. So being able to do that for the three years that I did, I loved it, and I miss it. And I think the year that you took the class, the semester you took the class was the last semester that I ever taught that because I moved to an online class, which was totally different. And I left that semester feeling like, all right, I feel really good about the last class that I did. And I think you were a really important part of that because you not only followed up with, you know, I loved this class, but also, like, what more can I do? Like, what other books do you have for me? What other movies do you have for me? Like, once again, I apologize for assigning you that movie that I assigned you to watch. In my defense, I did not know you well enough. Sorry about that. I hope it's still an educational opportunity in one way, shape, or form, but so few people had that follow up afterwards of, what else can I read? What else can I do? And as someone who has three bookshelves worth of books, being able to be, like, read all of these things was a really nice way to cap that class off and then for it to then go into the fact that we're now three years later and, like, friendship is where it is. And, you know, your kids and I are super close, and, you know, I don't. I've never, obviously, don't get the opportunity to have that connection with students, just in general, because there is a separation between student and instructor, but for the special ones, that all supersedes everything else.

[14:26] KATHERINE ROLLINS: So one of the things when I was in your class, that happened was, I already had a degree, I already had a career. I wanted more, and that put me back in the generals, because that always happens at whatever school you attend. So it was checking a box. It wasn't anything that I needed as far as skills, but it was everything that I needed as far as a reason to have to do it. And during that semester, when you're 34, it feels really dumb to have a major life crisis when you've got five kiddos and everything. And my grandfather died in the middle of the semester, and you lose points if you're not in class. And so I got that news and I went and I told you at the front of the class, and I always had this spot that I sat in. And that day I told you, and I sat all the way in the back of class, way up high, and I sat and I wept through your class. And I know that depending on every professor's time period of when they teach, they always have influx of, oh, my grandma died. You know, everyone's grandma dies for the Monday 08:00 class.

[15:44] MICHAL YADLIN: And they always miss somehow, multiple times in one semester.

[15:47] KATHERINE ROLLINS: But that one was for real. I had to travel home to Nebraska, I had to travel to Kansas. I had to leave my nursing baby for the first time ever. And I had to keep a complete load of schooling going in the middle of this crisis and do everything from a distance. And you are the memory that I have of how I got through that afternoon of that news. And then just last Friday, we met for coffee. You're sitting in your car, a little bit jittery, not knowing what's going on with this news of I think my grandfather died and we happened to be together when you got that news. So tell me more about how that was for you.

[16:43] MICHAL YADLIN: It felt like almost like a mirror, because I remember I don't give out my number to students. We do everything by email. And I remember there was just something about you over the course of the semester that there was a genuineness that I knew partly because you and I are very similar people, but also just, you just kind of know that when you came to me and you said, my grandfather passed away. Okay, what are we going to do? How are we going to work through this?

[17:15] KATHERINE ROLLINS: And the other reason that I had your number was because I had a very random freak fall, was that that was before. It was after.

[17:24] MICHAL YADLIN: Right.

[17:25] KATHERINE ROLLINS: I had a terrible concussion, massive raccoon eye. Like, still have the mark in my skull where I fell. Tripped over a baby gate and fell. I leapt over that baby gate, only went home with my little one.

[17:38] MICHAL YADLIN: Yeah.

[17:40] KATHERINE ROLLINS: And I had to finish that semester off screens for a hybrid online course. And so the reason I had your number is because you sent me a link to the text that we were using on audio board that I could use for free. So that's how you got the number, but back to your grandfather?

[18:00] MICHAL YADLIN: Yes, it was. It was back to that time zone thing. It's weird when something that's happening halfway around the world is happening during the day, and for you it's the middle of the night. And so whenever things happen in the middle of the night, there's always that little feeling of like, is this real for me? I know that you spend a lot of time up at nighttime, and so it's a different feeling for you. But for me, like, between the hours of like midnight and eight, like, I'm asleep, I don't know what's happening at this time, and I will wake up in the morning and I'll figure it out then. So to find that out in the middle of the night where it just felt, everything just felt off, and then not knowing, I mean, certainly knowing that my sisters didn't know because they're now 2 hours ahead of me, but also not being sure if my dad knew, if my parents knew, because if this had just happened, it's 01:00 in the morning and they're not awake. So it was that weird sense of limbo for a while of like, I kind of wanted the confirmation to come from a family member, whether it was family in Israel or whether it was family here. And I wasn't in the right, had space at 02:00 in the morning to email or text my aunt and uncle in Israel and be like, hey, is, what do you even say? You know, and someone picks up the phone and you're just like, so is he alive? You know, how do you even start that conversation?

[19:36] KATHERINE ROLLINS: Will you tell me more about your family's continence of origin?

[19:41] MICHAL YADLIN: So my dad is israeli, and my israeli family has been pretty integral, pretty woven into the fabric of the creation of the israeli state and even before creation of communities in Israel, before it was even a country.

[20:06] KATHERINE ROLLINS: You're beating around the bush when you walk into israeli museums. There are pictures of your relatives on the walls of the museums.

[20:16] MICHAL YADLIN: My great grandfather on my mom, on my grandmother's side, was minister of defense for a while. My grandfather was minister of education. He was head of the Labour party. He was secretary general of the kibbutz movement. My uncle, my dad's older brother, was head of military intelligence for a while. He was military attache between the United States and Israel. My cousin is now a regional mayor in Israel. So the, yeah, the name, I mean, the name is. The name gets around.

[20:50] KATHERINE ROLLINS: So you have this delayed timeline of finding out your grandfather had died, and then by the time you got confirmation, it was all over. It was everywhere, nationally, international news.

[21:05] MICHAL YADLIN: I was scrolling through Twitter, like, put his name in, in Hebrew onto Twitter, and I just kept, you know, was like this president, this minister of Knesset, this, you know, former prime minister, this current prime minister. And just to see the, you know, for every single one, of course, I had to do, like, English translate because my Hebrew is not that technical. But the. The one. The one thing that I could read was the sign that they put up in the dining hall to announce to the kibbutz. And that was very, you know, all the other ones were like, these very flowery, you know, flowery language about, you know, all the things that he had done. And that one was very simply, you know, our friend is no longer with us. And I just thought that was so special. Special. And that's my guess, is that's what, you know, my friends had seen, which prompted them to text and reach out. And, you know, by the time some of the friends texted, you know, a couple hours later, my guess is that it had been reported more. More widely. But it was. It's that weird feeling of the same sort of thing. Like there's a very public grief, but then there's also this private grief of, you know, my whole family wasn't able to be together because some of the family was already traveling for a trip. We were in the States. And so our family grief is probably not going to be fully realized until another year when we come back and we do the memorial service, which was the same for my grandmother, is that my dad and my sister went out for the funeral for that, but it wasn't until a year later that we were all together. And so there is this interesting. It's interesting to be in kind of in those similar shoes of, you want to have your own private grief, but when it's someone who has made such a difference to so many people, which is amazing and so cool, and I'm so proud that that's my legacy, but it also is then hard to feel like you're competing with the rest of the world.

[23:21] KATHERINE ROLLINS: So one of the similarities we have over our lifespan is that we didn't get to be there when our grandmothers died, and then we went through our grandfather's deaths together. You found out something incredibly profound about your grandfather, which would be a social piece of gossip shortly before his death. Can you tell us more about that? What did you find out about him?

[23:48] MICHAL YADLIN: I found out that my grandfather's one of the reasons the Beatles didn't perform in Israel. Yeah, because he was head. He was minister of education, but culture and sports somehow fell under that umbrella of education. Sure, we'll take it. It's a small country. It's probably one of those things where every minister kind of did four or five jobs at one time, and he had seen the public response, shall we say, to when the Beatles came. So a lot of screaming, a lot of, you know, hormonal teens, a lot of action. And he said it would just be a lot to have to find extra police forces and extra security forces. And mind you, this is a, you know, the country had been around for about 30 years. They had mostly been focused on, you know, regional wars. So their army is rather busy. They don't have a huge police force. And so he basically said that it wasn't gonna make it a priority, it wasn't gonna sign off on that. We also found out that he was also originally opposed to the air Force base that was built right next to the kibbutz, which is ironic, given that his son, two of his sons, ended up going to be part of the air force. And so my dad's, one of his sons ended up being the head of that air force base for a while. And his reasons for that and things I love about my grandfather is always very practical about the reasons why he didn't want to do something. He said, if we have an air force base here, the sounds and the vibrations from the planes will affect the. Will affect the cows that we have, because we have a huge dairy, and the cows won't produce the proper amount of milk that they need to. And that was his reasoning for why he was against having the air Force base.

[25:59] KATHERINE ROLLINS: So here you are, hiking the foothills all around Boise, the legacy of the reason why the Beatles didn't perform in Israel.

[26:08] MICHAL YADLIN: And I can hike around Boise in the summertime because I have the israeli desert in my blood. You do?

[26:14] KATHERINE ROLLINS: You can go anywhere.

[26:15] MICHAL YADLIN: I can go anywhere at any point because. So I need sunshine and heat and you need pine trees and cool air. Cool air and a nice breeze. And that's why we're not allowed to hike together anymore. Well, you can't come on my hikes. I'll go on your hikes. Yes, I'll go on your hikes, and then we'll both stop your kids from complaining when that happens. Yeah.

[26:46] KATHERINE ROLLINS: I also got to watch my grandfather's death play out in a public spotlight. My ancestors few great grandparents back went straight from the irish potato famine to Lincoln, Nebraska, and that is where they settled. And my grandpa was a set of brothers who married a set of McKay girls sisters, and my grandpa started a pizza shop called Paparazzi Pizza. So in this time, where I'm trying to find plane tickets and coordinate care of my five kiddos and get there in time and drive a rental car all the way to where his service was, which was several hours away into Kansas. I watched the community also grieve through papa rays. And he was a huge influence in the community, really big into four h major Appaloosa breeder and just known for pouring into the community. And in super Republican Nebraska, he was a staunch Democrat, which I was kind of raised to think that that was the wrong thing that he was supposed to be. But now I know where my more nuanced and open views originate. So I really did watch and get a lot of comfort from seeing that death play out on that timeline, which.

[28:29] MICHAL YADLIN: It'S a reminder that when someone is gone, it's not just the onus of the family to remember that that legacy lives on in so many other people. And I think that you and I talked once about. I had just listened to a podcast on nostalgia, and so I was like, what to you, is nostalgia? Do you remember what you said?

[28:50] KATHERINE ROLLINS: I don't.

[28:50] MICHAL YADLIN: You said it was the smell of his pizza place.

[28:53] KATHERINE ROLLINS: Yes.

[28:53] MICHAL YADLIN: And I said, for me, it was toast and cottage cheese from the kibbutz with kibbutz food and kibbutz cottage cheese, kibbutz bread and kibbutz cottage cheese. And so our nostalgia goes back to.

[29:07] KATHERINE ROLLINS: Our grandparents and being the same age and the same height and, like, where we would peek over the counter levels, you know, in the cafeteria and at the pizza shop.

[29:17] MICHAL YADLIN: Yeah.

[29:17] KATHERINE ROLLINS: Yeah.

[29:18] MICHAL YADLIN: Well, and just thinking about you talking about all the things that you're, like how your grandfather poured a. Into the community, how he stood up politically in an area where he was probably a massive minority. Like, that's you. You pour into your community so much, and you are also in an area that is pretty different from what you believe in and the way that you stand up for that, like, there's a real reflection. You can see a very clear trickle down effect of the things that stood out to you and your grandfather that you. Whether it's a. You know, whether it's intentional or not, it is definitely. You are manifesting so much of that as well, whether it's subconscious or not.

[30:04] KATHERINE ROLLINS: We see it. I'm a midwife. I've been a midwife for ten years. And you're right. I do pour into my community. That's why I'm up all night. I see life and death, and I see that exchange of life and death. So, for example, I think I believe to the minute, one or two floors different, in the same hospital. You know, I was born in. My grandfather died an hour after my cousin gave birth to her baby. And I see that play out all the time where they're very, there are these exchanges and sometimes it's a family pet that they lose and then this baby comes or this baby comes and then they lose someone else. That is something that I see all the time. And I'm curious to see how that exchange of life falls into place for your family.

[31:06] MICHAL YADLIN: So my grandfather's youngest great grandchild, so that was number, I have to do some quick math. 1234-5678 910, 1112. So 12th great grandchild was born a week before he passed away. And I'm not certain if they got to meet. I don't, I haven't talked to my cousin or haven't, you know, obviously I don't, haven't talked to my grandfather, but my guess is if not meeting in person, there was a definitely, like, where he knew that she had been born, but just about a week before he passed away. And he's got, my grandfather has eleven grandkids and what did I say? Twelve? Well, no, I guess it was 13 because there was another baby born right beforehand, like two months before. So let me do my math one more time. 123-44-5678 910, 1112, 1314. Yeah. So it would have been 14th grandchild, great grandchild. And other than those last two that were just born this month and two months before, we were all able to be with him to celebrate his 96th birthday. And I just have this, I have this, we have a video, actually of him talking to seven or eight of the great grandchildren and just kind of going around the circle and, you know, asking, like, okay, what's your name? Who do you belong to? Just almost kind of doing like an inventory of all these little children that happened to be in the same room as he was because he was sitting and reading his newspaper. And I love that that got captured on video. And, you know, because I think the kids recognized little kids. The kids get annoyed pretty frequently if you ask them kind of the same question that they realize, like, he just wants to know who we are. And so if he asks four or five times, we're going to answer four or five times. They were just so patient. And children are not usually patient. And so to be able to have watched that and to have that still on video is one of those special things you just kind of like, keep tucked away in the archive to go back to occasionally.

[33:33] KATHERINE ROLLINS: Mm hmm.

[33:34] MICHAL YADLIN: But, yeah. Yeah. Great grandchild number 1413 and 14 within the last couple of months. It's quite a legacy. How many great grandchildren? I don't know, so many. So many. So many. Yeah. Well, I would. I know we've talked about our. Our future trip to. To visit all the grand manor houses in England, which we will definitely do. But one of these, you know, one of those future trips, too. We should get you out to Israel, because I. Even though you weren't there with me, being able to go to both Kansas City and to Nebraska last year and explore that and be able to send you all the pictures of things and have you be like, oh, my gosh, this is my childhood. Like, this ceiling is seared into my.

[34:30] KATHERINE ROLLINS: Brain and just toured my hometown locations.

[34:33] MICHAL YADLIN: I did. I flew to Kansas City with her five children and took them to my mom, took them to grandma's, dropped them off, and then basically did a whirlwind tour of Katie's childhood memories. Except the zoo. I never made it to the zoo.

[34:53] KATHERINE ROLLINS: Well, I stayed home and caught all the babies. There were a bunch of babies that week, and I couldn't go on spring break. My kids.

[34:59] MICHAL YADLIN: Yep. So I stepped in. We discussed. We're basically the same, so. But, yeah, one of these days, we'll get you out to Israel, too. So you can see the things that are seared into my brain and eat the foods that are seared into my taste buds and all of that good stuff.

[35:23] KATHERINE ROLLINS: So when you talked about how, um.

[35:28] MICHAL YADLIN: Sorry, all the things that we talked about, could. It could be any of the things.

[35:39] KATHERINE ROLLINS: Sorry.

[35:39] MICHAL YADLIN: No, we're good.

[35:42] KATHERINE ROLLINS: When you talked about how my grandfather was kind of out of his place in his beliefs and what he did, I do think genealogically, there's things in my past that have made me an outlier and made me turn away and do different things. When the very first items that I ever wrote to you about what sets me apart as who I am as a student, just basic interview. I just said, I used to be Mormon, and I owe everything to the decision to leave Mormonism. And I remember the very first book I was ever assigned to read in midwifery school was Journal of a Mormon midwife by Patty Bartlett Sessions. And it was the only book that I had delved into that had any introduction of polygamy. This was 2011. It was before the L. E. S church released all the 2014 early 2015 essays of acknowledging that this was true. I had spent my life defending it. And I got into this book for higher college level learning, you know, basic 101 class again. And I went to my husband and said, oh, my gosh, can you believe this? And all it was was just a little birth log. Basically, you know, an 800 page birth log of all these babies she's catching during the night, who they belong to, who the fathers are. And it just shows polygamist after polygamist after polygamist, and church leaders. And I'm going, oh, my gosh. And my husband said, if it makes you doubt it, anything, put it away. And so I put it away. I got a couple hundred pages into it, put it away. Flubbed my way through the rest of my history of midwifery class by utilizing other books and other resources and put it on a shelf. And the further I got into midwifery school and the further I got into my clinicals, I couldn't. I couldn't unsee that there were other ways, other ways of thinking, other ways of worshipping, other ways of loving, other ways of understanding the world and the universe and God. And it eventually became too big for me to encompass in the rules and beliefs and structure of the one way that I had been raised to be. And maybe that's part of my grandpa in there, absolutely proud enough to say, like, I believe this because I have seen more and done more and believe there is more. And I feel like that's what I do as a midwife every single day. And that's why I had to walk away, is you couldn't tell me that. I'm watching these families have these incredible, powerful births and welcome these beautiful babies in healing and in love, and tell me they're not going to be with their family forever because they don't have, quote unquote, the truth. It was too much. It was just too much. And the love was way too big. When I saw you for the first time sitting in class, I noticed that you had a star tattoo on your wrist and a star of David, and I thought, ooh, there's more to you. You know, there's more to you. And it comes being israeli American, and there's not just one way. And I have loved seeing and learning how you navigate that. It's just something that we encounter all the time. And whereas we're joking about your grandfather thinking very small about the beatles, we can also celebrate coming together through education and learning bigger and being exposed to more things that help us gain a greater understanding and how you bond with people over grief.

[40:14] MICHAL YADLIN: Yeah. What I'm just thinking, too, that, you know, going from the things that you're reading in this midwifery class and then fast forward however many years into your in my class, and, you know, like, taking it back full circle to the highly inappropriate movie that I just think about, like. I think about that sometimes. I think, oh, my gosh, what if she was still. What if I had. I had assigned that to her, and it was just, like, three years beforehand, before you were out, or this would have been. I just.

[40:50] KATHERINE ROLLINS: All the assignment was. Was choosing off a list of, like, 35 movies about the british aristocracy, and I happened to choose one that was all about aristocratic boys schools, and there were naked men in it. And that was literally, at 34, the first time watching shows with naked men. However, it was such a good show, and I learned so much. It was just the blushing.

[41:21] MICHAL YADLIN: Yep, the blushing. But I mean, talk about, like, you can't get much farther away in terms of. In terms of subject matter between one and the other. And I think about how, as I learn more about your story, because I think we still are continually. Continually learning more about each other as we continue to be friends, that we have our. You know, we have the. The ideas that we already know about each other, but we're every day learning something new. It's the things that I think back sometimes about when you were in that class and thinking about, like, man, if we could go back and do that all over again, if we could take that class again, if we could be in that class together again now, knowing what you know about me and me knowing what I know about you, what that would look like and how that would be different and just how much more rich that would be, because now we have so much more of each other's history. You know, I was telling you earlier how I remember getting that email from you and thinking, like, oh, wow, like, to leave the church is huge. Like, that must be. That's big. But how do you respond to that with someone who you don't know yet? You know, how do you respond and.

[42:42] KATHERINE ROLLINS: Be like, everything I am is because of this decision, and it was the hardest thing I've ever done. And you leap off into this abyss thinking, this is the end of it. I'm going against everything I was ever taught and ever believed, and you come out on the other side, and you're a good person, and you have a bigger ripple in the pond, and it makes you more relatable to reach more people on a deeper level. And I think I never would have pursued a friendship with you if I were the classic housewife I had been raised to be. You know, I saw that Star of David and knew there was something more, and it didn't have to be defined by the guidelines of who I needed to be. And I'm raising my kids with you. You come from this family of four girls and I have four teenage girls and a little boy and I want them to be influenced by you. I was fast tracked into a life of marriage and instantaneously, like pregnant a week after my honeymoon having all of these babies. And I have very little memories of my quote unquote college years because it was all being a mom. Yes, that's great. But here we are coming together now. We're 37 and we have one life that was fast tracked into birth and families and another that was fast tracked into education and travel and what a great dynamic that is for raising balanced kids who have a bigger view of the world.

[44:41] MICHAL YADLIN: Absolutely. I think that's a great place to end it. That was incredibly. That was perfect. Thanks for having us. Talk with me.

[44:54] KATHERINE ROLLINS: I'd love this. Thanks for sharing your story.

[44:56] MICHAL YADLIN: Me too.

[44:57] KATHERINE ROLLINS: You quite a legacy.

[44:58] MICHAL YADLIN: Yeah. Ditto. Ditto.