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Jonathan Goldstein
Pushkin.
Deborah
Aww.
Jonathan Goldstein
Hey, you picked up the phone. Very spontaneous. Do you think I'm spontaneous?
Deborah
No. There's nothing spontaneous about you.
Jonathan Goldstein
I'm pretty spontaneous. I live in Minnesota.
Deborah
Nothing spontaneous about you living in Minnesota.
Jonathan Goldstein
I got married. Wow. Oh, While I was at the shopping mall, I bought a parrot.
Deborah
Yeah.
Jonathan Goldstein
Oh, wait one sec. Chicken liver. Oh, did you hear that in the background?
Deborah
Yeah.
Lauren
What?
Jonathan Goldstein
Jackie Cohen. Oh, did you hear that? Jackie Cohen. She hung up on you. I know she did. Imaginary parrot. From Pushkin Industries, I'm Jonathan Goldstein, and this is Heavyweight. Today's episode. Deborah, Right after the break.
Sophie Cunningham
This is an I Heart podcast. Guaranteed human.
Joe Berlinger
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Jonathan Goldstein
IBM.
Sophie Cunningham
Okay, only 10 more presents to wrap.
Cindy Crawford
You're almost at the finish line, but.
Jonathan Goldstein
First, There, the last one.
Cindy Crawford
Enjoy a Coca Cola for a pause that refreshes.
Ryan Seacrest
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. The holiday season can be exhausting with all the parties and the end of year celebrations. But don't forget to take care of yourself by stocking up on your favorite nutritional products. Now through December 30, shop in store and online. And save on items like Cliff Snack Bars, Luna Bars, Boost Nutritional Energy Drinks, Premier Protein Shakes, Z Bar Variety Packs, Open Nature Powder and Body Fortress Protein powder. Offers end December 30th. Restrictions apply. Offers may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details.
Deborah
Hello?
Jonathan Goldstein
Hello, Is this Barbara?
Deborah
No, this is Deborah.
Jonathan Goldstein
How are you related to Barbara?
Deborah
I don't know who Barbara is.
Jonathan Goldstein
Although this might sound like a classic Cheech and Chong routine. It's actually me phoning Deborah. Debra, you should know, is 102 years old, yet it is I who is having the senior moment. Oh, my. I'm so sorry. For some reason, I think I Thought your name was Barbara.
Deborah
It's okay. I've lived long enough. I could take any name.
Jonathan Goldstein
I'm phoning Deborah. Her name is Deborah because she made a discovery recently that has turned her life on its head. It all began with a phone call from her daughter, Lee.
Deborah
She called me several months ago, and she said, mom, given your age, I'd like to help you clear out your storage room. So I said, fine. When are you coming? She said, now.
Jonathan Goldstein
The storage room is a room in Deborah's Bronx apartment. She affectionately calls it the snake pit. It's where expired vitamins and broken kitchen appliances collect. While cleaning it out, her daughter Lee saw something that caught her eye, and.
Deborah
She walked out of the storage room with a cardboard box.
Jonathan Goldstein
Written across the top of the box were Deborah's initials. And beside those initials, underlined in black ink, were the words, go through. When Deborah lifted the lid, she uncovered something she'd stashed away long ago and had never gone through.
Deborah
256 letters written to me when I was 21.
Jonathan Goldstein
The letters, tied up in ribboned bundles, were from Deborah's first love, a man named Jerry Robbins.
Deborah
We were engaged to be married. He. Okay, I'm sorry.
Jonathan Goldstein
Jerry was killed in World War II on Christmas Eve, 1944.
Deborah
My future was shredded as well as the man that I loved.
Jonathan Goldstein
And had you forgotten about these letters?
Deborah
I didn't forget. I just found his death so disturbing, I couldn't take it. So I sequestered that aspect of my prior life away and never looked at it again.
Lee
She has a really powerful ability to flip the switch, as she calls it.
Jonathan Goldstein
This is Deborah's daughter, Lee.
Lee
Put it away, not think about it.
Jonathan Goldstein
And that's just what Deborah did. To escape the grief of Jerry's death, she threw herself into graduate school, got a master's degree in social work, and from there, life just kept on spooling. She married a man named Irving, who was an attorney and a good provider, and together they raised three kids. But all the while, through 64 years of marriage, through every move, every new chapter, Deborah kept the box with its lid closed shut. Until recently. Nearly 80 years after Jerry's death and over a decade after the death of her husband, Irving, Deborah was finally ready to open the box and start reading.
Deborah
Every letter, every postcard, and every V mail, email, v mail. The letter V, as in victory, right?
Jonathan Goldstein
Right. Will you listen to me? V mail, as I only later learned, was a method the government used to get soldiers letters to their families. And as Deborah read these letters, something began to happen.
Deborah
I fell in love with Jerry again.
Jonathan Goldstein
Not only did the box contain Jerry's handwritten letters, but also a number of his poems and short stories. Jerry, Deborah tells me, was an aspiring writer with big dreams.
Deborah
His absolute motivation was to write, write and compose. If he had a pencil or a pen in hand, he. He'd seek out paper to write on.
Jonathan Goldstein
The sheer volume of letters, their depth and detail attest to this. And each day, sometimes all through the day, Deborah would read and reread Jerry's words. And as she did, she felt him return to her. It was like time had collapsed.
Deborah
How can 101 year old woman, whose hormones have long since shriveled, fall in love again?
Jonathan Goldstein
Deborah's daughter Lee noticed the change that came over her mother. How re energized she'd become. And Lee thought that was wonderful to a point.
Lee
There's a thin line because she started slipping into what we would call Jerryland.
Jonathan Goldstein
Oh, what is that?
Lee
That is not to label it too much, but a kind of overarching obsession with all things Jerry. All she did was live in Jerryland.
Jonathan Goldstein
This is Deborah's other daughter, Lauren.
Lee
And every time I called her up or would see her, it would be, Jerry said this and Jerry said that. She would spend all my conversations with her just talking about Jerry.
Jonathan Goldstein
It sounds a little bit. The way you describe it is like, you know, like when a teenager's in love, you know?
Lee
Yeah.
Jonathan Goldstein
They're just drawing, like, the person's name and heart, you know, in their notebook or something.
Lee
Yeah. You just can't help but talk about it all the time.
Jonathan Goldstein
Lauren says their mother stopped watching movies, reading books, attending the classes she took online.
Lee
I was concerned about it. Lee was concerned about it. We all kept saying, here, mom, here's a great book. Read this, watch this. Why don't you invite people over? And it was truly like she was in a bubble.
Jonathan Goldstein
Also concerning to Lauren is how, since the discovery of the letters, Jerry has threatened to eclipse her late father, Irving. For proof, you need look no further than Deborah's living room. On an entry table by the door is a photograph of Irving. But beside her favorite chair is one of Jerry sitting right next to her.
Lee
And my father is off to the side. What the hell?
Jonathan Goldstein
How does that make you feel? Weird.
Lee
Strange.
Jonathan Goldstein
Debra, for her part, insists her feelings for Jerry have no bearing on the love she feels for her late husband. But this passionate side of Debra is new to Lauren.
Lee
They always say we become more of ourselves the older we get.
Jonathan Goldstein
Do you think so?
Lee
I think so. Don't you.
Jonathan Goldstein
I'd like to think so. Yeah. I mean, it certainly seems like with your mother, I mean, she continues to grow.
Lee
You know, she does. There's a great line I love to quote, and it's from Metallica. Metallica, the heavy metal bands. And one of the lines is, my lifestyle determines my death style. And I think it's a great line like, not. She's not dying. But, you know, I. I think we just keep becoming more.
Jonathan Goldstein
Yeah.
Deborah
And.
Lee
Oh, there. I'm sorry for all these texts. My husband just got nominated for two Emmys.
Jonathan Goldstein
Oh, my goodness. That's fantastic.
Lauren
Yeah.
Jonathan Goldstein
As it happens, Lauren's husband is the award winning documentary filmmaker, Joe Berlinger. Among his work, Some Kind of Monster, an exploration of Metallica's experience in group therapy.
Lee
He just got nominated and my whole family is like, yay. That's great. Congrats.
Jonathan Goldstein
Good for him. But you know what's also good as good, if not better than being nominated for TV's most prestigious award, Helping people. And right now, I'm going to help Deborah with something she's taken to calling her mandate.
Deborah
When I was a daughter, I had an obligation to my parents as a student, to my teacher in my school, as a wife and a mother to my family. But now that I've lived this long, my mandate is to do something with these amazing letters.
Jonathan Goldstein
Deborah hopes to honor Jerry by giving his writing an audience. It occurs to me that I have an audience, and perhaps if Deborah and I read through the letters together, it would fulfill her mandate and allow her to move on. I put the idea to Lee. Do you think, like, getting something out there into the world would allow her to leave Jerryland?
Lee
Yeah, I do. Because he'll always be 21, he'll always be a writer who never got to live his potential. So there's this quality of stuckness or stasis getting his work out there. It's almost like she gets to the end.
Deborah
Can you come to my apartment?
Jonathan Goldstein
Well, I'm in Minnesota.
Deborah
I wouldn't fly out where you are. But if you can come to my home, I would be eternally grateful for as long as I last.
Jonathan Goldstein
Well, I mean, I would love to see the letters and it would be really nice to meet you in person.
Deborah
Okay, Mr. Goldstein. So come look. Yeah, said the old lady to the young man.
Jonathan Goldstein
And so it looks like this 56 year old young man is heading off to New York because like the writing on the box says, maybe the only way out is to go through. And speaking of going through, it's time for you to grease up the wheels on your shopping cart and go through some ads.
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Joe Berlinger
Is Michael Lewis from Against the Rules, the Big Short Companion this podcast is brought to you by FedEx. The new power Move hey, we all know those people who you run into at work who want you to think that they have power and you don't. You know people who show up late to meetings and events late on purpose to make themselves look like they're so busy. People who put you on hold, or people who never sit at the conference table in a meeting. Instead, they're always perched in the back, lording over everyone. The real power move is actually having access to the biggest data networks powered by the biggest delivery network, using predictive analytics to manage your entire supply chain, and having end to end visibility for temperature controlled health care shipping. FedEx the new power Move hey, it's.
Ryan Seacrest
Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. The holiday season can be exhausting with all the parties and the end of year celebrations. But don't forget to take care of yourself by stocking up on your favorite nutritional products. Now through December 30th. Shop in store and online and save on items like Cliff Snack Bars, Luna Bars, Boost Nutritional Energy Drinks, Premier Protein Shakes, Z Bar Variety Packs, Open Nature Powder and Body Fortress Protein powder offers end December 30th. Restrictions apply. Offers may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details.
Cindy Crawford
Hi, I'm Cindy Crawford, and I'm the founder of Meaningful Beauty. Well, I don't know about you, but, like, I never liked being told, oh, wow, you look so good for your age. Like, why even bother saying that? Why don't you just say you look great at any age, Every age. That's what Meaningful Beauty is all about. We create products that make you feel confident in your skin at the age you are now. Meaningful Beauty. Beautiful skin at every age. Learn more@meaningfulbeauty.com.
Jonathan Goldstein
256 letters. It took several weeks for my producer, Phoebe, and me to read them all. Many of the letters were missing dates and locations, but we puzzled our way through, doing our best to bring chronological order. And as we did, a life emerged and a portrait of the young man who lived it. We went through all 256 of the letters.
Lauren
Oh, boy. So you know Jerry.
Jonathan Goldstein
Oh, yeah. So let's. Why don't we just start off by reading the first letter?
Lauren
Here goes. Dear Deb, Finding myself with a few spare moments.
Jonathan Goldstein
Jerry's first letters are from the spring of 1940, nearly four years before he enlisted.
Lauren
My mother advised me that she doesn't mind my staying in your house till all hours of the night. She likes you quite a bit, which practically makes it unanimous.
Jonathan Goldstein
Deborah and Jerry had been friends since their elementary school days in Brooklyn. But their friendship was beginning to blossom into something more. What? What were you guys doing until all hours of the night?
Lauren
Talking. As passionate as it was, it was never consummated, which is my regret.
Jonathan Goldstein
It is a regret?
Lauren
Oh, intensely so.
Jonathan Goldstein
Deborah says she was waiting for marriage.
Lauren
But we would have had a hot time together. I forgot that I'm being recorded.
Jonathan Goldstein
Jerry lived over an hour away by subway. And before texting, emails and the prevalence of phone calls, weekend rendezvous were planned out over letters. Jerry's writing is clever. In one missive, he invites Debra out to a show for New Year's Eve. When she doesn't give him a straight answer, he sends a follow up to help you make a decision. And for your convenience, you will find on page four of this letter a ballot. Just check one and mail. Within the next week, the ballot shows two yes and yes. Be it in his letters or his short stories, Jerry had a way with a closing line. His fiction often showcased an ironic reveal in the final sentence. In one story, the peacenik babbling in the mental institution turns out to be a former war commissioner. In another, the motorist who stops to help a stranded woman turns out to be an Executioner on his way to put the woman's son to death. They were like twilight zone episodes, almost 20 years before the show went on the air. Jerry shared drafts of these stories along with poems. Deborah appreciated his lyrical turns of phrase.
Lauren
I call them jerryism. Instead of war, he says. Man made madness instead of bullet. Hot sperm of death. How is that hot sperm of death?
Jonathan Goldstein
I'm no poet, but it strikes me that the mighty metallica itself would be proud to name an album something so in one's face. As a student at columbia studying to be a writer, Jerry was exempt from the draft. But in the winter of 1943, he decided to leave school and enlist. Aside from his parents, Deborah was the first person he told since. One of my guiding rules, he wrote, has always been, to thine own self be true. I feel I can't stay out any longer. Just paying lip service to my beliefs. From boot camp, Jerry's letters arrived in Deborah's mailbox every day. His clever short stories with the tidy twilight zone endings gave way to reportage. Jerry detailed the eccentric characters he met. The sergeant with a jaw like a rock, the chaplain who was a secret lush. But he also shared his feelings. In one letter, he described the first time he stood before a mirror and saw himself in uniform, how it gave him chills. As training became more grueling and the thought of war more present and real, Jerry sought refuge in Debra, summoning her presence during lonely evenings at camp or long marches in the heat. I didn't mind walking because I wasn't alone. You were with me, walking by my side and keeping me company all the time. We spoke about a thousand things. My furlough, the invasion, what we're going to do together when I come back. I recited poetry to you, and when no one was watching, I put my arms around you, held you close to me and whispered I love you into your ears. Jerry and Deborah created a ritual which they enacted at 10 o' clock each evening. Jerry called it their nightly meeting. When the hour struck, they dropped whatever they were doing, and in the absence of a telephone, each would simply think of the other. I close my eyes, jerry wrote. The world fades away, and then it's now.
Lauren
Now was one of our secret words. The only thing that was real was here and now. Through the ebony of night, I reach out for you, and from across the wide expanse of sea you come, your eyes flashing, your body warm and curved. This is the only place, this is the only time. Here and now.
Jonathan Goldstein
Do you want to read another letter? This one will be A special one, sure.
Lauren
So here I go again, doing things crudely and probably very badly. Honey, I want to get engaged on my furlough. I needn't add that I'm anxiously and.
Lee
Eagerly awaiting your reply.
Lauren
Just say yes.
Jonathan Goldstein
And here Deborah recites from memory her reply from over 80 years ago.
Lauren
My answer to you is yes.
T-Mobile/IBM Ad Voice
Yes.
Jonathan Goldstein
Yes. Back at boot camp, time marched on, and in the fall of 1944, Jerry received notice he was going to be deployed. But before his deployment, he was granted a final furlough. So he went home to see Deborah, where he gave her a ring. Together they made plans for the future, talked about everything that lay ahead. Once he was home for good. Then, standing on the subway platform in Washington Heights, they said their last goodbye.
Lauren
I can almost feel it. I remember kissing him and saying, this isn't good. I don't know what's happening. And I went into the train and I cried hysterically all the way till.
Deborah
The last stop on that train.
Jonathan Goldstein
Jerry's company was shipped off to England, where American soldiers were preparing to join the fight in mainland Europe. Unbeknownst to them, they were destined for one of the deadliest campaigns of World War II, the Battle of the Bulge. But they never made it there. Jerry was among more than 2,200 men loaded onto a troop ship on Christmas Eve. The ship was bound for Cherbourg, France, just a short trip across the English Channel. But hours later, just five miles from the entrance to the harbor, a torpedo struck. A survivor described the slender silver missile cutting through the water and colliding with the ship as having shaken the vessel from stern to stern. Hundreds of men in the lower decks were killed instantly as the sea rushed into the massive gash. Those who made it to the upper decks weren't much better off. They'd not been briefed on how to lower the lifeboats or free the rafts that might have carried them to safety. That, they were told, was the job of the crew. But the crew, a Belgian outfit, spoke little English and had little loyalty to the American troops aboard. And so it happened that many crew members abandoned ship while the Americans aboard still had no idea they were slowly sinking. Many soldiers were presumed to have gone down with the ship. Others were lost to injuries and hypothermia. In the end, 763 men died. Jerry was one of them. After six months of training, he saw one day of war. The scale of death was so needless, the failed emergency response so poor, that for decades, the US Government covered up the details. Survivors risked losing their veteran Benefits if they talked. And so when a family was notified that they'd lost a loved one, only the barest details were shared.
Lauren
I was in Jerry's parents home, his mother and father or in the room they handed me the telegram.
Jonathan Goldstein
In the months before he died, looking towards the war he was about to enter, Jerry wrote a poem. All I ask for God, in the brief second before eternity swallows me up. A glimpse of the world that is to be where no man need make a prayer like mine. Then will I know there is meaning amidst this man made madness.
Lauren
In a certain way. I've never verbalized this, but in a certain way, the discovery of those letters have turned my life upside down. Because I don't feel as happy as I used to feel. I really don't.
Jonathan Goldstein
It's the first time I've heard Deborah say this. I thought, for Deborah, Jerryland was a happy escape. And it seems it can be. But there's sadness there too. After discovering the box, Debra found herself having nightmares. The letters abruptly end in 1944. So in place of an actual ending, Deborah's mind crafted its own. She dreamt of Jerry in the water. She dreamt of him frozen in the English Channel. And it was like a piece of Deborah was stuck there with him. Recently, though, I learned something that might help Deborah to work herself free. A few months ago, a genealogist friend of the family was doing some digging and turned up something surprising. Something that Deborah never knew. Jerry's body wasn't in the English Channel, nor was it buried somewhere in Europe. Jerry's body had actually been repatriated back to America and interred in a Jewish cemetery called Mount Lebanon. And it turns out the cemetery is not an hour's drive from Deborah's apartment. To move on from Jerryland. Maybe Deborah needs more than just to revisit the past. Or honor the past. Maybe she needs to grieve it. Leaving the house at 102 is not so easily done. And Deborah has yet to visit Jerry's grave. I ask if it might be something we can do together.
Deborah
Anything that brings me closer to him. I'm game.
Jonathan Goldstein
After the break. Jerry.
T-Mobile/IBM Ad Voice
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Joe Berlinger
Is Michael Lewis from Against the Rules, the Big Short Companion. This podcast is brought to you by FedEx the new power Move hey, we all know those people who you run into at work who want you to think that they have power and you don't. You know people who show up late to meetings and events late on purpose to make themselves look like they're so busy. People who put you on hold, or people who never sit at the conference table in a meeting. Instead, they're always perched in the back lording over everyone. The real power move is actually having access to the biggest data networks powered by the biggest delivery network, using predictive analytics to manage your entire supply chain, and having end to end visibility for temperature controlled healthcare shipping. FedEx the new power Move hey, it's.
Ryan Seacrest
Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. Flu season is here and the in store pharmacy has you covered with a free flu shot with most insurance plans. And as a thank you, get up to $20 off your grocery purchase. Plus it's cough and cold season. Stock up on all the season's essentials and get ready for relief with discounts on items like Hall's Menthol Cough Drops, Tylenol Cold and Flu and Mucinex Fast Max products. Offer ends December 30th. Restrictions apply and offers may vary by location. Visit Albertsons or Safeway.com for more details.
Cindy Crawford
Hi, I'm Cindy Crawford and I'm the founder of Meaningful Beauty. Well, I don't know about you, but like I never liked being told oh wow, you look so good for your age. Like why bother saying that? Why don't you just say you look great at any age, Every age. That's what meaningful Beauty is all about. We create products that make you feel confident in your skin at the age you are now meaningful beauty. Beautiful skin at every age. Learn more@meaningful beauty.com.
Jonathan Goldstein
Just as I'm about to book a minivan for our visit to the cemetery, I receive an invitation to a video conference. Hello.
Joe Berlinger
Hey. Sorry, I had to, I guess, log in.
Jonathan Goldstein
Deborah's Emmy award winning son in law, Joe Berlinger, also wants to come to the cemetery to film for his own project about Deborah.
Joe Berlinger
I mean, we're all such huge fans of Heavyweight that we're so excited that you're engaged.
Jonathan Goldstein
Yeah, I mean, right back at ya. We, you know, we love what you do. So we have I a pet hamster in my fanny pack. Allow me to explain my lack of enthusiasm about Joe's participation.
Joe Berlinger
You know, when I go out and I do something for Netflix or whatever, it's a little.
Jonathan Goldstein
The world of documentary is a hierarchy that breaks down thusly. Netflix documentaries, the top floor penthouse suite. Audio documentaries, the underground parking garage where audio documentarians park their used Ford Fiestas. So as much as I love Joe's work, let's just say Metallica doesn't have two lead guitarists. Let's just say it only has one. And according to the Internet, his name is Kirkley Hammett. And on this documentary shoot, I'm the Kirk.
Joe Berlinger
It's not like we're going to be dueling interviewers or anything like that. I want to assure you of that.
Jonathan Goldstein
I just want to be a fly.
Joe Berlinger
On the wall and observe what's happening.
Jonathan Goldstein
Canadian etiquette dictates my not saying no. But I will be documenting you, Joe Berlinger documenting me as I document Deborah. On a sunny morning in October, we all meet at Deborah's.
Lauren
Hello.
T-Mobile/IBM Ad Voice
Hi.
Lauren
Hi.
Jonathan Goldstein
Hi, Jonathan. Deborah is seated by the window wearing a colorful kerchief around her neck. The sunlight illuminates her shoulder length white hair in a puffy halo.
Lauren
I'd like to say a few words, if that's okay.
Jonathan Goldstein
Of course. Debra has prepared a speech about Jerry that she'd like to recite at his gravesite. In fact, a few days earlier, she left a phone message saying it would be four minutes long, suggesting she'd already timed it and practiced it just to get it. All right. My worry is that with a speech already committed to memory, Debra might have already decided how and how much she wants to feel.
Deborah
Yep.
Jonathan Goldstein
Thank you. We load into the van. Deborah, her aide Javi, her daughter Lee, and my producer, Phoebe. Joe seats himself up front. The papa. Ostensibly it's so he can silently record Deborah and me in the seats behind him. Silently.
Joe Berlinger
So, Jonathan, what are we doing today?
Jonathan Goldstein
Well, being questioned on one's own podcast is not unlike being strapped into a baby seat in one's own 14 seater van, which, might I add, one paid for. Rather than demanding that everyone in the van pause their various recording devices so I can throw a full on Kirkley Hammett level artistic tantrum, I instead do this. We are heading off to the Queen's Cemetery. I obey my master. Master? That's a Metallica reference. We ride through Washington Heights, where Jerry grew up, past the grounds of the World's Fair, where he and Deborah spent many a summer's afternoon that was was.
Lauren
The greatest dates we ever had together.
Jonathan Goldstein
They marveled over futuristic architecture. The debut of the first television portraits of a hopeful future. When we arrive at the cemetery, we consult the map. The cemetery is so large that it has streets, and the streets have names.
Lauren
Jerry's not on Paradise Avenue, is he?
Cindy Crawford
He actually is just off.
Lauren
He is. How about that?
Jonathan Goldstein
Okay.
Lee
Okay, we're ready to go. Next phase, Mom.
Lauren
Okay, I got these stones.
Jonathan Goldstein
We all get out of the car. According to the map, Jerry's grave isn't far. Deborah's aide wheels her towards the isle of Tombstones.
Lauren
Okay, what's going through my mind now is a letter from Jerry saying, there's so many things I want to do with you. Oh, my. Oh, there.
Joe Berlinger
Oh.
Jonathan Goldstein
And suddenly, there it is. The headstone, beloved son and dear brother, Private Jerome Robbins. Jerry.
Lauren
Oh, God.
Jonathan Goldstein
Do you want to do this?
Lauren
Yeah.
Jonathan Goldstein
Okay. We brought along the cottage. If you wanted to say it, you.
Lauren
Don'T have to bring it to me. I know it.
Jonathan Goldstein
You know it. Okay. Yeah. When she's finished with the prayer for the dead, Deborah remains quiet. But then something happens. Something she hadn't planned for or prepared for. Taking in the sight of all those tombstones, she just starts talking.
T-Mobile/IBM Ad Voice
Oh.
Lauren
What a waste. This one 19. This beloved one, 22. The other one 20. No more. No more wars. Please. Please, no more wars. There are too many beautiful, healthy young veterans who are lined up here and probably never had a chance to live. What thieves warmongers are. Warmongers are thieves of life that was never lived. Man made madness. Man made madness. Okay, I said enough, gerard.
Jonathan Goldstein
Deborah will later tell me that she surprised herself for all the words she'd prepared. These words, she said, came from the guts. To get through her long life, Deborah learned to box up the pain and store it neatly away. But maybe if you live long enough, everything, even those buried things, rise to the surface again, searching for light. I think.
T-Mobile/IBM Ad Voice
One, two, three.
Lee
One, More stepmom.
Lauren
I know.
Jonathan Goldstein
We all load into the van and settle back in for the journey back to the Bronx. How are you feeling?
Lauren
I thought it would be painful, and it wasn't painful. I got a refill of energy. It was a little bit of stealing from his strength, and that really came from being with Jerry.
Jonathan Goldstein
A young man at a time when he needed love most conjured a spectral companion to journey by his side. Now, almost a century later, an old woman does the same. It's the sort of ironic twist that could have flowed from Jerry's pen.
Lauren
Hey, Joe, you want some nuts or a banana? What about a banana?
Jonathan Goldstein
Back in the van, Joe reminds Deborah that it's his daughter Deborah's granddaughter's 31st birthday.
Lauren
Oh, that's right.
Jonathan Goldstein
Should we call her?
Lauren
Huh? Yes.
Jonathan Goldstein
When she gets home, Deborah will return some phone calls, maybe take a nap. All the little things that make up a life all the little things that make up the here and now Happy.
Lauren
Birthday Happy birthday to you Happy birthday to you Happy birthday Off camera me off. Now that the furniture is returning to.
Jonathan Goldstein
Its goodwill home now that the last month's rank is scheming with the damage deposit Take this moment to decide.
Sophie Cunningham
If.
Jonathan Goldstein
We meant it if we tried but felt around for far too much from things that accidentally touched. This episode of Heavyweight was produced by Phoebe Flanagan and me, Jonathan Goldstein. Our senior producer, is Kahlilah Holt. Our supervising producer is Stevie Lane. Editorial guidance from Emily Condon. Special thanks to Chris Neary, Lucy Sullivan, Ben Nadif Haffrey and Greta Cohn. Special thanks also to Daria o', Connor, Jack Eiferman and Alan Andrade. The author of the book Leopoldville A Tragedy Too Long Since Secret, which is a great read. If you want to learn more about the sinking of Jerry's ship, Deborah is publishing a collection of Jerry's writing that will soon be available on Amazon. You can find more information about the book@waitformeworld.com her daughter Lee has been working on a screenplay about Deborah and Jerry. She's hosting a live read of the Script on January 20th at Jazz Forum in Tarrytown, New York. As for Joe, he has two Netflix documentaries coming out early next year. Emma Munger mixed the episode with original music by Christine Fellowes, John K. Sampson, Blue Dot Sessions, Bobby Lord and Emma Munger. Additional scoring by Chris Zabriskie. Our theme song is by the Weaker Thans, courtesy of Epitaph Records. This is the end of our season, the final episode. But we'll be back in the spring with some more fun stuff, so keep an ear out. And we've got a new season coming your way next fall, so if you have a story for us, don't be withholding. Okay? Email us at heavyweightushkin fm. Happy holidays to all and thank you for your continued support and listenership. I'm Jonathan Goldstein. Ta ta. Ciao for now. Adieu. Don't use that stuff at the end, but you could put that part in. You could part. You could put in the part of me saying, don't use that. Don't use that stuff at the end. And then you can put in the part where I'm saying, don't use this stuff. Okay? It'll be fun.
Sophie Cunningham
This is Sophie Cunningham from Show Me Something. Do you know the symptoms of moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, or osa, in adults with obesity? They may be happening to you without you knowing. If anyone has ever said you snored loudly, or if you spend your days fighting off excessive tiredness, irritability and concentration issues, it may be due to osa. OSA is a serious condition where your airway partially or completely collapses during sleep, which may cause breathing interruptions and oxygen deprivation. Learn more at don'tsleep on osa.com this information is provided by Lilly a medicine company.
Jonathan Goldstein
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Jonathan Goldstein
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Jonathan Goldstein
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Jonathan Goldstein
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Podcast by Pushkin Industries | Host: Jonathan Goldstein | Date: December 18, 2025
In this deeply moving episode of Heavyweight, host Jonathan Goldstein helps 102-year-old Deborah revisit a pivotal love and heartbreak from her youth, unearthed through a box of long-hidden letters from her first fiancé, Jerry Robbins, who died in World War II. What begins as a lighthearted phone call turns into an emotional journey of discovery, memory, grief, and catharsis, as Deborah and her family reckon with the return of a love lost for nearly eight decades.
On love and regret:
“As passionate as it was, it was never consummated, which is my regret.” – Deborah (20:47)
On aging:
“They always say we become more of ourselves the older we get.” – Lee (11:40)
On rediscovered love:
“I fell in love with Jerry again.” – Deborah (08:02)
On the legacy of war:
“Warmongers are thieves of life that was never lived. Man made madness.” – Deborah (43:41)
On closure:
“I thought it would be painful, and it wasn’t. I got a refill of energy... that really came from being with Jerry.” – Deborah (45:44)
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