{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Unparented","title":"Ten Years of Running","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":1056,"description":"Ten years. That's how long I stayed away from Rochester, the place where I grew up, where my parents died, where my grandparents finished raising me after everything fell apart. I told myself there was nothing left for me there. But the truth? I was running.\nThis episode is different. It's just me. No guest, no interview. Just me telling you about what happened when I finally went back. I took my wife and daughters to Rochester for the first time. I showed them the house I grew up in, the door I took apart as a kid, the deck where I'd eat the salt off pretzels and throw them in the snow. I took my four-year-old daughter to meet her grandpa at the mausoleum. She walked right up and said, \"Hi Grandpa, I love you.\" And I lost it.\nThen she asked me where my mom was. Four words from the backseat of a rental car that I had no answer to. \"I don't know, sweetheart. Daddy doesn't know where she's buried.\" I didn't go to my mom's funeral. And sitting in that car, unable to answer my daughter's question, wasn't about guilt. It was about not having a place to bring her. No grave, no mausoleum. Just nothing.\nBut here's what I learned: the parts of yourself you think you left behind are never really gone. They're just waiting for you to come back and find them. And going back to the place you've been avoiding might be exactly how you realize how far you've actually come. This one's raw. This one's real. And if you've ever run from a place that hurt you, I think you'll feel this one.\nIn this episode:\n\nWhy I stayed away from Rochester for 10 years\nThe moment on the plane when it all hit me\nTaking my daughter to meet her grandpa for the first time\nThe question I couldn't answer: \"Where's your mom?\"\nWhy I didn't go to my mom's funeral and what that means now\nHow being there unlocked memories I thought were gone\nSeeing my sister, aunt, and uncle after all these years\nThe difference between running from grief and growing through it\nWhat the surfer's mindset taught me about grief and...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/AZjp1ZzwTB7VJ2U954KHvC1-Xx6cP-PT94a6p9MsWbo/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9mNWQ0/MzRiODY5ZmIxN2Y1/NWNjYTcwOGQ1ZTU5/MDQyOS5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}