Go Go Stop Go

My in-laws Jen (Chu-Jen) and Ben (Yi-Ben) Tsai moved to the US over 50 years ago to earn advanced degrees. They know my history and my mom but also have interesting life stories of their own to share, including the struggles and dangers of growing up in rural Taiwan and being the first in their immediate families to move to the US.

After a nine-year fight with lymphoma, my father-in-law died on January 31st, 2018. With deep respect and appreciation for my in-laws, I share this conversation I recorded in their dining room in July 2017.

Additional notes:

Ben Tsai died of lymphoma. If you’d like to contribute to lymphoma research, please send a check to:

Stanford Cancer Center Clinic “C”

Attention: Dr. Ranjana Advani

875 Blake Wilbur Dr.

Palo Alto, CA 94305

We heard about flooding and earthquakes in Taiwan. By one measure, Taiwan leads the world in being at risk from natural disasters, with 73% of its population at risk of three or more types of natural disasters -- more than any other country. See Table 1.1 on page 4 of the World Bank article “Natural Disaster Hotspots: A Global Risk Analysis”, 2005. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/7376

My father-in-law helped instrument Taiwan with hundreds of seismic sensors. That network of sensors was completed in 1996, allowing Taiwan to collect a significant amount of data when the tragic Chi-Chi earthquake struck in 1999. The earthquake measured 7.6 on the Richter scale and, according to a FEMA article, “As a result, at least 2,400 people were killed, 8,700 were injured, 600,000 people were left homeless, and about 82,000 housing units were damaged by the earthquake and large aftershocks. Damage was estimated at 14 billion U.S. dollars.

FEMA article on natural disasters in Taiwan: https://training.fema.gov/hiedu/downloads/compemmgmtbookproject/comparative%20em%20book%20-%20em%20in%20taiwan.pdf

Early report after the Chi-Chi 1999 earthquake, including a summary of the seismic instrumentation program my father-in-law helped implement: http://www.iris.washington.edu/news/events/taiwan/taiwan99reports/chi-chi1.html

I was inspired to start this show after losing my mom in August 2016. My mom lived in her home in San Diego until she was 80. It made me worry at times because she didn’t have any family there and I was a 90-minute flight or 8-hour drive away in San Francisco. A big reason she was able to stay in her home so long was because she had a network of friends and neighbors who would help her out.

Today you’ll hear my conversation with two of those neighbors, who lived across the street from my mom for nearly 40 years and were part of her support structure. Bill and Nancy Pickett are in their 80s and going strong. Bill is a semi-retired engineer who still works 3 days a week. Nancy recently oversaw a kitchen remodel and celebrated her 80th birthday at a San Diego brewery.

Today’s guest is Rick Richman, someone I met when I visited his new Firepie pizza truck near my home in San Francisco. I didn’t really know Rick before we talked in my kitchen and recorded this conversation. To prepare, I asked Rick to put me in contact with three people who knew him well, and they told me about Rick’s jump into entrepreneurship as well as some of the emotional turning points in his life. Before the recording started, Rick said he was willing to talk about all of it, including a truly tragic loss and personal challenges few are willing to discuss openly. He talks about his perseverance through all that pain, and how he’s grown happier and healthier.

Nancy Hadzima worked with my mom for many years at a public day care center in San Diego, California. She sees a connection between her background in sociology and psychology, and how she had a lot of sympathy for struggling parents and children she’d meet at the center. Nancy recalls how, sometimes, that sympathy put her at odds with my mom, who, as the child center supervisor, was her boss.

Nancy and I also share stories about losing parents, including how the loss of her father made it hard for her to enjoy Thanksgiving for many years. As we get into the 2017 holiday season, I'm reminded that the 2016 holidays were difficult for me as the first without my mom. From going to grief groups, I know that the holidays can be difficult for many people in mourning, especially if you lost someone at this time of year like Nancy did.

I didn’t know Nancy before meeting with her in Silicon Valley in July. You’ll hear me introduce her and then myself as part of our conversation, so I won’t repeat that now. I’ll just say Nancy kept it real and fun.

There’s some salty language in this episode, so if you’re around children you may want to use headphones.

If you listened to the trailer or episode 1 of this show, you’ll know many of the conversations I’ve recorded have been with people who knew my mom, Phyllis Badenhope. In episode 1, I talked with Joyce Comfort, a college classmate who studied with my mom in northwestern Missouri in the early 1950s. Then, starting in the early 1960s, my mom traveled to Asia and Europe for seven years, teaching first grade to the children of American military personnel. Her longest international stop was three years in Spain. Today you’ll hear a conversation I had with Marge Goslin, who taught and lived with my mom in Madrid. My mom’s time living overseas happened before I was born, so I appreciate Marge’s willingness to fill in some gaps I had in my mom’s time there.

At 89, Marge is no stranger to setbacks in life. She’s lost both her siblings as well as her husband, and her eyesight and memory aren’t what they used to be. But mainly she’s happy and, as she talks about her life, I hear a significant amount of acceptance. In our conversation, you’ll hear someone reflect on a life of big changes, such as changing careers, moving between continents, shifting her commitment to religion, and finding love late in life.

In July, I took a day to drive a couple hours from San Francisco to Turlock, a town near Modesto in California’s Central Valley, where Marge lives in a care home. I recorded our conversation in a cafe there shortly after arriving.

I would say I became serious about making a podcast when I started an evening class in May. (Yes, there is now such a thing as classes to learn podcasting.) In the class, we would talk about our projects, and a classmate told me about her cousin, Carol Badran, my guest for this episode. I wanted to talk with Carol because, sadly, she’s had a lot of experience with death. She lost her dad at a young age. She lost friends to AIDS. More recently, she lost her mom and both her sisters within 15 months. Over the course of this wide-ranging conversation, we cover some specifics of these incidents, but I especially appreciate the ideas, dare I say, the wisdom Carol has acquired on how we can better support others in grief and better take care of ourselves when we experience it.

For example, if you’ve ever wondered how to approach someone experiencing loss, you may get some ideas based on how Carol talks about friends she got closer to or, unfortunately, became distanced from during this period. She also talks about how the pain gets easier to bear as well as the importance of forgiveness.

As I listen again to this conversation, I certainly hear sadness and pain but there’s also laughter and resilience, such as when she shares some surprisingly optimistic thoughts on feeling alone.

I sat down with Carol Badran in July at her home in Oakland, California. Here’s our conversation.

In June, my family and I went to San Diego to attend a bar mitzvah for my friend’s son. During the activities that weekend, we attended a shabbat service. Compared to Methodist and Catholic services I attended in the past, I noticed the shabbat service had more detailed rituals around mourning. There were timeframes of a week, a month, and a year for members of the congregation to acknowledge loved ones they lost. I was curious to learn more about these traditions, and my friend suggested I reach out to Rabbi Solomon since she has such an engaging personality.

In this episode, you’ll hear a phone conversation I had with my mom’s good friend Joyce Comfort, who is 86, sharp, and full of good humor.

My mom and Joyce knew each other since their late teens, growing up in St. Joseph, Missouri, north of Kansas City. I always appreciated how Joyce would send cards and small gifts at the holidays for my family. After my mom died, I was looking for people who could fill in the blanks I had in the story about my mom. I found myself talking to Joyce fairly often and even traveling from San Francisco to the Midwest with my family to visit her. Maryville. Northwest Missouri State University. Friendship.

I’m a husband, and father, raising two kids in San Francisco, California, AND I also work an intense job, leading software product teams. My life is go go go seven days a week. It seems like everyone around me is also going at full speed.

But then about a year ago, my mother died. It’s surfaced a lot of other emotions and problems that I haven’t dealt with while being so busy and it’s caused me to reconsider how I want to live.

I’m Jay Badenhope, and this is Go Go Stop Go, a show where I’ll talk with people to explore the big, difficult issues and major turning points in our lives. Grief. Loss. Emotions. Career. Health. Relationships. Love. Kindness. Comfort.