Sheldon Nussbaum and Rachel Nussbaum

[00:07] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: My name is Rachel Nussbaum. I'm 35 years old, and today is June 4, 2022. And we're here at Storycourt in Atlanta. And I'm here with you, my dad.

[00:24] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: And my name is Sheldon Nussbaum. I'm 66 years old, and today's date is Saturday, June 4, 2022. And I'm at StoryCorps in Atlanta, also talking to my daughter, Rachel. So, Rachel, what makes our story unique?

[00:53] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: I think, unfortunately, it's not that unique. There are a lot of people who have experienced what we have experienced, but shorthand is we were kept apart for most of my life.

[01:12] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: 21 years.

[01:13] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: 21 years. And reconnected ten years ago, I think it's been ten years. Yeah. And it was, you know, a deliberate act that kept us apart. It wasn't some nature thing or something, you know.

[01:45] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: So this happened as a result of a divorce?

[01:48] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: Yeah.

[01:49] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: And child custody was started and then kind of given up on because of the. Just the overall conditions and mostly the emotional toll that it was taking on you and Heidi to just pull you into court and just rip you apart anymore. I mean, it was just. It was a very bloody, very high conflict divorce. So how did that affect you? What do you remember as little? You were three. You were three when we actually. The first time when we split up.

[02:29] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: Yeah. My first memory in life, actually, was, I think, that day. That was the beginning of the end. I don't know. I remember being tugged on. Aunt Doris had one arm, and mom Kathy, that I call her, had the other arm. And then I remember being ushered and pushed into a car. And I know there was some time in between where we still lived in North Carolina, but it was shortly after that that she basically kidnapped us and took us up to Chicago. Right?

[03:19] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: Yeah. Yeah.

[03:21] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: Do you remember that? How did that happen?

[03:26] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: Well, we were getting very close to the actual court date to go hear everything out. And I went over there on a Wednesday. Cause I got you guys every Wednesday and then every weekend, and I went over there on a Wednesday, and you guys had moved out in the middle of the night, just gone. And to which I pretty much freaked out, like, you gotta be kidding me. But like you said, it was like you guys were kidnapped.

[03:58] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: Yeah.

[03:59] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: And my assumption was, oh, all I gotta do is make a phone call. Boom, you guys are going to be back. Because that violated all the court orders and visitations, so on. But the judge said, well, they're already moved in up there. Don't want to uproot them again, so we'll just let the jurisdiction go up there and then settle it in Chicago. So that got the venue moved to Chicago. And that was interesting. Yeah, very interesting.

[04:43] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: Well, we ended up in Chicago because that's where my mom's parents, my grandparents lived. That's where Kathy grew up, and we moved in with my grandparents and, yeah, I didn't know what was going on. I was small and I remember we were allowed to go on visitations for a while for maybe a couple of years.

[05:17] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: Yeah, two.

[05:19] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: Two years. And we would get to go for six weeks in the summer, every other holiday, that kind of thing. Do you remember our last visit together?

[05:36] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: Yeah.

[05:36] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: And we didn't know that it would be the last.

[05:39] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: No, no. And it was by far the best one we ever had. I mean, there was always a little transition period when you came down so hard on kids. Just so hard. Year three, well, let's say five, and Heidi would have been nine. It's just. It's very emotional for kids. I don't care what you say or what you do to go back and forth, be bounced around, but after a couple days, you know, warmed right back up. But, yeah, our last summer, we called it the Tom Sawyer Summer. Remember that? Yeah, we went and saw the movie and we would go camping at the little pond and fish and fish and fish and swing in the hammock and float on the inner tubes and everything. Everything was geared around where Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, you know, it was.

[06:34] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: Our huck Finn summer.

[06:35] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: Yeah, huck Finn. It was just wonderful. I'm like, finally we just made a real good breakthrough.

[06:44] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: I wish I remembered more of that summer for some reason I don't, but I love hearing about it. I love when you tell me about our Huxon summer.

[06:57] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: Yeah, it was. It was a blast. And I've got pictures somewhere that have been misplaced of so many pictures of that summer.

[07:10] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: Something kind of poetic about the pictures of our huckfin summer being lost.

[07:15] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: Yeah, for sure.

[07:20] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: I don't have a lot of memories from that time in general. When I was little, I remember cheerleading camp that you sent us to.

[07:27] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

[07:30] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: Just little. Just little things here and there. But what I remember just. Just one thing that just always stands out to me. And it wasn't one moment, it was just this thing I had where you would come home and I would run out the door and I would just say, pick me up. Pick me up. Do you remember that?

[07:53] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: Oh, my lord, yes. That was the highlight of my day. That was the highlight of my day.

[08:00] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: I just remember that so vividly for whatever reason.

[08:04] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: Oh, yeah. I felt like a rock star, you know, every time I came home, there's little Rachel. Boom. And you're just so cute, you know, like, it. You remember at the Williams had the cheer camp?

[08:14] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: Yeah.

[08:14] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: You were the. You were the cute little butterball that everybody wanted. And Heidi used to rent you out as a sister. Everybody's like, can I be her sister today?

[08:24] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: Sister for sale.

[08:26] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: Well, what have you got? You got a popsicle, whatever. Everybody wanted you to be. Be their sister, and they would just literally. Cause you were just so cute, you know? Hey, I'm cool, but I'm so glad that we were able to cram in some really good memories in the short period of time that we had.

[08:47] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: Yeah.

[08:50] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: And then. Anyway, so then all hell broke loose. Then the war, then the war.

[09:01] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: Yeah. My memories kind of jumped to court after that, which I think, for me, started in second grade, so. Yeah, like seven or eight.

[09:12] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: Yeah.

[09:14] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: I remember getting pulled out of school to go to court a lot. I remember sitting in judges chambers. I remember the courtroom. I remember at that point being really, really scared of you from what I was being told about you, which turned out to be all lies, and it would be many, many years until I found that out. But what. How did you get through that time when we were in court for years?

[10:15] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: Oh, God. I.

[10:17] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: To mention, you know, my mom is a smart woman, and she used the media in a very strategic way.

[10:25] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: Oh, yeah.

[10:26] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: How do you feel about the fact that there were so many lies told about you and also printed about you, and they're still out there.

[10:35] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: Yeah. Were our cases in books and still in archives of. I mean, I had calls from newspapers and news organizations in Canada even.

[10:46] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: Really?

[10:46] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: Yeah. Oh, my lord. Everybody's like, we want to talk to the man who had his child jailed. You know, his kid opted to go to jail versus visiting their father. What kind of a beast, you know, are you? That's what everybody's first impression was. And, you know, it's because the judge told you guys, you know, after the whole hearing and stuff, he ruled in my favor on everything, every little tiny thing. So, look, there's nothing wrong with this guy. Obviously. They're being brainwashed. Y'all need to go down and see your dad. Once you get down there, you'll be okay. And. But anyway, so he would. He would say, okay, tomorrow is such and such a time. You go to her apartment and you pick him up. As soon as he said that, I'm like, you don't understand. You don't get it. Yeah, that's not gonna happen.

[11:38] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: Yeah.

[11:39] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: And it wouldn't, you know, because there would be interference. And so. Yeah. And so then, you know, when. When Heidi went to juvenile detention for one day and Kathy got a couple of her friends together and picketed it out in front of the courthouse, let my daughter go, and next thing you know, the AP picked it up and it went wall to wall on tv stations, radio, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, I felt like, okay, I'm officially the worst father in America as far as that's how I felt. And anyway, so that was interesting.

[12:20] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: What's ironic about that is so I was eight and Heidi was twelve. And the judge held us in contempt of court.

[12:30] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: Yeah.

[12:31] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: For refusing the court order to go visit you.

[12:34] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: Right.

[12:35] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: Instead of holding our mom in contempt of court, he held us, the children. And when we showed up and refused again because we were being told that you were all kinds of things evil.

[12:52] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: To sum it up, gonna sell you guys into the.

[12:55] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: Yeah. I.

[12:56] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: Sex industry, all that stuff.

[12:58] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: Yeah, yeah. You were a warlock. You were also somehow in the CIA.

[13:04] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: I forgot everything.

[13:06] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: Oh, yeah. So he held us in contempt of court and when we showed up, that's when Heidi was sentenced to juvenile detention. And I was put under, quote unquote, house rest because I was one year too young to go to jail. And I remember they shackled and handcuffed Heidi and took her out of the courtroom like a criminal. And I remember sitting on the bench and wrapping my fingers around it and saying, I'm not going anywhere until they bring her back. I just didn't really understand. And all along, it should have been our mom that was punished, if anybody was to be punished in this situation, you know?

[13:56] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: Yeah.

[13:57] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: But it was spun in such a way, everybody just sided with her, even though there was no evidence to support any of the things that she was saying.

[14:08] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: Well, it started off he was going to go after her, but she contended that judge, I'm doing all I can do, everything in my power to get these girls to go, and they just refuse. I can't get them to budge. So you guys kind of got thrown under the bus.

[14:25] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: Meanwhile, at home, she was telling us exactly what to say and what not to say.

[14:30] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: Yeah.

[14:32] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: And I remember that because I slipped up because I was a kid. And one time in the judge's chambers, I said something about your eyes turning red or something like that, alluding to some kind of demonic possession that I was told, you know, and she cut me, the eye that could kill. And immediately interjected. And you know, kind of picked up my fumble. So it was very strategic, what we were being told, what to say and what not to say. And then she would go to court and lie again and say, I'm doing everything I can. They just won't go. And meanwhile, she was the reason that we were so suddenly afraid of you.

[15:19] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: Right. And how do you prove that? You know, how do you take that proof into court? It is almost impossible.

[15:27] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: What makes it really difficult is that there's no acknowledgement of parental alienation syndrome as a syndrome that children experience. And so there was no recourse for the psychologists or the lawyers to be able to use the proper language to call it what it was.

[15:46] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: Yeah, well, that was back in 95. It was pretty new.

[15:50] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: Yeah.

[15:50] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: Everybody I talked to, the lawyers, everybody. I bought multiple copies of the book.

[15:56] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: Yeah.

[15:57] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: And I would hand them to everybody. You ever heard of a parental illustration sitting here? Here, read this book.

[16:03] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: It's still not recognized.

[16:04] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: Oh, no. Not as a syndrome, no. But it's gaining a lot more recognition.

[16:10] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: When I was 30, I went to treatment. And that was when, I think it really hit home for me that it is a syndrome. It was something that has affected me for my whole life so far, and that was five years after we reconnected. So what else is a syndrome if not something that has enduring effects?

[16:37] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: Well, it turns your whole life inside out and upside down. I remember you and Heidi both went through a very, very painful period of time after we got reconnected. And when I say reconnected, it wasn't like, oh, hi, Rachel. You know, we're all huggy and we're great. No, it was a process of earning trust. Yeah, it took years. Literally took years. And, uh. But you guys gave me a chance. You guys gave me a chance. And, uh, lucky for all of us, I wasn't still bitter and obsessed with the court. Who said what and who did what? It's like, here we are today, on this day.

[17:25] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: Yeah.

[17:25] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: Where can we go from here and how can we heal, you know? And I had my rock, which was a man named Ted Boggs. And he held my hand.

[17:42] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: Yeah.

[17:47] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: He kept me going and would help me stay focused, you know? And the way I looked at it was, I can't do anything for you guys because you're gone. But what I can do for you is work on me. So that. And I had given up ever being able to see or having a relationship again. I had to come to that term in order to survive. But should it happen, I wanted to be a healthy person. You know, and so that gave me my motivation to work on me, and there was a lot to work on, trust me. But, you know, there was one thing that kind of. It was kind of a shadow on everything that was going on. And you can't even talk. You can't mention it in court, or they'll, you know, they'll put you in the hospital for being crazy. And that is the abuse of religion.

[19:04] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: Yeah.

[19:06] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: Cause, like, how can this one person have so much power over so many people, especially you guys.

[19:12] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: Yeah.

[19:13] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: To where, hey, whatever she said, you guys had to jump. And do you know, how did that happen? How are you feeling the impact of that when you guys were going through all this?

[19:29] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: So I've come to terms with, I'll never know exactly what it is that is that causes my mother to be this way. Nonetheless, she is a self professed prophet, and so being raised in the church, and at that point, we were going in a very charismatic direction. Her being a prophet, it was not just disobeying your parenthood to disobey her. It was disobeying God directly, because she was. God was speaking directly through her. So it wasn't an option to fall out of line. And I watched Heidi, my sister, try to fall out of line, try to question things, try to be defiant. And she was abused, you know, so there was a lot of religious abuse and physical and spiritual, mental, all of it. So I learned to just sort of be quiet and do what I was told.

[20:51] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: Yeah.

[20:52] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: And I was very, very afraid of hell. I was very afraid of.

[21:00] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: That.

[21:01] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: I had already ruined my life at the age of nine somehow and was going for sure going to hell. So religion. Yeah, religion was used as a very powerful tool to keep us in line and control us and also to literally demonize you and put you in this camp. This is the language used, the enemy camp. So you were in the enemy camp. And so there was no option to cross over. There was no soft shoulder. There was no in between, you know?

[21:39] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: Yeah.

[21:40] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: It was, you were in or you were out.

[21:42] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: Yeah. And if you were out, you were out, then you were going to get from the whole thing, the treatment that I got.

[21:48] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: Yeah. And that was demonstrated for us. So, of course, it's like.

[21:53] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: Yeah. With Greg, her brother.

[21:54] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: Right. And with you, just the way that everything happened and. Yeah. Her own brother was alienated from the family for supporting you and Kathy's own brother.

[22:06] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: Yeah. Kathy's brother.

[22:08] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: Yeah. So that was demonstrated enough times that, you know, I got the message, yeah. You gotta just do what you're told in this house, in the many houses that we lived in.

[22:23] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: Well, you know, and parental alienation, divorce, especially fathers losing custody of their kids and losing them, period, is just so common. You just start asking people who have been divorced, tell me about what happened with the kids. And I swear, it seems like two out of the three have got some form of my kids were poisoned against me and I lost them. And as adults, they never have a chance to ever, ever get reconnected with that parent.

[23:01] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: Yeah.

[23:02] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: Because they'll lose their relationship with the other parent. With the other one.

[23:07] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: That's exactly what happened.

[23:09] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: Yeah. And I talked to a pretty renowned psychologist, and he was telling me his wife went through that when she was little. An adult wife of a psychologist still was bound by this loyalty. Couldn't cross that line. Cause it would cross. It would cause her to lose her relationship with her mom. It happens to.

[23:39] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: That's what kept me in it for 25 years. I was 25 when my relationship with her ended. Heidi, my sister, she had reconnected with you already. She and I had had a ten year estrangement because she was out at that point. And once she was out, I couldn't even talk to her. So we went ten years without speaking. And it took. I don't know, even though I had my doubts at that point. You know, I was 25. And especially after I came out to her. Well, clearly a prophet is not okay with having a queer daughter that I. I knew that might. That might be, you know, a really marring thing in a relationship. But she had made me feel like it was just her and I on an island. You know, she would look at me and say, you're all I have left, and that kind of thing. So it was. And I didn't. I had no connection with Heidi or you or anybody. So when I did that, when I came out to her, I knew it might end our relationship and that I didn't have anyone else to fall back on, but I did it anyway. And it did, you know, eventually, that year, that's what she used as her excuse to leave me. But she'd already done the same thing to Heidi ten years ago, so it was already in the queue. And I know that, but being gay was a really easy thing for her to grasp onto.

[25:17] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: Right?

[25:18] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: And so I remember she just didn't answer my text messages for a couple of days. And I. So I went to her house. We were actually renting the house together, but I had stopped staying there, and I went to just go pop in and check on her, and she was gone. Much like when you showed up to get us, she was just gone. That's her vanishing act. And that's what ultimately led me back to you, because she left me. And I think I needed it to be that way, as, like, devastating as it felt at the time. And then. Yeah, that space in between, like you're saying, it wasn't, like, immediate. We're running through a field to each other, into each other's arms. It was a slow process. And I remember feeling very much just very detached and very sort of dissociated for a long stretch of time. And I remember it feeling like I was suspended in space between two planets, one of which I might belong to. It was very lonely.

[26:48] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: I still remember the first conversation we had a. Oh, yeah. Oh, very vividly. I was at work in my car as a county inspector in construction, and I was in a driveway and no one was home. But it was shady. And I think I had, you know, prior permission through Heidi. Heidi was like the facilitator.

[27:14] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: Yeah.

[27:15] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: Okay. It's okay to call her now. She's ready. And so I called and we talked for a long time and just had, like, a fantastic conversation, you know, philosophizing. Is that the way you say it? I don't know. We were getting all philosophical about life and this and that and the other, and it was just really, really cool. We stayed off of hot topics, of course.

[27:41] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: Yeah.

[27:42] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: And I. I'm like, wow, she's really cool. And then I think the first time we met face to face was at Heidi's at Christmas.

[27:53] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: It was.

[27:54] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: Or was it before then?

[27:55] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: I think it was before then. Maybe it was for our birthdays because our birthdays are so close.

[28:02] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: Yeah, I don't remember.

[28:04] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: I remember that conversation, too, now that you said it. Because my first thought was, wow, he's not had a hand in rearing me at all or, you know, through my developmental years. And yet it seemed like we really thought very similarly. Yeah, zoom out on things and really take a, like you said, a philosophical approach to a problem. And I remember thinking, well, that's kind of cool. It was the first thing that I felt like was a part of me that was a part of you.

[28:48] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: So what was the process like for you when one day you woke up and said, my whole life has been a lie?

[29:01] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: Um, it was earth shattering, doesn't. I mean, I guess, you know, to give it a term. But I do just remember I became kind of obsessed. You know, I became obsessed with a few things. Like, I would get on, like, an information high, you know, on. I didn't sleep a lot during that time. I had insomnia, and I would be up just researching, you know? I remember one night doing a deep dive on, like, interrogation tactics and how people get somebody to make a false confession, right. Because it was like, how do I have these memories that feel real?

[29:47] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: Yeah.

[29:47] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: That were not real. They didn't happen.

[29:51] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: Right.

[29:51] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: I felt so, like, just devoid of anything almost. I felt like I had. I was nothing, and I had, like, this nothingness, and I didn't know who I was. And anything that I'd used to form my identity felt like it had just been totally washed away. And I was having a lot of flashbacks during the time, which is, I realized, is a term for PTSD that people have. And I remember just walking into the grocery store, and it's like, you know, something would just pop in my head, and I'd go, oh, my God. Even that was a lie, you know? And similarly, in a grocery store, I remember looking at salad dressings or something like that, something so trivial and having a complete meltdown because I didn't know what I liked, you know, it made me question everything.

[31:04] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: Wow. Wow. I'm just glad that we got a second chance. Now I know what a beautiful daughter I've got inside and out. You're just awesome. Wouldn't change a thing about you. And I really hope that this story is so condensed. It's almost like we haven't even done it justice at all. Maybe people that will hear this will have a lot more questions than answers. I don't know, but I hope that. I hope two things happen that a parent who has lost a kid in divorce don't give up. There may be times when you have to pull away. I had to pull away. I won every judgment there was in court. But the process to make it happen would have ripped my kids apart. And I'm like, they can't handle the pressure. I was afraid of Heidi hurting herself. She was at that age, and all the guilt. I know that she felt unlike she's saying all these things, but I know somewhere in the back of her mind, there's thoughts that are contrary to that and what's she going to do with that? And so I had to take a step back, and I would just. My prayer was, lord, bring somebody into their life if it's another man. Cathy. Were to get remarried or somebody, bring somebody into their life that will give them a good example and help them. That was hard to do. Oh, my God. But for the people who have lost, kids don't give up. And for kids who have grown up with memories, alienated parenthood. No matter what you've been told how many years it's been, reach out, you may be disappointed, you may get your hand bit, but if you. When you reach out, remember that you're talking with a very wounded person who's just trying to survive emotionally, but give them a chance, because it's never too late. 21 years for me. And you.

[34:26] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: You mentioned earlier about how you got through and the support that you had and how you realized that the only thing you could actually do for us was to make sure that you were a safe and healthy person should we ever come home. Thank you.

[34:56] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: You're welcome. Thank you for doing that. It's really kind of a win win when it's hard, hard. But I. Only thing you have to lose is being bitter. You know? You know, reconnecting over a lot of years after what we've been, we were through. And so many other people, when you reconnect, don't reconnect in the same swamp that you left.

[35:29] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: Yeah.

[35:30] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: That's not reconnecting.

[35:31] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: Yeah.

[35:32] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: That's going right back where it all started. Start somewhere new. Brand new.

[35:38] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: Remember? Having to let go of it took some years that every time we were together was so bittersweet. And it took some years before it was just sweet because I would have these pangs of what could have been all the lost years.

[35:59] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: Oh, man. Yeah.

[36:00] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: That feeling of wanting to make up for lost time, it was freeing to let go of that and realize there's no such thing as time except for now, and we just move forward and replacing that with gratitude and, you know, it's taken time to just feel settled and not feel scared. I would also. I don't know if you knew this, but when we would talk on the phone for, oh, gosh, probably the first few years, I would just cry almost every time because I would think, you know, I'm not gonna have him forever now. You know, it was like. And looking back, that was ten years ago. You were only 56, which is so young. But it was just that feeling, you know, that I was gonna lose you again too soon.

[37:02] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: Well, I can't, because you told me if I die, you're gonna kill me.

[37:10] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: You also helped me get healthy when I realized that the trauma was too much, you know, it was five years after we had reconnected, and, gosh, I was functioning at a high level, you know, good job, volunteer organizations, the works. And I was an absolute mess inside. I was so just. It was too much, you know, it was just so much to process that. Coming to terms with my life as a lie and then having you, but being so afraid of losing you again, it was just so much. And I. So I went to treatment for trauma. You remember?

[37:56] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: Oh, yeah.

[37:59] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: And you came for family week, and we did a demonstration for all the families that were there. It was a room full of people. You remember the drum circle?

[38:15] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: I do.

[38:17] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: So they were doing this demonstration of drum circle, which was one of our Saturday activities at the treatment center that I really liked. I really loved the drum circle. It was just so fun to bang on something so hard. And so I was part of the demonstration, and then they opened it up to parents where they could come and drum, along with saying an affirmation to their kid that was there in treatment. And so they did it. They went. Several people came up, and they had all these written affirmations. Here, you can say this. And so they would, you know, I am proud of you, whatever. And they were wrapping it up and kind of threw it out there. They said, anybody else want to do this? And then your hand shot up. I was so surprised.

[39:14] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: Me, too. Because I'm like, how's this going to do anybody any good? And then all of a sudden, I'm like, wait a minute. I got something to say.

[39:25] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: So you sat down with a big drum between your legs, and I sat in a chair across from you, much like we are right now, and they offered you an affirmation. You said, no, I've got. I've got it. Do you remember what you said?

[39:44] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: I do. And that's why I went up there. It's like, oh, this is exactly what she needs to hear and what I want to say. And it was like, I will never leave you. That was it. I will never leave you. And I went from criticizing the drum beating, you know, okay, everybody's on the circle beating drums. Whoopee. That's kind of dumb to being up there. And I beat those drums so hard, my hands hurt for two days. I mean, they literally swole up. I mean, I was pounding on it. And then other parents that were in the room started looking at their kids.

[40:25] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: Yeah.

[40:25] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: And saying the same thing, you know, like, yeah, you just need to know. No, no, no. That's not gonna happen. You're stuck with me, for better or worse.

[40:43] RACHEL NUSSBAUM: Well, I never got to say it back, but I'll never leave you, either.

[40:50] SHELDON NUSSBAUM: Thanks. Thank you so much.