Heavyweight x Search Engine

Summary

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Search Engine x Heavyweight: The Art of Letting Go

Original Airdate: December 26, 2025
Host: PJ Vogt (Search Engine), Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight)

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Overview

In this cross-over episode between "Search Engine" and "Heavyweight," host Jonathan Goldstein helps his long-time friend Gregor confront the challenge of moving his elderly parents, Etta and Milt, out of their three-story Victorian home—an artist’s wonderland filled with decades of collections. The episode explores the emotional complexities of letting go, familial roles, aging, and the powerful grip of memories attached to objects. Through conversation, wit, and warmth, the story unfolds from cockamamie schemes to a touching reckoning with acceptance and loss.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Problem: Moving Aging Parents Out of a House Packed with Memories

• Gregor’s Concern ([03:39-05:25]): Gregor wants his parents, Etta and Milt (both nearly 90), to leave their cluttered Victorian home for a safer, smaller apartment. The house is dangerous, especially with all of Etta’s collections and art.
  • Jonathan: "I fear the more conventional fears. I fear my mother falling down a flight of stairs or my father." ([05:33])
• Etta’s Attachment ([05:54-06:55]):
  • Etta is reluctant, citing the collections—especially her thousands of glass bottles, each adorned with a Zen-like message and calligraphy—as both inspiration and impediment.
  • Etta: "To move out of the house isn't simply a question of selling the furniture. It's, my God, what do we do with all this?" ([05:56])
• Paradoxes of Letting Go ([07:24-08:08]):
  • While Etta’s messages on the bottles urge letting go, she confesses she's unable to do so herself, creating a poignant contradiction at the heart of the story.

2. Family Dynamics

• Milt’s Role ([08:08-09:03]):
  • Milt, a poet and Etta’s husband of 60+ years, claims to be un-attached ("I'm ready to go"), yet he keeps bringing home raw materials for Etta's art. His devotion to Etta is palpable and endearing.
  • Dimitri (about Milt): "Her only requirement is if I find something, it has to have what she calls charm." ([09:03])
• Gregor’s Siblings ([14:01-16:47]):
  • Sister Lexi: The reasonable one, skeptical about Gregor's plan.
  • Brother Dimitri: Adventurous and humorous, proposes hypnosis instead of the impractical museum plan.

3. Comic Relief: Hypnosis and Sibling Banter

• Impractical Solutions ([10:59-11:53], [14:01-16:47]):
  • Gregor suggests converting a decrepit farmhouse into the "Etta B. Ehrlich Museum" for her art.
  • Dimitri proposes hypnosis, referencing how it helped Etta quit smoking decades earlier, supported by vivid, quirky anecdotes.
  • Dimitri: "Maybe hypnosis. It stopped her from smoking, which is probably a more powerful psychological and physical addiction than collecting things." ([16:47])
• Sibling Dynamics ([19:45-21:26]):
  • Dimitri, Jonathan, and Gregor riff on hypnosis, with Dimitri joking about hypnotizing Jonathan out of his "smug smile" and even referencing "voluntary baldness syndrome."
  • Hilarious banter: "No, Dimitri used to be bald as an egg and then he willed it back on." —Jonathan ([21:17])

4. A Turning Point: The Art Show and Medical Crisis

• Etta’s Gallery Opening ([24:05-25:20]):
  • Etta, at age 88, gets her first major solo show in Manhattan—a validation for her outsider art.
• Crisis Strikes ([25:26-26:55]):
  • That very night, Milt collapses, forcing the family to confront the real possibility of change and loss.
  • Etta: "You might as well order the dumpsters right now. Meaning, you win. Empty out the house. Because if Milt isn't coming back to it. That's it." ([26:46])
• Reflection after the Scare ([27:13-27:56]):
  • Etta feels a shift: "There is a new little piece in my head that says things are going to change." ([27:40])

5. Etta’s Solution: Finding Homes for the Art

• Bottles for Everyone ([28:13-28:38]):
  • Etta hatches a plan to personally gift her "message bottles" to fitting recipients. It’s about careful, considered letting go, not simply clearing out.
  • Etta: "I now have a whole shelf full of stuff that I am now earmarking to give away." ([28:13])
• Gradual Release ([32:07-33:43]):
  • Over the next couple of years, Etta is able to give away about a hundred bottles, more than ever before, as her health declines.

6. The End and What Remains

• Etta’s Passing ([33:30-34:37]):
  • Diagnosed with brain cancer, Etta spends her final weeks at home with family. In the end, the art and possessions lose their grip; Etta seems at peace, "dancing" with her hands even while bedridden.
  • Jonathan: "It felt like a great death." ([34:37])
• Grieving and Legacy ([34:50-36:41]):
  • The family grapples with the lingering difficulty of letting go of Etta’s artwork, which feels like a part of her. Lexi and Gregor admit it’s harder than they thought.
  • Jonathan: "I carry her with me... I can't help but hear my mother's voice making fun of me for my description of what I'm experiencing." ([36:02])
• Gifts and Letting Go ([36:41-37:55]):
  • Jonathan receives a bottle from Etta posthumously, with the inscription:
      “I would love to live like a river flows, carried by the surprise of its own unfolding.” ([37:47])

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On Paradox:
  • Etta: “These works, which talk about being stuck with the grasping level. I suffer from that.” ([07:52])
• On Family & Attachment:
  • Milt: "I'm ready to go...I don't get attached to furniture and bottles and stuff." ([08:17])
  • Dimitri (on Etta): "Her only requirement is if I find something, it has to have what she calls charm." ([09:03])
• On Mortality:
  • Jonathan: "It just feels like, you know, the Damoclean sword of mortality is coming, and all we're gonna do is sit here and watch Rachel Maddow until it cuts our head off." ([10:17])
• On Letting Go:
  • Etta: "When I think of giving a person a bottle, I have to think, would it be good for that person?" ([28:38])
  • Lexi: "It just feels really hard to like her art. It feels...it's like a part of her." ([35:14])
• On Legacy and Presence:
  • Jonathan: "I carry her with me. I mean, in the way that...I can't help but hear my mother's voice making fun of me." ([36:02])
  • Etta's bottle’s message: "I would love to live like a river flows, carried by the surprise of its own unfolding." ([37:47])
• Final Reflection:
  • Narrator: "None of us knows where we're flowing. In the face of that, we need to learn how to let go." ([39:02])

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Important Timestamps

• 03:23 – Introduction to Gregor’s family and the problem
• 05:10 – The source of Etta’s prolific art and its consequences
• 06:55 – Etta reads inscriptions on her bottles
• 10:17 – Gregor’s existential monologue on inaction and mortality
• 14:01 – Sibling consultation begins
• 16:47 – Dimitri suggests hypnosis
• 24:05 – The night of Etta’s gallery show
• 25:53 – Milt’s collapse and the family’s reckoning
• 28:13 – Etta begins giving away her bottles
• 32:07 – Etta’s illness and the family’s vigil
• 34:50 – Family grapples with letting go of Etta’s art
• 37:47 – Jonathan receives Etta’s final bottle and its parting message
• 39:02 – Closing philosophical reflection

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Tone & Style

The episode is thoughtful and tender, balancing humor with deep empathy. Jonathan’s wry, self-deprecating humor and the family’s loving banter keep the tone buoyant amid reflections on aging, mortality, and family. The voices are authentic, sometimes prickly, sometimes wise, but always warm.

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For New Listeners

This episode is a quintessential Heavyweight story: combining family, regret, humor, existential questions, and ultimately, a surprising grace. If you’ve never listened to either show, this hour will make you laugh, tear up, and call your own parents—or at least, cherish the beautiful, imperfect stuff they’ll one day leave behind.

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Notable Instagram Mention:
If you’d like your own Etta B. Ehrlich bottle, her work is featured at @EttaBaerlich.

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Transcript

[Podcast Host (Search Engine Sponsor Announcer)]

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[Jonathan Goldstein]

All right, you ready? You rolling? You got levels? Me, me, ma, moo. Okay, go.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

This is Gregor. You might know him from such previous episodes as Gregor. Gregor is one of my oldest friends, and today he's coming to me with a problem.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

I'll take it from the top. Okay, so I have two parents, Milton and Etta.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

Etta and Milton are both pushing 90, and Gregor's problem is that they refuse to move out of their house. It's the same three story Victorian Gregor grew up in. He was 12 when the family first moved in. He still remembers the excitement as they unloaded boxes from the moving truck or moving trucks.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

You know, normal people move with like a big giant 18 wheeler moving truck. I believe when we moved, we had six moving trucks.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

One for the family's belongings, the other five for the collections. Some people collect coins, some people collect comic books. Gregor's mother, Etta, collects collections.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

She has like maybe 200 egg beaters. Antique egg beaters she has. Do you know what a bisque knotter is?

[Narrator / Interviewer]

No.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

In occupied Japan, people bought these little figurines where the head would wobble back.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

And forth like a bobble headed doll, something like that.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Anyway, she probably has 2,000 bisknotters.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

Then there are the 19th century weaving looms, the handmade baskets, the medieval scythes. Etta Ehrlich is an artist and her collections are the source of her inspiration. Etta sees beauty in everything, and in her hands, everything becomes art. She'll sculpt lint from the dryer. She'll put Googly eyes on a splatter of dried bird poop.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

My mother has been unbelievably prolific in making art for, like, the last 35 years to a degree where now the living room is, like, full to the brim with a million pieces of art. And every week she probably makes five or ten more pieces of art.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

None of this would be a problem, except that a large, cluttered house is becoming increasingly dangerous for Gregor's elderly parents.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

I fear the more conventional fears. I fear my mother falling down a flight of stairs or my father. I mean, there's all kinds of dark things that can happen in a house full of staircases.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

And so Gregor wants to move his parents into a smaller apartment, something more manageable. That's his plan?

[Etta Ehrlich]

Yeah, that's his plan. But that's not my plan.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

This is Etta.

[Etta Ehrlich]

The practical thing is we can't be in the house too much longer. I'm 88. Yeah, but to move out of the house isn't simply a question of selling the furniture. It's, my God, what do we do with all this?

[Narrator / Interviewer]

All this, all the collections, is what's keeping Etta in the house. And of all her many collections, of all her milking stools and antique rolling pins, it's her collection of fragile, colorful bottles that is perhaps the biggest impediment to moving. By Greger's estimate, Etta has thousands. Wine bottles, perfume bottles, old decanters, bottles washed up from the bottom of the ocean. As well as being an artist, Etta is a Buddhist. And her bottles are not just bottles, but a series of meditations. Because on each of the bottles, in fancy fonts and careful calligraphy, Etta places a message in the form of a Zen like riddle.

[Etta Ehrlich]

I turn my noose to tightropuse and madly dance upon it. Isn't that gorgeous? That's very nice, but how's about this one? It's a black bottle with gold calligraphy and it has the first letter shows, oh, breath. Somebody blowing a breath. Do you see it?

[Narrator / Interviewer]

It really does look like a breath is blowing. That's by design.

[Etta Ehrlich]

There you go. There you go. You want me to give that away for nothing?

[Narrator / Interviewer]

Other inscriptions are, stop schlepping your old being into the future. Or we cling to illusions of control. After hearing a few, I start to recognize a theme. All the bottles bear messages imploring one to let go. Yet Etta is incapable of letting go of the very bottles doing the imploring or much of anything else. There is a little bit of a paradox or there's something to kind of be struggling with here.

[Etta Ehrlich]

You're very, very sharp. That is exactly, exactly true. These works, which talk about being stuck with the grasping level. I suffer from that.

[Dimitri]

I could leave tomorrow.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

This is Gregor's dad, Milt. If the taxi pulled up right now, you would jump in.

[Dimitri]

I'm ready to go. Yeah, I'll stop you there. He's never taken a taxi in his.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

Life, but if I pulled up right.

[Dimitri]

Now, he'd get it. Uber duber. I don't get attached to furniture and bottles and stuff. Oh. Just reinforce that point that while my father may posit that he's a Taoist and not attached to anything, he is very much complicit, relentlessly bringing home the raw material through which my mother, you know, turns the art out.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

When was the last time you brought something home, Milt?

[Dimitri]

Yesterday. I'm always interested in what she's doing, and I often find the raw materials walking around in the woods or anywhere. Find stuff. Her only requirement is if I find something, it has to have what she calls charm.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

As for Milt, what he's charmed by, exceedingly charmed by, is Etta. Milt is a poet, and after over 60 years of marriage, he still writes poems about her, rhapsodizing about the way she creates art or cooks or the way she dances. Milt says he can watch Etta dance all night. He just doesn't understand her being so chained to her belongings.

[Etta Ehrlich]

I'm stuck, but I am not coming up with a solution that's any better, am I?

[Narrator / Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Etta Ehrlich]

You know, except dying.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

That's not a solution.

[Etta Ehrlich]

No, it's not a solution for Greg. He's left holding the whole thing.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

Of Milton, Etta's three kids, Gregor is perhaps the one most ready to serve the child. His parents hand a to do list when he comes to visit.

[Etta Ehrlich]

I mean, he talks mean, and that's because he has meanness in him. I'm not saying he doesn't, but he's also a very kind, giving, generous, loving person.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

Yes, he is. Yeah.

[Dimitri]

Yeah.

[Etta Ehrlich]

Don't tell him I said so.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Inaction is a choice. Not doing anything. Something's bound to happen sooner or later, and just sort of watch the second hand sweep around the clock face until somebody's dead is the most passive and weakest possible way to exist and die. It just feels like, you know, the Damoclean sword of mortality is coming, and all we're gonna do is sit here and watch Rachel Maddow until it cuts our head off.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

And so, because Edda can't let go. Grecor wants my help in pulling off a most extravagant workaround, one that will allow Etta to both keep her stuff and still move out the plan of action that Gregor wants to present to her.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

What if you don't get rid of your possessions and we make a museum of your stuff?

[Narrator / Interviewer]

Gregor explains to me the details. It seems that in the 1960s, Etta and Milt bought a 200-year-old farmhouse with no running water or indoor plumbing. Gregor's plan is to convert the barn into the Etta B. Ehrlich Museum. Convincing one's mother to downsize by way of a feral farmhouse museum that, by Gregor's own admission is probably a breeding ground for the Hantavirus has all the makings of a classic cockamamie scheme. But this is just the beginning.

[Podcast Host (Search Engine Sponsor Announcer)]

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[Narrator / Interviewer]

For his plan to build a museum to work, Gregor will need his siblings on board. So as his emotional envoy, I begin by phoning his sister Lexi. Lexi is the level headed one of the three, and I want to get her read on the plan. I mean, is it realistic that he'll be able to turn the barn into a museum like that? Perhaps this plan is a bit half baked, but I figure I might have more luck getting Gregor's brother Dimitri on board. Dimitri's never been afraid of a scheme that runs a little pink on the inside. So I give him a call. We haven't spoken since I moved from New York, where Dimitri lives, to Minnesota.

[Dimitri]

I hate to see a Minneapolis area code when you call. It makes me sad your business doesn't.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

Bring you to Minnesota.

[Dimitri]

I'm guessing it does sometimes. I interviewed Prince for a cover story. Everyone warned me to be very careful with Prince. He's very touchy.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

Dimitri is a personal trainer who's kickboxed his way across Thailand. He's also a journalist who interviews celebrities.

[Dimitri]

So I went there, waited all day.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

For the interview, and a musician who had a song go platinum six times in Belgium.

[Dimitri]

He was like, hey, you want to jam? And I was like, okay. So I wound up actually jamming with Larry, Graham and Prince for like 20 minutes.

[Etta Ehrlich]

And. What?

[Dimitri]

That was one sentence.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

Before Dimitri can launch into his next sentence, I jump in. So your brother Gregor.

[Dimitri]

Yeah, I'm familiar with him.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

He has this plan, which maybe you're also familiar with. When I'm finished rehashing Gregor's museum plan, Dimitri offers a laundry list of issues.

[Dimitri]

There's a 99 to 100% chance of getting Lyme disease walking out of your car to the barn because it's high grass, a lot of deer getting poison ivy. There's also, like, horrible black mold because, as you know, the farmhouse burned down when my albino baker friend Theo stayed there and lit a fire in the roof, and the whole house burned down.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

And along with his friend Theo's trouble, there was also his friend Sonam's trouble in that cursed place.

[Dimitri]

My friend, who spent 25 years as a Buddhist monk under the Dalai Lama, had to use a Broom to fight off a very large raccoon that was in the house and was like growling at us, like just horrifying feral raccoon that.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

But for Dimitri, even more daunting than the rabid raccoons is changing his mother's mind on the matter. Whenever he's tried to clear space in his parents home, it refills overnight, suggesting Etta's problem can't be solved by physical means. Instead, he thinks the problem has to be attacked at its psychological root. She needs to learn how to let go. And for this, Dimitri has just the solution.

[Dimitri]

Well, maybe, maybe hypnosis. It stopped her from smoking, which is probably a more powerful psychological and physical addiction than collecting things.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

Etta was a pack a day smoker, a habit she hung onto for nearly 30 years.

[Dimitri]

Our friend who was a hypnotist said, oh, I can hypnotize you. And she went into the session thinking, this isn't going to work. The whole time the hypnosis was going on, she was like, this isn't working. This isn't working. And then she walked out and never smoked again. He was an interesting person too. His name was Saul Feldstein. He actually had one of his eyeballs was like hanging out of his head face. And like it was like a sort of early commune hippie thing.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

And like having grown up on TV sitcoms of the 1970s, I'm well aware of the power of hypnosis hanging out of his face. Hypnosis gave Fred Flintstone the self control to stop eating brontosaurus burgers.

[Dimitri]

Early commune hippie thing.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

It gave the Fonz the confidence that jumped Snake Canyon on his motorcycle.

[Dimitri]

One of his eyeballs.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

As a boy, I always wondered what it would feel like to have my full potential unlocked through the hypnotic arts.

[Dimitri]

Hanging out of his face. And he was very successful as a hypnotist.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

Wow. Unlike building a museum, hypnosis requires neither time, effort, nor those awful stanchions that snap back with that loud thwacking sound that make everyone turn around and stare at you. Fully convinced that Saul Feldstein is the solution to all of our problems and that museums belong in a museum. Dimitri and I say our goodbyes.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

We're slating in on part two. Johnny discusses post talking to Dimitri. Here we go.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

I need to tell Gregor that I like Dimitri's idea much better than his, but I need to tread lightly. From Cain and Abel to Steven and Alec Baldwin. I know how competitive brothers can be. And unlike the Lord or Alexander Ray Baldwin Sr. I don't want to be seen playing favorites. Do you think you're that, like, hypnotism has a role in this?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Well, I hear that, like, your voice went up an octave when we started talking about hypnotism. And you got excited about hypnotism.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

Well, Dimitri seemed to think that it could help.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Okay. So the two of you should go see a movie together.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

Going to movies is Gregor and my thing. Clearly I'm arousing some jealousy. I need to keep my arguments away from Dimitri and grounded in the merits of hypnotism. This whole barn thing as the symptom, but through hypnosis.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Why are you saying it with, like, the weird accent on the word hypnosis?

[Narrator / Interviewer]

I mean, do you think that hypnotism has something to offer here?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

My short answer would be absolutely not. I think it's a waste of time. Hypnosis. Hypnosis. Hypnosis.

[Dimitri]

Hi, Johnny, how are you?

[Narrator / Interviewer]

Hey, Dimitri. Hi. I've got your brother Gregor on the line with me.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

We've met.

[Dimitri]

Hi, how are you?

[Narrator / Interviewer]

Can you make the case to your brother?

[Dimitri]

Sure. I just think that, you know, there's no harm. There's certainly no nothing to lose. It takes 15 or 20 minutes. And she's proven that she's very susceptible to hypnotic suggestions. So why not try it?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

I agree with all those points. My main feeling is that getting someone to stop a behavior like smoking is much, much easier than getting someone to change their personality, which is harder to hypnotize someone out of.

[Dimitri]

That may be true. I wouldn't disagree. There.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

Swept up in a wave of brotherly bonhomie, I decide it's a safe space to cautiously share my one secret boyhood longing. And along the way, I could get hypnotized out of something, too.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Yeah, a lot of stuff.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

Yeah, and immediately regret it. What do you mean, a lot of stuff?

[Dimitri]

I mean that smug smile they could work on.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

We could give you a whole brand new thing where you're, like, super charming all the time.

[Dimitri]

Being more able to look people in.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

The eye, not always hide behind a microphone.

[Dimitri]

Actually, you know, there is. All joking aside, there is a new hypnosis that works on what's called voluntary baldness syndrome, where they realize that a lot of men are sort of doing it on purpose.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

Why would someone do that on purpose?

[Dimitri]

Well, it's just that it turns out that hair loss is more of like an act of willful insolence, often. And a cry for pity.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

I used to love my hair.

[Dimitri]

Well, if you loved it so much, why did you get rid of it.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

First of all, I find it offensive. And Gregor chime in here because I'm sure you're equally offended.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

No, Dimitri used to be bald as an egg and then he willed it back on.

[Dimitri]

I think if he did it at the same time with my mother, we can get a two for one deal.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Package deal.

[Dimitri]

I'm just saying it's science. If you read the New England Journal of Medicine, it's like.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

With Gregor and Dimitri aligned and friends again at my expense, I set out in search of the one eyed hippie hypnotist Saul Feldstein. But it turns out Saul died in 2019 at the age of 92. So I reach out to other hypnotists, all of whom pretty much hang up on me once I explain the project. So hypnotism is out, the museum is out, I'm stuck with my crap personality and Etta is stuck with her house full of crap. And Gregor is still at an impasse. But things are about to change. Coming up after the break, Etta's big night.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

You know what that guy said to me just now?

[Etta Ehrlich]

This guy told me that I was beautiful.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Well, you are. Let's what's going on here?

[Podcast Host (Search Engine Sponsor Announcer)]

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[Jonathan Goldstein]

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[Narrator / Interviewer]

Gregor tells me that Etta has been offered a show at the Carter Burden Gallery in Manhattan. Etta is an outsider artist, so the offer of her own solo exhibition feels like finally, at the age of 88, she's being invited inside. The show, with its formal invitations and coat check, feels like validation. It's the kind of opportunity Etta has always hoped for. And for Gregor, it feels like an opportunity for her pieces to find good homes outside her home. The show opens on March 21, 2019. Gregor and I make a plan to speak the morning after so he can tell me how it went. When we speak, what Gregor tells me is that things that night took a wild turn. Do you want to. Do you want to explain?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Sure. I flew into town for my mom's art opening. Okay. We're here at the art opening. It's a pretty good crowd. Everyone's eating wine and cheese, and it's great, but it's so loud. It was almost like a cartoon version of my mom's success story in that, like, some stranger guy came up and was like, you're a beautiful woman.

[Dimitri]

You're beautiful.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

Thank you. That's why I see her my age.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Her ego was buffed from many sides. Everything going great. Hello.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

Gregor's dad. Milt, on the other hand, wasn't having as good a time. He spent most of the evening in the corner, nibbling on crackers. At the end of the night, Gregor approached him.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Well, Father, what'd you make of that?

[Narrator / Interviewer]

Oh, it's very nice.

[Dimitri]

It was a little bit exhausting.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

He seemed like even though he sometimes talks in a quiet voice, he was especially quiet, like I could hardly hear him.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

On the drive home, Milt conked out. When the family couldn't rouse him, they realized he wasn't just sleeping, but completely unconscious. Edda began yelling, wailing Milt's name. He was driven to the hospital, where the EMTs lifted him onto a gurney. The doctors thought he might be having a stroke, but they couldn't say for sure. In the waiting room, Etta turned to Gregor and said, you might as well order the dumpsters right now. Meaning, you win. Empty out the house. Because if Milt isn't coming back to it. That's it. How do you know when the Damoclean sword of mortality isn't just dangling above you, but actually falling? How do you know when it's time to pick up the remote, turn off Rachel Maddow, and finally act the night? A milestone in Etta's career was meant to symbolize a turning point, and it was just not the kind she was hoping for. Milt was eventually sent home from the hospital, but his claps signaled a change for Gregor, too. For so long, he'd been saying maybe it's time, but maybe it was time to stop saying maybe.

[Etta Ehrlich]

Hello?

[Narrator / Interviewer]

Hi, it's Gregor and Jonathan.

[Etta Ehrlich]

Oh, and I thought this was a scam call. How do you like that? How are you?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Well, I wouldn't be so sure. It's not.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

We haven't finished the call yet.

[Etta Ehrlich]

Right. So what's the pitch?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Johnny wanted to dredge up a bunch of painful family issues.

[Etta Ehrlich]

Oh, sure, why not? The painfuler the better.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

I want to talk with Etta about the night of the art opening and the way it affected her thinking about remaining in the house.

[Etta Ehrlich]

I won't be able to stay here alone. Either I will become ill or Milt will become ill and I need somebody to help me. There is a new little piece in my head that says things are going to change.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

In the aftermath of the art show opening, as Etta's new reality sunk in, another plan began to take shape. One that Etta came up with. Her idea is to pair each of her message on a bottles with the right person. In this way, each one will find the right home.

[Etta Ehrlich]

I now have a whole shelf full of stuff that I am now earmarking to give away.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

That's something that you've not normally done.

[Etta Ehrlich]

No, I only gave very few things away, you know, to my best friend or to the kids or something like that. Very few. Very, very few.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

You think it's at the beginning of something more of this to come?

[Etta Ehrlich]

Yeah, yeah. It has to be. It has to be. I take it very seriously. When I think of giving a person a bottle, I have to think I would it be good for that person.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Okay, now we're rolling.

[Dimitri]

All right.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

A few weeks later, I call Gregor to see how Etta's bottle drive is coming along.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

So she called me this morning saying I thought of the perfect person to give the perfect bottle to, but I'm afraid it's going to hurt his feelings.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

Okay.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

She wants to give you a bottle.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

She wants to give. Okay, well, that. Wow. That's that's really nice. Why? Why would that hurt my feelings?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

You know, if you give someone a bottle that says, like, I wish, like I was present, then it's sort of an implication that you're not present. You know what I mean? It could be interpreted sometimes as like a sort of a criticism. So I don't know how you'll take it.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

Well, did she tell you what my bottle says?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

That's as much as I can say at this point, as much as I'm authorized to say.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

Even though I should know better. Know how Gregor will dangle this knowledge over my head like a cat dancer. My curiosity gets the better of me, and so I keep asking Gregor what the bottle says, which he uses as an opportunity to dissect my personality. All I can say, he says, is that it addresses some of your deep seated issues.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Despite all your insights about other people, you sort of tend to remove yourself from the collective and put yourself in the position of, like, journalistic observer.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

Uh huh.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

When you have these insights, you know, your dime store insights, you bolt on at the end of things where you're like, maybe we all need someone to run to that hallmarky nonsense that you tend to spout at the end of this.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

What a jerk. You feel comfortable just saying something like that to someone? Telling me about my dice?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

I knew you were going to take it the wrong way.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

What's the right way to take that?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

I think sometimes you sort of make yourself resistant. Like, oh, I don't matter. I'm just the fly on the wall to watching the human condition. As you know, people live and die and suffer, and babies are born and old people lowered into the ground. Oh, when the dirt hits the coffin. That reminds me of my sponsor, I think. You just. You use this thing to remove yourself from what's actually going on.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

Okay, all right.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

You're like, you know what would really make this thing sing? Now let me just get a shot of you throwing your art off the bridge. That's what we need to finish this.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

Maybe Gregor thinks I'm being too prying with his mom and this is just an expression of his protectiveness. So I apologize to him and tell him I'll try to be more respectful. It turns out that Gregor has little respect for my respect.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Yeah. Hey, lady, I can be more respectful out there. Won't tell you to throw your stuff in the garbage. I'll tell you to throw it in the recycling bin. That way it don't wind up in no landfill. You understand? Very respectful. Like, we'll even Separate out the green bottles from the clear glass. Very good, John.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

Why would you even let me speak to your mother?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

I don't know. I mean, I thought maybe you could patch things up. I don't know.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

Over the next couple years, Etta continues to slowly search out the right homes for her bottles. Whereas in the past, Etta was only able to give away a few, Gregor estimates that she hands out about a hundred. During this time, Milt is in and out of the hospital with cardiac issues ranging from fainting spells and high to an actual heart attack. But then, in the summer of 2022, it's Etta who receives some bad news. Three years after Gregor and I first spoke, Gregor phones to tell me his mother has been diagnosed with brain cancer. The doctor found nine metastases in her brain. They went to three different hospitals in five days. And the consensus was that it wasn't a matter of months, but of weeks. In what felt like only days, Etta went from carrying laundry up the stairs to needing to be carried up the stairs herself. With Etta's illness, Gregor decides to move in, the whole family does, into the big packed house they grew up in. A hospital bed is set up on the main floor in Etta's old office, and Gregor wakes up at sunrise and sits at Edda's bedside in silence. He speaks with her, makes her comfortable. He tells her it's okay to go, that everything is okay.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

And I stayed there for six weeks, eight weeks, and sort of did the bedside vigil. As she slowly died.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

In those final weeks, Gregor saw a change come over Etta.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

In the years running up to her death. She would say things like, listen, there's a rolled up rug in the attic that's worth a lot of money. Make sure that they don't, you know, cheat you out of that one. That was always kind of a sort of joke, sort of real thing. But when the actual room of death and dying was happening, that stuff didn't really come up. It felt more like she was at peace with a lot of stuff. And a lot of the stuff she told me she would be laying there with her eyes shut, but smiling. And I'm like, you know, mom, what are you thinking about? And she was just. Just with her hand, she would indicate that she's, like, dancing by just flowing her hand in the air. It felt like a great death.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

The words on the bottles had finally sunk in. In the end, Etta could dance out of the world gracefully, no grasping. It's the living who are left to grasp.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Since my mom died. It feels like it's harder to throw things out than I thought.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

This is Gregor's sister, Lexi, again. Like Etta, Lexi is an artist. And like Gregor, she's surprised by how after all the years trying to get her mom to let go of her stuff, she herself is finding it so hard to let go of that very same stuff.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

It just feels really hard to like her art. It feels. It's like a part of her.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

Yeah, but it's not her. Yeah.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

I had an interesting conversation with my dad the other day, who is, of course, really, you know, grief stricken. And he was saying, why do people make art? And he thinks the reason people make art is so that they're not forgotten when they die. Like you do something that remains in the world. I think of her a lot.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

Do you still carry with you your mother's love? Do you feel it?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

I carry her with me. I mean, in the way that.

[Etta Ehrlich]

You.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Know, when I experience something, I can't help but hear my mother's voice making fun of me for my description of what I'm experiencing. I might be describing something, telling her about just some quotidian thing in the day. You know, this is a nice sunset, but it'd be nicer if that truck weren't backing up. And I can hear her being like, why are you so rotten? You know, what is wrong with you? I mean, that type of thing.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

You can try to move your aging parents out of their house, you can treat death like a to do list with items to check off, but ultimately, you can't control how people live or die. Even after Etta's death, Milt remained in that very same house. It's Dimitri and his own family that move in so that Milt doesn't have to be alone. And over the next few years, Gregor, in fits and starts and with disregard for what anyone thinks, continues to work on the museum. Only it's become less about a full fledged museum open to the public, and more of just a place to honor his mom. And then one day, Gregor texts, saying he found a sealed box in the Victorian with my name on it written in Etta's hand. When the box arrives, I unravel what seems like yards and yards of bubble wrap. Etta had taken great care. The bottle is a beautiful blue, the blue of a childhood toy. It's curvaceous and feels good in my hand. Upon it, Etta laid out her words to me.

[Etta Ehrlich]

I would love to live like a river flows, carried by the surprise of its own unfolding.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

See what I mean, I do, but how dare she? I'm kidding. Cue the outro music. Cue the dime store insight. Whether it's to a museum in the wilds of upstate New York or to a landfill, none of us knows where we're flowing. In the face of that, we need to learn how to let go. My feeling about what comes after death is constantly changing. I don't have a spiritual practice, so all I have is a feeling. And my feeling today is that bodies are vessels, just like colorful bottles are vessels, just like podcasts and houses packed with stuff. And all of art is. It's all just stuff. And stuff can be beautiful, but it's there to help us get closer to the non stoff. Because, like the words Etta inscribed on one of her final bottles, all important matters are.

[Dimitri]

Sam.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Now that the furniture's returning to its.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

Goodwill home, now that the last month's rent is scheming with the damaged deposit.

[Podcast Host (Search Engine Sponsor Announcer)]

Take this moment to decide.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

If we.

[Podcast Host (Search Engine Sponsor Announcer)]

Meant it, if we tried.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

But felt.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

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, and our supervising producer is Stevie Lane. Editorial guidance from Emily Condon. Special thanks to Steve Marsh, Amy Gaines, McQuaid and Sarah Nixon. Our production counsel is Jake Flanagan. Emma Munger mixed the episode with original music by Christine Fellowes, John K. Sampson and Bobby Lord. Additional scoring by Boxwood Orchestra and Blue Dot Sessions. Our theme song is by the Weaker Thans, courtesy of Epitaph Records. Follow us on Instagram @H heavyweightpodcast or email us @H heavyweightushkin FM. And if you'd like your very own Etta B. Ehrlich original, her bottles can be found on her Instagram at Etta Baerlich. We'll be back next week with a new episode. Can you believe it? Back in the saddle, hiding behind that mic. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So I wanted to go through the entire thing just to make sure the fact and also make sure that the.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Art that your mother made. She put bird poop with googly eyes. Is that correct?

[Narrator / Interviewer]

She spelled it with two GS.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Okay. How many times would you say you were rejected by girls? In the dozens.

[Dimitri]

Is that correct to say.

[Etta Ehrlich]

Limu Emu?

[Narrator / Interviewer]

And Doug, here we have the Limu emu in its natural habitat, helping people.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Customize their car insurance and save.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

Hundreds. Hundreds with Liberty Mutual. Fascinating.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

Limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Cut the camera. They see us.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

Only pay for what you [e-mail] Liberty Liberty Liberty Liberty Savings Ferry Unwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and affiliates. Excludes Massachusetts.