How We Met (Part 4)

Friends, this episode is gonna be a powerful one. Reflecting on some hard truths, we’ll land on how our family unit became disconnected.  And the amazing thing is how after all these years, we are still learning about each other and ourselves. And that’s exactly what happens in this episode.

We explain how we coped with life’s pitfalls when we made our careers a focus of our lives and how feelings of failure put a strain on our relationship with our son. We tell you how we at first felt about his wife and the grandchildren that we have come to fall in love with. We reflect on each other as parents and partners and the importance of making choices, learning from failures, and appreciating each other's support during difficult moments. 

You’ll hear how we’ve come to accept our past decisions and what our hopes are for the future. While we embrace each other’s different personalities and how we complement each other in raising our family, our love only grows deeper along with our admiration for each other.

Timeline Summary:

[00:36] We are sitting outside with nature as our backdrop for this raw convo.

[03:24] Deciding to put our son in private school - bad choice in hindsight.

[07:50] After two years, moved him back to public school - that's where he met his now wife.

[13:50] Opening the restaurant - one of the biggest failures and pivots of my life.

[16:47] Closing the doors on the restaurant dream - absolutely devastating and soul crushing.

[22:03] Seeing a hummingbird - a sign to keep going and stay positive.

[31:30] Nancy's epiphany

[37:48] Loved giving our son and his family everything - I was stoked to provide.

[39:55] Our biggest hardship is coming next episode - stay tuned.

 
If you're digging our stories and loving the ride, do us a solid - rate us, follow the podcast, and share it with your crew. Your reviews mean the world to us and keep us bringing you more f*ck'n authentic stories. Until next time, folks, stay f*ck'n authentic!

Transcript

Nick  0:07  
It's time to get fucking authentic.

Well, howdy. 

Nancy  0:14  
Welcome back. 

Nick  0:15  
Thank you. I appreciate it.

Nancy  0:17  
You're welcome.

Nick  0:18  
Here we are again. Yet another episode. we are literally

in Vail, Colorado, outside.

Nancy  0:26  
So you're gonna be hearing some noises.

Nick  0:29  
That's such bullshit.

Nancy  0:30  
You are such a dork.

Nick  0:31  
we're in our fuckin backyard. We're not in Vail, Colorado. I wish we were in Colorado,

Nancy  0:36  
you do like you some Colorado,

Nick  0:38  
I fucking love me some Colorado. But we are outdoors. It's a beautiful night, we're sitting out here on the porch. So just like that, you're gonna hear some chimes going off in the back, the wind is blowing. It's a beautiful night. We thought you guys would enjoy just sitting in the backyard with us and having a conversation. Let's get started. The last time we had a conversation, we were sharing our story and having other people share their stories. And we of course want to do that as well, is to eventually we'll do that. Yes, yeah, we want to invite people to do that before that we were talking about. It was a pretty intense episode. I think we were getting into some of the things that had happened to us in the beginning when we got married. And as we started moving on, we had left off where I think our son he was graduating eighth grade and he was in high school and he had met his now wife was no his wife. Yes, it was funny because I remember, we were talking about this the other day, you had said I wasn't very fond of her in the beginning. And it wasn't because of her as a person it was because I'm sure most parents can relate anytime their daughter or their son meet someone, they're really never good enough for them or whatever. That's just the way it goes. I remember not being very happy with the situation. And I would blame school all the time that he needs to concentrate on school more than going out with girls.

Nancy  2:05  
Yeah, you sure did.

Nick  2:07  
was funny. You used to say you better be careful. You better be careful. He's gonna marry that girl. And I'm the one I'm like, No fucking way that's not going to happen. He's not going to settle down that quick like that. And Wallah, he did. He did it, walla walla. He did. And as a matter of fact, they're still together today. This just goes to prove that you definitely don't know what the fuck is gonna happen in your life. And you are most definitely not in control of most of it. To that True that. So we go into him getting out of eighth grade, graduating, going into school. And we thought in our infinite wisdom, that the best thing to do would be to put him in a private school. Yes, it was a private Catholic school. Funny thing is we weren't even fucking Catholic. I don't know, I just remember. Again, I think as parents, we wanted to give him the best opportunities.

Nancy  3:15  
And we thought that was the best

Nick  3:16  
best opportunity

was in a private school system that paid attention to the students

Nancy  3:24  
gave him more attention even more touches than what we thought at least what

Nick  3:27  
well, you can't give if someone's not receiving

Nancy  3:30  
True.

Nick  3:31  
And he was not receiving, you know, unfortunately, he wasn't receiving and again, I don't know, man, I in retrospect, I go back. And I think of all these decisions that we do in life, your intention, and your thought behind it, is always I wanna say always, but for most part, are really thought through. And I mean, we sort of analyze things. It wasn't like, we would just walk into shit. We sort of I mean, I take that back, we would analyze this more, I would just fucking say, let's just do it. But this was one of those things where we really thought that putting him into a school, it wasn't ever about money or whatever, because we were at that point, we were still doing okay. And actually, we were doing pretty good. And, again, you think that you're doing the right thing and you wind up? It wasn't a wrong thing. But it turned out to be a bad decision. Right. And I don't mean bad on the part that he just wasn't ready for that. He went from eight years of school in the public school system. Pretty much the public school system treated him quite well. He was always on the honor roll. Yeah, I wouldn't say that he was any teacher's pet. But while you were working, I was very involved. So in all aspects of his life in school, definitely. Coaching Soccer, being involved in the schools, his teachers, I mean, And it was even at the point out there where amongst his friends and everything where they would say that I was at the school so much that they said that I was probably sleeping with teachers, which, of course, wasn't true. But it was just, that's how we were right. We were very involved in our son's life. And that was our passion. And not only our passion, obviously, but it was our responsibility. Right? We brought him into the world, he didn't come out and say, Hey, can you guys bring me in here? I think that's pretty cool. Yeah, I mean, we did it. And there he was. So

Nancy  5:34  
after one year of high school, right,

Nick  5:37  
so after getting out of eighth grade, yeah, he goes into this Catholic High School, and we find out pretty much, almost immediately that things aren't working as well as we had hoped. We always knew he wasn't really a school person to begin with. But this started to go downhill pretty quickly. We thought it was maybe a learning issue or something like that. We did it. We then put them into not only that, but into private tutoring and stuff like that. Nothing was really happening. Nothing was really helping. This went on for two years. Yeah. Sophomore year.

Nancy  6:16  
So sophomore year, we went back to

Nick  6:18  
well, so what happened in the meantime, we're doing our thing. And this is at the point where he's like, around 15 years old, things are starting to decline a little bit with you at work, we had talked about it, we're at your job, my business, in the landscaping business was going pretty well. I actually had him coming on with me, that was another thing. We're just going to build this business. And he'd be able to take that over and come to find out. He didn't want to have anything to do with that fucking business. He wanted to do what you were doing, at that time, right to the office environment and do whatever. And this whole time we're talking about going to school and going to college and he wasn't having it, he was not having it. He always emulated our lives, I believe, or looked at our lives, at least, and had always brought up the fact that look, you guys, you didn't go to a day of college in your lives. And look at how successful you are. That sort of entrepreneurial spirit in him started to manifest itself more. You were always working and making decent money, which allowed us to do a lot of what we did. So he saw the money coming in. And in the process of that I'm having these small businesses, and they're doing well for what they are. We're rolling on. And so that's the example that he sees. Fast forward to the end of his second year, we decide he's not going to be going to this school anymore. A year, sophomore year, two years.

Nancy  7:50  
He goes to the public school back to the public school. And that's where he meets when

Nick  7:54  
he meets his now wife. Yes. Our daughter in law. Yes. And while we thought he's going to this public school, whatever, well, it obviously just continued to be a continuation of the same right? And even more, so now. He meets our now daughter in law, and he's just infatuated. Yeah. And sooner or later, we realize, without a doubt, he's gonna wind up marrying this girl

Nancy  8:23  
while she winds up moving in.

Nick  8:25  
So as all this is going on, she winds up getting kicked out of her house. At a young I think that was like 16 or so.

Nancy  8:34  
I want to say yeah, that's about

Nick  8:35  
it. And in the midst of all this, you're losing your job. There's a lot of shit going on. Yeah. And as it's going on. Remember, our son had been the recipient of quite a, I would say, fruitful life. I mean, he was never without no never win. Remember, you were driven. I was driven. I had made a pact long before that he was never going to be without wasn't going to suffer any type of pain. He wasn't going to suffer any kind of hardship. We'll get into that fucking dumbass. Me. By the way. The reality is that's what it was.

Nancy  9:11  
I mean, he had how many cars did you buy?

Nick  9:14  
Oh my god. Yeah, I mean, I bought him his first car at 14 couldn't get his license since he was 16. The thing sat in the garage for two years him and his friends would come and they would sit in the car and pretend they were driving and then they push it out number that into the alley, and then they would push it down the alley like they were driving. It was a stick shift. Then you sold that one. And you bought another one? Well, he drove it for a while. Once he got his license. So Volkswagen GTI with a $3,000 sound system in in whatever. Then we wind up selling that one we wind up getting him another one. In the meantime, he's driving this. I think it was a delta 88 and Oldsmobile Yeah, put some wheels on it did whatever and it's there's no doubt I'm going overboard and as I'm going overboard. My lovely wife here is I don't want to say They not happy but you know, she's hurt me, yes, you're like worried about money and don't want to spend things.

Nancy  10:07  
There's no reason for all of that. In my eyes, you're the protector of

Nick  10:12  
the family. And well, and these were all the things that I didn't have these were all the funds that why not as a man or as a boy. And I wanted him to feel proud. I wanted him to feel that he had the most. I wanted him to feel that he had the best, I wanted to feel that we were behind him and that he could come to us for anything and whatever. That's what I wanted. And that's what I did. And then what winds up happening is, you wind up losing your job, I think you would wind up losing your job over at the construction company, right? I don't say. Right, because you were getting really sick. My last time I remember you said, I'm always talking about losing shit, right. I left,

Nancy  10:56  
sorry, our whole lives changed, and his life changed.

Nick  11:01  
So she left. I sold the landscape business. Because of all the recession and shit that happened. And then our lives. Yeah, change. We talked about this a little

Nancy  11:13  
bit. Yeah, they were living with us. And then all of a sudden, they tell us that, oh, we're pregnant. She was pregnant. They had a child and his granddaughter. They're living with us still. Well, before that happened.

Nick  11:29  
They had gone out to Arizona. Oh, that's right, that letters. So in the meantime, after Nancy had left her job, and I had lost my landscape business. That's when we had gotten into so I know that it's, there's so much that happened. Yeah, I feel like it's all place. We're going back and forth. That's when we had gotten into the real estate. Okay. And after the real estate, I got fired from that job. We realized that it wasn't really working out the way that we wanted it to. And that's when we decided to make the big decision to open up a restaurant. Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah. So in the midst of us in real estate, our son was with us in the real estate, and he wound up wanting to take his knowledge and branch out. He wanted to be on his own. He wanted to do that. And that's when he moved here. As they wound up. We moved him to Arizona. That's right. Okay. And they had their own little place in Arizona, him and our daughter in law. And in the meantime, we wind up opening up a restaurant because he had sort of challenged me and said, Well, you don't have the balls to do that. You don't have the balls? Is that why you do that? That's pretty much the fucking reason why not? I know, I know, obviously, I wanted to do it. Now you've always wanted to have your own restaurant. So then that's where I, collectively we make these decisions. Don't get me wrong. We made decisions collectively. But I was like, You know what, I had this harebrained idea, we were in the worst recession that we could ever be in. I decided that it would be a great idea to open up a fucking restaurant of all things and one of the worst recessions in the United States history. And because, again, I could accomplish and do whatever I wanted to do. Yeah, that's how it used to happen for us just make it happen. And so sure enough, we took every bit of money we own pretty much and opened up a restaurant. Yep. Yeah. And I had some background in the restaurant industry, just from graduating out of Chicago back in culinary school back in the late 80s. And I thought, You know what, fuck this, I could do this. My grandparents had owned restaurants. And I worked in them. And I thought my grandma was a really good teacher and I, why not? Fuck it? Why not?

Nancy  13:50  
Okay, we didn't have anything to lose. Yeah, we already, you know,

Nick  13:57  
yeah, we had already just taken all the money. So we wind up doing this. And to be honest with you, that was probably one of the pivotal decisions that really began my journey. I would say it changed my life. Yes, personally. Yeah. That changed my life personally, where we went on for a little bit with the restaurant. It didn't work out. My relationship with my son strained because he came back. He did come in. I'm sorry. He came back from Arizona because he had heard we had the restaurant. And of course, the only person I really wanted by my side the whole time in doing any business so that we can work together and that we can witness life together in entrepreneurship was my son. They came back and he came right into the restaurant. You're running a restaurant and my son feels that he has something to offer. I had the weight of the world on my shoulders because I had just put all over or money into this restaurant, you weren't making near two thirds the money you were making before, right? And the restaurant wasn't doing as well as we thought it was going to do, which was just a huge naive mistake at my point. Devastating. And it, it was great. And we had a lot of good reception. But unfortunately, in probably just over a year, right, it was just over a year, we had to make the decision to close to close the restaurant. And just so everybody knows. And this was one thing that I had thought was the one thing that I if anything, that was the one thing that I'd be able to excel at Wright was being in the restaurant industry.

Nancy  15:57  
Well, because he wanted it so bad.

Nick  16:00  
Yeah, yeah, I wanted it really bad. Dude, I mean, you just were the rock back there, allowing me to realize my dreams. And it really, that really hit me hard. When that thing failed, I thought that I was an absolute fucking failure, never ever in my life, thought that those feelings would become part of my life, for the good part of the next 10 to 15 years after that, where I just sort of almost gave up on feeling that I could do whatever I want

Nancy  16:47  
to say I think it shook you. Really bad. I mean, it. Yeah, it was bad.

Nick  16:53  
On top of it, it ruined my relationship with my son, I believe that was the beginning part of your of the relationship where he wanted to be heard. He wanted to be treated as an equal. I thought that I had to make this happen, and that he didn't have the knowledge, or the Insight enough to know. Which is, by the way, for any parent is the dumbest fucking thing you can think of with your kids, because they are way more intelligent than we give them credit for. Yeah. And the only thing that they want is to be heard, rightfully so. And to prove. Because we did raise our son, right, we did raise him in a loving environment, in a home that there was really nothing to need, or want. And how fucking stupid I think now that you reach with those examples, but yet don't give them credit that they learn that stuff to show you. Yeah. Well, yeah, so anyways, that was that I'm sorry, get off on this thing. Because as I think about it, it sort of gets me a little choked up, because it really, now I'm even realizing just having this conversation, I believe that our relationship never went back to. I'm not saying that it was what it should have been before that. Because there was obviously things missing, right. But this could have been a building block to for the next level. Gotcha. And I think it just pushed things backwards. In my mind. We didn't talk. I mean, we, it was sort of one of those things where we closed the restaurant, he went on to management in restaurants. And of course, began his journey of trying to find himself, right. And so with Yeah, with our now daughter in law, right, and child, well, while we still have the restaurant, right, they had the baby, or granddaughter. After a while, they decided they were going to get their own place. And he was working for a couple corporate restaurants, making it happen, just like he knew he could just like I should have realized he could, because I go back, I'll just go back, right? I don't think about the past a lot. I try not to because it really fucking makes me want to throw punch somebody. But I believe that if I would have allowed him to flourish, and to voice his opinions and to show that he could make that happen. I really have no doubt that we would have continued doing what we did. And I think on the back on the backside, there was things that he didn't know, we still didn't have no money coming in. You know what I mean? So we were in a good hole. And the only way out we saw was just to cut it off. Right? We don't let things go on and on to Are the fact that we lose absolutely every right. Unfortunately, we wound up losing everything anyway. But again, choices people fucking choices. So we wind up losing the restaurant, he winds up going on his own moving out. That was also a hard part for me. Because I lost all that. And then we decide to get back into construction. You got back into construction. Yeah. And at that point, I was completely lost fucking soul.

Nancy  20:28  
Yeah, you were kinda like, just jumping. Looking for?

Nick  20:32  
Yeah, I was lost. So I couldn't focus. I couldn't do anything. I kept thinking of the past. I kept thinking of

Nancy  20:40  
just over and I could something that you want it so bad. Failed. It was Yeah.

Nick  20:47  
Yeah, it was very low point for me, in our existence in my existence. And I know that you felt it? Yeah.

Nancy  20:53  
Yeah, it was tough. Still had to keep going. Right? When one's down doesn't mean that we both say down somebody has to kinda we that

Nick  21:01  
that will be part of our formula, right? Somebody can punch, keep come on climate to the light, right? Yep.

Nancy  21:06  
Come on my back. Let's

Nick  21:07  
go. We got this. And you did, and you carried it for a while. And I think those were some of the hardest years. And those were the years I think that our son ki saw the decline in me. We haven't had a conversation about this. And at some point, I sure do hope that he winds up coming on this thing. And we can do a full reconciliation of things. But I think he started to just lose some respect for me at that point. As a man. Interesting. I do. And maybe not. Yeah, maybe respect is the wrong word. I just felt that. And again, those are just feelings and feelings are like, Oh, wow, look at the hummingbird. Look at uh, oh, wow. Right up to us here. There's a hummingbird. That thing is about two and a half inches big. That was a sign. Did you see that? Holy shit, Nick, keep going.

Nancy  22:03  
We have a bunny. The purchase told me to

Nick  22:05  
keep going? I do. I think maybe there was a little respect loss there. I don't know. I'd like to know that at some point. i It doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. But I'm just saying that I think that there was. So we wind up just clawing our way through things. We start to come out on the other end. Start all over we. Well, at that point, we had lost our jobs. Yeah. I had pretty much lost what I felt lost a good relationship with our son. We lost a restaurant. They were out of our house. We love that. It wasn't like, you know what I mean? Yeah. There was a closeness there. There was a closest not only with our son, but our daughter in law was with us. Since she was 16 years old. Right? I believe it was 16. And I had gone from, again, not liking her. I just didn't want my son with anybody to falling in love with this human being that I was in our home and part of our son's life. So now, it was like she was like our daughter, right? Yeah, totally. And on top of it. She had a really tough time getting pregnant. She struggled through it. They struggled through it. She struggled through it and produces beautiful baby girl. Yeah. I just aside from ourselves.

Nancy  23:33  
Our lives changed again. Right? Well,

Nick  23:35  
well, after losing everything. All right now our lives have changed again. We have this beautiful baby girl. And I'll be honest with you. I never saw someone so infatuated with their child, right? Like I did with her.

Nancy  23:49  
Yeah, was it totally look

Nick  23:52  
this girl took 30,000 pictures. The first year of our granddaughter. I remember her coming up saying Oh, my computer's crashing and we wind up having to get this one or two terabytes to save arrive to save all the pictures or whatever but I'm just saying like I never said I was like, wow, like that made me respect and fall in love with her even more. She could tell her own story at some point if she wants but she came from what we know from what we know right? pretty fucked up circumstances in her in right and in her head that she experienced. I respected at the time what she was doing, because I you could

Nancy  24:36  
understand that right? I understood it right? Like

Nick  24:40  
I smothered my son because I wasn't smothered. I protected my son like a fucking ravenous animal because I wasn't protected. She did the same thing. And I admired that. Yeah. And I think it's just it's interesting that we got into the situation. And we were just this little this, like this little family. I mean, we were in their lives like 100% constant all the time. Yeah, I mean, that's our thing. We that that became our life. He

Nancy  25:22  
became a protector. I became, yeah, we just helped out. And it was almost like

Nick  25:27  
it was almost like we had always talked about like running a business, right? Like, if they needed anything, it was there, if they needed protection, if they needed love, if they needed things, if they needed advice, if they needed anything, we were there. And that's where our lives turned. All while this is going on. We're starting to build back our empire. Like I don't know, it is not, not by any means to be evident. Well, I guess you could call it our little. Yeah. But we're building back. Yeah. And coming

Nancy  26:00  
back, man. Can I just interrupt for a second?

Nick  26:05  
Well, of course,

Nancy  26:07  
I don't know this, like something just came over me. We're talking about all of this. And I'm just like, the more I thought about it, maybe about a year ago, our son had mentioned something about that I wasn't connected, or he lost that connection with me. I think he's were the words that he said, I can't remember exactly. But now talking and hearing you and you're basically like moving your hands like Nance, can you talk and you say something?

Nick  26:36  
You've been pretty silent. This whole episode so far. So I'm just like, hey,

Nancy  26:39  
I mean, the more I think about it, I'm just like, shits. I wasn't connected. I was so busy trying to keep afloat and trying to figure things out and work and like, I had to just do it. Remember what I said in the very beginning? I was never going back to food stamps. I was never going back to that. Yeah, I think that just stuck with me like it just like, right now hearing you talk. Yeah, I'm just like, holy shit. I wasn't there. But I was there. You know what I mean? Like it was there. What I wasn't, my body might have been there. But my mind and everything else was focused on survival.

Nick  27:26  
I think maybe Is that what you could call it like? Yeah. Interesting.

Nancy  27:31  
I just kept going. Like, I was driven. Like, I just. Yeah. I mean, I want to apologize. Like I, this is insane. It just like, hit me like, holy. I can't talk about it. Yeah. Because like, I wasn't there. Does that make sense?

Nick  27:53  
Yeah. So you're saying like, because this whole conversation we've been having you? You have been a little bit silent? Based off of our past conversations, which I was like, Wow, you're really involved a little bit more? And then all of a sudden, you didn't seem like this time you've been involved? I mean, is it just maybe you don't remember it? Because you were you're saying that you were so involved in what you're doing? I mean, there's no doubt that we just rolled along, right. We both took our responsibilities very seriously. For what we did. We had mentioned this in the very beginning that our roles sort of reversed in our family, you always had the ability to provide financially more. I don't want to say you had the ability solely, it wasn't solely on you, right. But I'm saying that you were able in the field of work that you were in to make more money. Yes. without us having any kind of an education. We didn't go to college. And man, I'll tell you, I find this fascinating, I find it fascinating that we were just talking about your voice versus mine. And how, if you have something to say that it really means something

Nancy  29:14  
like I felt like I was on my own. I had to do this in order to You were always there to protect, you know what I mean? But I had to do this in order to make the money for all of us, not just you and I because remember, we had our son or daughter, like we just like war pack.

Nick  29:38  
I mean, we definitely work together, but I can see where you're coming from. We were we're different people, period, right? We've always we know that. And this is why hence this podcast about celebrating our differences and celebrating that and getting people on here who are different even than us and celebrating the struggles and the fucking hardships and put the cool All fucking shit too and the bad Asri. But I'm just saying that with you. It makes sense. Here's the thing about this is, we are learning so fucking much here. We're not necessarily learning about each other anymore. We're learning about life. And I can imagine that this is the point in a lot of people's relationships. For us, it's 34 years, where if you don't go through it, and you don't stay open to what is being said, and the awakening that we're having, if you don't stay open to that, and realize that we're both going through the same thing, sometimes at a different pace. But man, I have to say that we're, it seems like we're even more in tune with each other would be the word into then what it is only because of shit like this. Yeah, I agree. Because if you look, I always said this about you. You don't communicate very well. You're very introverted. And you just sort of keep things inside. And it's been like that since the beginning. Way better in 34 years. Let's not say that. Hey, thanks. Nothing, but I'm saying that this shit that's happening right? Fucking now. Oh, yeah, it's, it's some crazy shit. To me.

Nancy  31:29  
It's insane. Like, I

Nick  31:30  
don't even know mind blowing? Well, because just by you saying that? It makes so much sense. And it makes so much sense. Why people think you're so distant. It makes so much sense. Why your son thinks that he was all about the money. Yeah. It makes because it was, let's let's so then if we're gonna call it, let's call it like,

Nancy  32:01  
which for me, it wasn't like that. For me. It was survival for me.

Nick  32:05  
That's what I'm saying it was,

Nancy  32:07  
I never want it to go back to I get in the very beginning. You know what I mean? It just, it was what is

Nick  32:13  
always arrive is what it was. And if the drive made it seem like it was something else. I'm gonna go back to the intentions, our intentions, were to make sure that we, as a family were financially stable. We were protected. We had food on the table, we had a roof over our head, we never lived above our means. We never really spent more money than we could although we could have saved more money than we did. Right? Or invest more money than what we did. But that was the goal. And I think this is a really fucking common thing. For everybody who's raising a family out there. For everybody who's raising a kid is that your best intention is to give and be better than what you were. Yeah. And I think that's fucked up. I'm gonna call it right now. We're gonna get into the next episode, finally, about what happened here in the past year and a half. But I'm telling you that although noble, and although those intentions are awesome, we are fucking human beings. And we think we act, our intentions. Everything is different from each other. Although we're the same. We are totally different. Yeah, that is one thing that I will personally say I did not get I thought everybody should think the way that I thought everybody should act the way that I act. I've been through so much shit, you need to hear what I have to say. blahblah fucking blah. And maybe just fucking maybe part of that for me. Kept you silent. For what you because you were doing your own thing. I was Yeah. So it wasn't about me keeping you silent. No. It's just, we just sort of fell into those roles. And you did your shit. And I did my shit. Yeah. Together. We worked as a team. But it was still it was like a fucking the World Series. Each person has the role. You work as a team. You win the fucking world series and you're done. I don't know. I just said that. I'm not even a baseball guy. I just said teamwork, right. It's the best thing that I can come up with right now. And that's what it was. If I was a smarter parent, and I don't regret my life, I don't regret what I've done. We, but if I was a smarter parent, and what I can tell other parents from this experience is that our son, our daughter in law, our granddaughters should have been equal parts of that team if we spent so much motherfucking time I'm trying to raise and teach not only through example, but by what we said, or by what I tried to force, then why wouldn't we by any motherfucking means think that kid would have learned, especially coming up from a child, where you learn the quickest that he would have been able to do that. If we're coming up with epiphanies here and we're doing let's, let's This is how we have our conversations. Anyway. So this is a real fucking conversation. This is what we do here is really not scripted. What's so fucking ever here. This is us just talking about life. And right now, this awakening that's happening with us, and I'll tell you what, this awakening that's happening with us, is because of what happened to us, in the past year and a half, after a 10 year stint, our son gets married, he marries his girl, they have our beautiful granddaughter, and life goes on at that point. We started buying buildings, we're building our empire, right? Like we laughed about, we're going on and life's going on. That's it. There's nothing more to say vacation. Yeah, we're just in in the meantime, we take and still take our although it's not accepted. At this point. At this point, we take a responsibility as being a parent, very, maybe too much of a responsibility for us. Because we believe that was our gift. We believe our son was our gift. He was our miracle. And I mean a miracle. This wasn't some fucking you weren't supposed to be pregnant. You weren't right type of love, like the whole story. We he was our miracle. And then he gets married. And he gets married to the girl that we think he's not going to get married to. And she's got her own problems, but yet she becomes a miracle. Because she's able to have a baby in our granddaughters miracle. Yeah. Our granddaughters are married to one. Yeah. So the whole thing is a miracle to me. And we're grateful for it. And this whole time, we're just going on. We're living, we're helping out because it is our responsibility. We don't care. This wasn't this wasn't a charity. Well, of course, it was accepted, right? Because this is how it's been since our son was born. So he knew nothing else anyway. Right? This wasn't a charity case, though. This was our responsibility. When it came to anything. houses, cars, clothes, food, vacations, whatever. What the fuck ever. It was. We were there. Yeah. And let me tell you, I was fucking stoked.

Nancy  37:42  
I loved it.

Nick  37:44  
That's Dude, that's me. Yeah. Like that was my only son. That was my only boy. Like I fucking was stoked. Like he could. Except that he couldn't do no wrong. No, that's because he could be a fucking asshole his way. Yes. But it wasn't about that. No, love is unconditional. It has nothing to do with what was he an asshole? Absolutely. Could our daughter in law be a bitch app? So fucking lewdly the bottom line is that's life. That's human beings. That's us. You can't deny that. But the reality was it didn't matter. Love is unconditional. It doesn't mean because you're an asshole. That's a bad thing. thing. As a matter of fact, that's a good thing. It doesn't mean because you're a bitch. That's a bad thing. It means it actually it's a fucking good thing. A strong woman. Dude, strong women turn me the fuck on. That's why we've been together for 34 years. Well, fuck yeah. Oh, you don't take my shit. Oh, hi. I don't take your shitty say you don't take you know who's the boss in the fucking house here?

Nancy  38:45  
I know. Where's the shorts?

Nick  38:47  
Yeah, the shorts? Who's got short shorts? You know, I want to thank you for that. Yeah.

Nancy  38:53  
This has been such an enlightenment. This is fucking incredible. Yeah, it's been awesome.

Nick  38:58  
And just so you guys know, man, obviously in our story, because this is this will be like the last episode of our story how? through good and bad and whatever. And then I think the next part of our story is after that 10 years, the past year and a half, we experienced the absolute. I know for both of us the most horrific pain that we could imagine in our lives. It does have to do with our son, and with our daughter in law, in a bit of a strange moment from them. We're going to talk about that. And to be honest with you, that's one of the main reasons why we finally decided to do this for our healing as well. Yeah. And how sharing our story with everybody. The world, essentially, does bring a sense of healing and freedom. Not only that, look at what you

Nancy  39:50  
just said, Right? Oh, yeah, it's just it's crazy.

Nick  39:53  
Conversations bring out the best in us. And I've always said that it's in us. Regardless, the answers are in and us. And so in the next episode, stay tuned you guys, we're gonna dive a little deeper into that. That's going to be a hard one for us for sure. Just a little Yeah. There, there might be some emotions that come out in that or whatever, but we're going to do it. And we hope you guys join us. Remember, it's all a journey, and we're all on that journey together. So we appreciate you guys being here and listening to us. And hope you tune in next time. Talk to you soon. Adios.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai