GABRIEL CHEONG: Recently I decided to go on the journey to go find my dad, a man that I hadn't seen in 30 years KATHLEEN HALEY: And amongst the knickknacks, and watches and other things, I found some love notes.

And I ran out to tell my cousin Bay.

ARIEL BROWN: The only way to have a true unbiased assessment of my guilt of the crime of queerness was to put me on trial-- complete with a jury of my peers.

THERESA OKOKON: Tonight's theme is "Family Ties."

ANNOUNCER: This program is made possible in part by contributions from viewers like you-- thank you.

Families come in all shapes and sizes.

Sometimes it's the family that we're born into and sometimes it's a family of our own choosing.

But either way it all comes down to connection.

Some family ties are super strong.

And some of them are sort of week.

There will be ties that are broken, and every once in a while, those ties get rebuilt.

In ways big and small, our family ties shape our lives.

♪ My name is Ariel Brown and I live in Arlington, Massachusetts.

I am a neuroscientist by training and I also run the Emotional PPE Project.

Can you talk to me about what that program does and why it's important?

The Emotional PPE Project is a nonprofit that was started during COVID in response to the profound need that health care workers have for emotional support.

So back in spring of 2020 there's a lot of talk about how healthcare workers need... there was a shortage of PPE.

They needed their masks, and their eye shields, and, you know, it occurred to me that that's not the only thing that these folks need protection for.

OKOKON: Mm... Not just their bodies but also protection for what's going on inside.

Pretty much what I did was I put a team together of a bunch of volunteer therapists.

We created a program that acts as a connector between a health care worker who needs emotional support and a therapist who is volunteering their time.

You know, I'm trying to really give back, and trying to give other people the... the privileges and the opportunities that I had to get the support that I needed in my time of, of need.

♪ When I met Mary freshman year she was a good girl.

She didn't smoke, drink, skip class.

Mary was all I would never be.

She wasn't defined by struggle or haunted by untapped potential.

Mary wasn't my first crush.

Back in the neighborhood, there were a few girls that were the objects of my secret interest.

But, Mary, she was different.

She was my best friend.

Back at this age of 15, I was at my most segmented.

There was Prep School Ariel, who played board games in the basements of million dollar homes.

There was Neighborhood Ariel, who smoked weed in the playground with a gang of tough girls.

And then there was Internal Ariel, who lived in fear that those two segments would meet, or that anybody, anybody at all, would find out how much I really, really wanted to kiss girls.

As Mary and I became closer and closer, and my feelings for her grew and grew, Internal Ariel became convinced that maybe, just maybe, Mary shared my feelings.

Maybe within the right context with the right words, I told her about my crush on her, she would respond in kind.

I mean, we told each other "I love you" all the time.

If we could hug standing up, couldn't we hug laying down?

Mary did not respond in kind.

In fact, she was not kind at all.

By Monday, everyone in our friend group knew what I had said to her.

Knew that I told her I liked her in "that way."

I got so many questions about what I felt, what I did, and mostly what I expected of her.

At this time, I had never met an out lesbian.

The only time my parents ever talked about gay people was as an off-color joke or a funny impression.

The one time I saw a lesbian on screen, she committed suicide by the end of the film.

So how was I even to begin to answer these questions that I was getting from my classmates?

One girl had a great idea.

She decided that the best way to get the truth out of me, the only way to have a true, unbiased assessment of my guilt of the crime of queerness was to put me on trial, complete with a jury of my peers in the Spanish classroom at lunch block.

The sentence that was handed to me was a life sentence and I knew it even back then.

But given that I didn't have any models, either personally or in the media, I was to have no idea what that life was to look like.

Would anyone ever share my romantic feelings?

Was a family of my own even within the realm of possibility?

A lot did change over the course of the late '90s.

Ellen DeGeneres came out, people started talking about civil unions, and I went to college and met some really cool gay people.

But despite all this external progress, I remained locked in shame.

I kept so many secrets.

I tried to so tightly control the idea of who I am in different circumstances with different people that my sense of self basically disappeared.

And this way of living was so deeply uncomfortable that I turned to lots and lots of substances to cope.

Then came Ann.

Two years after I quit the booze and drugs and started to tap into all that untapped potential I always heard about, I was at a party with a bunch of 20-somethings.

I remember the first time I saw Ann.

She was and remains hard to miss.

Brightly colored clothes and makeup, double nose ring, short spiky hair.

Essentially a walking pride flag.

Oh, also, she's stunningly beautiful.

Ann was an open book who would tell her life story to anyone that would listen.

Her car, a 15-year-old Corolla with two of four working doors, was absolutely covered in bumper stickers.

Anyone within a three-block radius knew that she was a anti-racist queer feminist Star Trek nerd.

The bumper display was pure integration.

It was wholeness, it was loud, and it was proud.

And here I was, 27 years old, closeted at work, still never having told my whole story to anyone-- not even my therapist.

But, nevertheless, our connection was instant.

After Ann and I hung out a few times I told her that I was interested in her romantically.

No more silent suffering.

No more aching to understand if the words she said were twinged with the "right" kind of desire.

And she was kind about it.

She was sweet.

And the best part of all: she was interested.

Someone recently described my now-wife Ann as my "DayGlo arrow out of the darkness."

Nothing could be more true about our relationship.

Any time I want to hide in the shadows, out of shame, she challenges me.

Ann has taught me that my personal struggles don't need to be cordoned off and isolated so that the rest of me can thrive.

Instead, showing up as my whole self creates meaning, strength, and true connection with others.

Today, Ann and I have two stunningly beautiful children, and a fully integrated life.

I'm closeted... nowhere and I even have a career that celebrates and values my mental health journey.

My parents have come a long way too.

They adore our family and even have a pride flag doormat.

People say to me sometimes they're sorry I had to go through what I did as an adolescent, but not me.

If I hadn't gone through all the trials, I wouldn't be able to model authentically for my children that they never have to hide their truth.

♪ CHEONG: My name is Gabriel Cheong.

Originally, I was from Macau, and I grew up in New York, and now I live here in Massachusetts.

So I think this is your first time telling a story on stage, is that right?

So I'm a divorce attorney by training and that's what I do during the day.

And so the majority of my job is telling stories, and listening to other people's stories.

But telling my own story, I think this is the first time.

I never thought I had... something to say, I guess.

So what has this experience been like for you?

What's it like for you to tell your own story on stage?

CHEONG: When you're telling your own story, every time you cut something it feels like it's equally as important as the parts that you keep in.

OKOKON: Mm.

And it's really hard to condense that down.

It's really hard, I think, emotionally too, to open yourself up and tell your own story.

So what are the takeaways that you're hoping the listeners carry from your story this evening?

To keep an open mind.

And sometimes it does take a really long time, I think, for a person mentally and emotionally to get to a place when they can have an open mind.

But maybe you'll get there.

♪ Recently, I decided to go on the journey to go find my dad, a man that I hadn't seen in 30 years.

I remember the last time that I ever spoke to my dad.

I was eight years old.

I don't remember what it was.

Maybe he didn't come for a visit, or he missed my birthday, or didn't get me a present.

I don't quite remember, but I do remember feeling angry.

I remember feeling hurt.

And my mom encouraged me to tell him how I felt.

Now my mom never badmouthed my dad.

she never said he was a bad guy or he was a bad father.

And I think even at that young age I knew what she wanted and I think I knew what was expected.

So when my mom encouraged me to tell him how I felt, I remember calling him up on the phone, my mom was next to me on the couch, and I blamed him for this thing, or that thing, and I don't even remember.

But I remember the last thing I ever said to my dad on the phone.

And I yelled into the phone, "I don't ever want to see you again!"

And I didn't for 30 years.

When I finally did decide to reach out to my dad, I went on Facebook.

I knew he lived in New Jersey because I remember visiting him there.

So I typed in my last name.

I typed in New Jersey.

I wasn't really expecting to find my 70-year-old dad on Facebook, but I also knew that I had two half-sisters.

So I think in the back of my mind I was thinking, "Maybe I'll find my two half-sisters, and maybe I'll connect with my dad that way."

So as I'm like scrolling through the results, eventually my gaze focused on this woman.

She looked so familiar.

I didn't know her, but I recognized her smile, because she had my smile.

So I messaged her, and I said, "Do you know so and so?"

I gave her my dad's last name.

"I think we're related."

She didn't answer me for quite a while, but she did eventually respond and she said, "He's my uncle.

Who are you?"

And just like that, I had a new cousin.

We eventually did connect by phone and we chatted.

I was so nervous because this was the first time in three decades that I have any contact with that side of the family.

We talked about the family, how I grew up.

The most surprising thing that came out of that conversation was that she told me she knew I existed.

She used to see pictures of me in my grandparents' basement.

But whenever the topic of me would come up, it was quickly brushed under the rug.

She eventually did ask me whether or not she wanted her to share the information with my dad to contact me.

And I said, "Absolutely, please."

A couple of days later my dad called me.

We chit-chatted for a little while, it was really superficial, and the conversation was over in about 20 minutes.

It was one of the most awkward conversations I have ever had.

And at the end of the call I said, "We should meet up."

But we didn't.

Not for another year.

I thought I was ready when I began this journey.

But because of all the emotions that got dragged up during this, uh, connection, I started feeling the hurt and the anger.

But not the way I used to.

Because I think time does that.

A year after that, I went down to New Jersey to go meet my dad for the first time.

A couple of days before that I had connected with my two half-sisters, and they told me that my dad was extremely nervous to meet with me.

He didn't know if I was going to be angry, if I was going to lash out, what I was going to say.

I met with my dad at a diner near his house.

I got out of the car and I saw a man that looked exactly like me.

Only 30 years older.

I gave him a hug.

I don't think he expected that.

We went inside the diner, and we ordered, and we chit-chatted for a while.

And eventually he asked me, "What do you want to know?

I'll tell you anything you want to know."

I think I've been waiting for this moment for 30 years and now I couldn't even look him in the eye.

So I looked down, and I said, "I want to know if the memories that I have are mine.

"I want to know where I came from.

And I want to know what happened."

I didn't ask him the question that I really wanted an answer to, which was, "Why weren't you around?

Why didn't you try harder?"

He started to tell me about the memories that he had.

He told me that he didn't blame my mother for leaving him because he knew he wasn't strong enough to keep her.

He told me that we used to have weekend visits together.

But whenever he dropped me off, my mother would start a fight with him, and he didn't want to fight.

She would tell him not to come, and eventually she moved, and didn't tell him where we were going.

It just got too hard.

And I don't know if he meant that it was too hard for him, or it was too hard for me, or the both of us.

He also told me that he thought about me all the time, especially during my birthday, and New Year's.

And he told me that he never moved, because in the back of his mind, he knew that I would find him one day.

Well, I guess here we are.

We talked that day for about three hours.

And as he walked me back to my car, we made plans to meet up a month after that.

It was my dad's 71st birthday.

And he asked me, "Are you happy that you came?

Did you get what you were looking for?"

And I thought a lot about that on my way up back to Boston.

"Did you get what you were looking for?"

I think we both got what we were looking for that day.

I got my answers and he got forgiveness.

♪ It's very hard for me to imagine what my relationship with my father is going to be like because he's not gonna father me, he's not gonna parent me.

Are we going to be friends?

Are we going to be close family members?

Long-lost family members?

I don't know.

But I'm very hopeful, and I think I'm just very open-minded to the whole experience.

♪ HALEY: My name is Kathleen Haley.

I was born and brought up in Boston and I currently work in communications and healthcare.

I'd love to hear more about your love of travel.

I understand you've lived in many different cities.

Can you tell me a bit about what that's been like for you?

Yes, I've been very fortunate to live in Europe for several years as well as in different cities in the U.S.

I spent some time in France and Barcelona, Spain, for six years.

And then the second longest place I lived in was New York City.

That's amazing!

Yeah.

Yeah, it was fun.

OKOKON: What what did you learn living in all of those different cities around the world?

HALEY: So I lived in France for a year and didn't speak the language.

and I learned a lot of humility... (laughs) um... because you don't always know what's going on, and you... and also the culture is so different.

And so learning from others.

I also learned different perspectives about our country.

- Mmm.

- And how people view us and, and became probably more neutral because I see how our actions affect the world and how people perceive us.

And so that was really interesting.

♪ It was 2019, Mardi Gras, and I was on a plane on my way to New Orleans.

I wasn't going for the parties, though.

I was going because just a few days before, my Aunt Adelina had died.

She was 86, she lived alone, had no immediate family and she didn't have a will.

Because she had no will, her two closest relatives, her first cousins-- my mom and my mom's sister, my aunt-- were responsible for everything.

If she had a will, I'm not quite sure my mom would have been in it.

My cousin and my aunt from El Salvador were already in New Orleans and they needed somebody from my family to be there very quickly so that we could divide up Adelina's belongings and clear out her apartment before they returned to Central America.

My mom wasn't able to go, so one of us kids had to.

I'm the youngest of five, so not the natural choice, but really was on my way due to a process of elimination.

We decided the day before that I would be the one to go.

I was on a business trip in Seattle, Washington.

I quickly got online, changed my flights, got a flight to New Orleans and a flight home to Boston two-and-a-half days later.

I had a lot to do.

It was a busy time at work and I didn't think I could take another day off of work.

On the plane, I thought about what was going to go on when I got to New Orleans-- what to expect, really.

My aunt and my cousin had been there for a few weeks, which was great, but my Aunt Adelina had actually been in and out of the hospital for several months.

So I wasn't sure what the apartment was like.

And while Tia Ca and Bay had cleaned the apartment a bit, it wasn't in great shape when I got there.

We had a lot to do.

That first night, Bay made us pasta for dinner.

She boiled the water, and as... while she was doing that, I searched the apartment and found some good wine.

Well, I thought it was good wine.

It might have been good when Adelina bought it.

It was pretty bad when we drank it.

But we drank it.

And after a quick pasta dinner, and a bad glass of wine, I stood up, looked around, and said, "Where do we start?"

My aunt looked at me and said, "Oh no, it's time to rest."

(speaking Spanish) And I said, "Oh no," probably rudely.

I said, "I have two-and-a-half days.

We gotta get started."

My aunt Tia Ca retreated to her bedroom.

She was over... late 80s, and mourning her cousin, and I wasn't helping.

But we had a lot to do, and so my cousin Bay and I got started.

We divided up the work.

Because I was the English speaker in the group, I got the paperwork.

And I had to look through every single paper in the apartment to figure out what needed to be done, what bills needed to be paid, what utilities needed to be canceled.

And then I had to figure out other things like how and where to cremate her.

The list went on, and my energy was high, and I really wanted to make sure I did everything right for the family.

Most of the papers I found were in old boxes, and I would take those shoe boxes into the living room or the dining room, and searched through them and mainly throw most of it out.

But I was thrilled when I started in the bedroom.

Adelina had a tall bureau, four or five drawers, and I opened up that top bureau.

And amongst the knickknacks, and some watches and other things, I found some love notes.

Adelina had had a boyfriend.

I had no idea she had a boyfriend.

And I ran out to tell my cousin Bay.

Turns out she had a few companions over the years.

But there was one in particular, Bob, who was special to her and her to him.

And Bay gave me some insight about what the story was.

And I looked through those notes and cards, and I read every... every single word that Bob had written.

But he was a man of very few words.

There was a short Christmas card, there was a note from flowers, and a couple of letters.

And then there were photos.

Adelina loved to travel, so there was photos of her from all over.

And I looked through these things and I got to know my aunt a little bit better.

I wondered how many other stories I didn't know and how many times had I filled in those gaps with stories of my own.

And as I read through her love notes, I thought about my mom.

You see, my mom never kept anything.

I searched, I searched my whole life for the notes that my father had written to my mom before they got married.

And I later found out that she had hid them away really well and then burned them after he died.

Because in her words, they were for her and her alone.

And then, there I was, reading the notes that were no longer for Adelina and Adelina alone.

And I felt a little uneasy, like I was snooping.

And I didn't know, were these stories for me to know?

To tell?

I thought about Adelina's way of keeping her memories, and my mom's of throwing them out, and I didn't know which was better.

What I did know at that moment was there were a lot more papers to go through and so I started on the work again and kept on going.

One of the best parts of this weekend was my time with Bay, my cousin.

We hadn't had a lot of time together as adults.

And so having one-on-one time together without other family members around was wonderful.

I really got to know her better.

I got to know Adelina better through her.

And then I got to know my mom better as well.

Because, back in the day in El Salvador, Bay was often my mom's chaperone on dates.

And while I'd love to believe and firmly believe that my father was my mom's one great love, there were lesser loves before him, and Bay was there to see.

Bay was there on the picnics by the lake or the dancing till dawn at parties.

And she filled me in on all the details and it was wonderful.

They had so much fun.

Bay and I also got to know each other really well.

So we found out we both loved to travel.

And we were going to meet.

We planned to meet in New York City soon for a weekend.

And all the while we sorted through Adelina's things, deciding what to keep and what to throw away, but we started to do it at a different pace-- a much richer, slower pace.

Just a couple of days later, I was back at home in Boston and I had new memories, I had a lesson learned, and I had a few tasks.

There were two things I needed to do right away.

I got myself a will, and I went through my papers, and I threw some out.

Because, in my mom's words, they were for me and me alone.

The last task is New York.

I still have that pending trip.

So Bay, if you're watching, we have to book that trip soon.

ANNOUNCER: This program is made possible in part by contributions from viewers like you-- thank you.

OKOKON: Watch Stories from the Stage anytime, anywhere.

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