#43 Maura

Hello, Jackie Cohen.

In the last fifteen hours, you have sexty more than you're sext me in the last six months.

What's going on?

Okay, So I got a whole bunch of headshots taken, and I need to choose one.

We're lucky for you.

I'm doing nothing right now.

You're in front of your smartphone.

Right now, my smartphone?

Well then my smartphone.

Okay, here's the first one. Kind of a bearded bohemian. Look, here we go. Just send it to your cell.

Oh my god, it makes me look like a bum.

All right. Okay, how about this one beside a plant no denim shirt and denim vest in a cagle cap in a law library, sitting in a bean bag chair eating a powdered doughnut.

Of course.

Okay, all I've got left is this one of me in a turtleneck and a pair of overalls.

Yeah.

No, I like overalls from Ghimili Media. I'm Jonathan Goldstein and this is Heavyweight Today's episode Mara right after the break. Here are some things to know about Mara. She has a clock in her bathroom, so even when she's in the shower, she can make sure she's running on time. When she meets up with friends, she brings along sparkling water so everyone stays hydrated. And on her high school rowing team, she was the coxin, the one who steers

You know how people have an anxiety dreams, and it's like you're naked, or you're in a test room and you've not studied.

I don't know what yours is, Jonathan.

I've had that stuff happen in real life. Well you're talking about dreaming. Oh interesting, Okay.

So I have a reoccurring dream about driving that I'm behind the wheel of a car, and then all of a sudden, there's just like this creeping anxiety where I realized that I can't drive.

Mara does not have a driver's license. Her fear of driving began eleven years ago because of what happened to one of her cousins, one of her many many cousins.

I have about forty first cousins.

Do you know all the names of your forty cousins?

Of course, I do.

Could you recite all forty.

Names Dominica, Michael and Catherine, Shana, Ben and Mary.

As Mara lists, I try to remember the names of my cousins, of which there are two. There's Marty and a man named Sence. I want to say Benjamin.

The twins Chris and Kevin, and Tina.

In my family, cousins are a coincidence a murder of Rando's with the same grandparents. But in Mara's family, a cousin is a friend. And of all Mara's forty cousins, there was one who was her best friend, Shannon Shannon. Mara was two years younger than Shannon and grew up in Shannon's hand me downs. They celebrated Christmas and birthdays together, spent whole summer days at the pool. Shannon was her cool, big sister.

Someone that you always kind of wanted to have in your corner, you know. She was the person that I got most excited to have play dates with or sleepovers with.

As they grew older, Mara and Shannon would go on long walks together, talking about their families and gossiping about boys. In the fall of two thousand and eight, Shannon went away to college, and that summer, Mara was looking forward to seeing her again at an upcoming family party.

It was July third, It was a Friday afternoon, and it was my brother's graduation party.

Mara's family was hosting. So the day of the party, Mara helped her mom prepare for guests, tidying the laundry room to make it into a bar area.

So I was sweeping the laundry room and I remember the phone ringing and my mom picking up, and it was my grandfather.

And I remember my mom.

Saying Shannon's name in this her You know the sound that people get when they're stressed and their voice just gets tight.

It was like Shannon.

And then she came into the room and she said, Shannon's been an accident.

She's dead.

With the place still kind of decorated like a graduation party with streamers and confetti, you know, my family just started rolling in.

Already turned into an informal vigil, with the family consoling each other in small, hushed groups. It was here that Mara overheard an aunt sharing the graphic details of Shannon's death. These were images that would stick with her for years to come. Mara's aunt explained that while driving back from the Jersey Shore for the graduation party, Shannon, her license barely a few weeks old, accidentally swerved off the highway and drove through a guardrail and into a tree. The

You know, when news like that hits you, it doesn't really hit you, you know. I cried a little bit, but it was like this kind of sprint and then like normalcy.

It only began to sink in a few weeks later, while MARAA was traveling for a race, she was staying in a hotel room with her rowing team. It was her birthday, and I.

Remember like at midnight into the bathroom and running the shower and just like sobbing, I think for the first time, like realizing that this older cousin who I admired so much like I was going to get older than her.

She was always going to be the same age.

Crying in the hotel bathroom, Mara turned seventeen years old. Turning seventeen in New Jersey meant who was time to get her driver's license, and Mara had already begun the process. She'd gotten her permit. She'd been practicing or driving, but with Shannon's death, maraa couldn't bring herself to actually take the final test.

My parents were pushing me to schedule the test, and I was kind of like, oh, I don't know, you know, excuse excuse, I'm busy.

I'm traveling for crew.

This image of the accident would come to mind at even just the thought of getting behind the wheel, but.

Her parents kept insisting. The way Mara explains it, their approach was throw the kid into the deep end and they'll learn how to swim. They wanted Mara to stop dwelling and push through. So one day after church, Mar's father demanded she take the wheel.

My dad was basically like, you're driving home, and I was like, I don't want to, but he made me, and we were, I don't know, a mile and a half from my parents, and I can remember just being utterly terrified and feeling like my stomach was just dropping through my body, and my dad being in the front seat and like raising his voice and making gasps and like pulling in and thinking to myself, I never want to do that again. And that was literally the last time I ever was behind the wheel of a car.

Eleven years later, and still Mara's parents see her inability to get her license. In practical terms, adults just need to drive. They've never been able to see it the way Mara does. So at no point were you able to say the reason why I don't want to drive is just it connects too much to Shannon Oh.

I have been various rays over the years.

Has just never been heard, Mara says. Any conversation with her parents about driving devolves into a fight. Her parents push her to move past her fear. Mara says she can't, but they never really talk about what's behind the fear. Instead, they talk in circles and everyone leaves resentful. This happened most recently last Thanksgiving. Because of the pandemic. Mara didn't want to take the train from DC to Jersey. Her mother didn't want to make the long drive to pick

I'm twenty eight years old and I don't have my license. Say it out loud. It makes you on a car.

MARAA is desperate to change the conversation with her parents, and the solution she thinks is to get her license. That way, they can stop fighting about the license and finally talk about why it's been so hard for her, about what's behind her fear. The only problem. Mara is still terrified of driving, so she's come to me for help getting on the road and eventually passing the driver's test. I believe I failed the written part a couple times, and I wasn't a good driver, and I'm still not

I feel like I wanna cry again.

Ah after the break, I cox in Mara to the finish line. Check this out.

Port side.

Raise your arms, stroke stroke, I mean drive, drive tune. That radio pumps that as NKO. Get your head out of it. You need like your twin brothers. With her road test a few months away, Mara will need someone to practice her driving with. It's still the height of the pandemic, so I can't fly to DC. I'll need to offer my tutelage over video. This means recruiting a local proxy, some DC based Patsy to fill the passenger seat. While holding me aloft on their phone, Mara suggests I

I hate podcasts. I don't think I could.

Connect with them. Well, she's inside of one now. Although she's known Mara for years, says MARAA only recently told her she doesn't know how to drive. Mara's shame about not having a license is something she's kept hidden, even from her closest friends.

I was very surprised by it. Burney and a friends have gone on tons of trips together, and it had never crossed my mind that she couldn't drive the car at any point.

Is it sort of like when you find out that a friend is Canadian, like you just thought you just thought she was people? What about this lot lesson? One the basics? Is it open for her first driving lesson? Joe brings Mara to an empty stadium parking lot. My virtual self or best self rides along in a phone holder fastened above the glove compartment, not unlike one of

Release, this is the brig and the gas.

Did you have them confused?

Yes?

With the pedals all sorted, Mara takes hold of Joe's hand and let's take it.

Eat breath. Okay, let's jack Oh shit, I'm underverse.

Mars starts slow, taking a lap around the empty parking lot. At first, she coasts too scared to even accelerate, but then she's.

Using the gas. I use.

Okay, But in spite of her anxiety, Mara takes the driving quickly.

At that when I hit that fifteen miles per hour, I was like, I'm capable of anything.

When she has a feel for the car, she even decides to tackle parallel parking with some abandoned cones.

And between that cone is gonna be where you have to parallel park.

Okay, you can call it Jackie Cone JACKI co But unlike Jackie Cohen, this cone doesn't laugh at you or bang down the phone when you call it stands tall and tribute to safety. And also unlike Jackie Cohen, hits orange with a white stripe, though Jackie does have that orange sweater vest she wears with a white turtleneck makes her look like a creamsicle. But although Jackie Cone is icy, she's no treat what she doesn't.

I'm gonna turn off the car and put my emergency brake on with.

The less an over we said in the parking lot, Joe, how do you feel? How do you feel? Mar's done?

Master level one?

That's amazing. You've done it all at this.

Point, except actually like driven on a road.

Yeah, lesson two the road.

These quiet neighborhoods are a welcome respite from the normal DC bustle.

This is Mara's cousin, Mike, who's taking her driving on an actual street. Mike and Mara grew up together. When Mike was overseas and homesick, Mara was the only family member who came to visit him. But in spite of their closeness, it turns out that, like Joe, Mike never knew about Mara's lack of a license. Now that he does, though he's offering his full support.

That's perfect.

Mike is a staff sergeant in the Army and has the kind of can do attitude that must come in handy when motivating a cadet off a plane with the gentle poke of a bay.

That driving is possible. Driving is for everyone, So.

Mara is at ease driving through the streets of DC. His mic offers helpful tips.

Turn signals are a crutch, you don't need them.

Blinkers are not for you, though they're for other people.

First of all, it's nobody's business where I'm going. Instead, you had to operate in a parking garage.

Yet, Mara and Mike make a bathroom stop at a grocery store, which affords Mara a chance to practice parking in a parking garage and Mike a chance to practice sharing his heart.

I think parking was one of the hardest things for me. Probably it's hard for me to admit. But after all, masculinity is just a cage, not break out of it.

Wow, what is that noise? Mike's keen military ear senses danger in the underground parking garage. That was terrifying.

It's terrifying.

Are you getting that?

It's terrifying?

No, Maybe she's get out of here.

In the corner run.

Creeping around parking garages, laughing with a partner in crime. After years of fear and avoidance, Mara is finally catching up on what she missed as a teenager, first learning to drive from where I said in a cup holder, It's nice to hear her having fun. Mara's handling everything so well that I'm tempted to suggest we skip the rest of our lessons and just go to the movies. Theaters have cup holders two, after all, and I hear

My hands are sweating mine or two, my hands are also sweating, I'll say, just like watching Nora is holding the phone up so I can see the highway from Mara's perspective, Semi's whiz by making Nora's Mini Cooper seem even tinier.

We're on I thirty five, Austin's only major free way.

It's chaotic, all right, and you've got the green arrows.

So ship man, y'all, there's people coming up behind you, but you'll get in the cars last to get on, so you have to like get over fairly quickly here to get onto the highways.

So all right, we're getting on.

Mara emerges onto the highway, tentatively a little too slow for the flow of traffic.

Ship Man, I.

Don't know if I'm ready for this.

You stand the then stay in the far this right lane if we.

Can get right off this an accent immediately after, I have to look, what do I do?

No? Just stay in the right lane. Oh do you want to stay in this? Yes? That's let's I said, okay, cant's just say where you are and we're just gonna get off at the second.

Okay, right, okay, all right?

At okay?

Right?

Can you get to the right lane? I don't know.

If you get into the right.

Can't go one more?

There's no one behind you.

We can go all the way over.

Once off the highway, Mara finds a parking lot and comes to a stop, all told her first ever highway drive was less than two minutes long.

Can you hold my hands?

Yeah, I'm gonna put you down, John, Yeah.

Yes, take a break.

I don't know why I'm crying. I mean, I know why I'm crying. No, even regardless of the other stuff.

That was my first time getting in the highway since she died, you know, and like it's like knowing, like feeling the like at the speed and which like in a moment, like something could happened. Just I felt out of control, even though I know I was in control.

I'm glad it was with you. Okay, I want to try it again.

Okay, yeah, there a.

Goat, that's just stuff.

In spite of her anxiety, Mara gets back on the highway.

Okay, go straight and go kind of left, and we'll stay in this lane the whole time until we get out.

Okay, Okay, now go go this time.

Mara stays on the highway for a few exits before getting off. When I asked her why she felt so strongly about getting back on, she says she didn't want to let the fear build into something bigger the way it has for years. Marra wants to get the job done. Mara, yes, how you feeling.

I'm feeling pretty anxious right now.

It's finally the day of Mara's road test. She's brought along a support group to help distract from her stress, her friend Jenna, her cousin Dominica, and of course cousin Mike. I'm extremely hung over. Hearing this, Maras springs into action, not unlike a thoughtful, nurturing version of the kool Aid Man sparkling water.

Yes, I love you someone, Yes, different flavors like.

Do you want to back it in? Or I'm gonna go.

It's fifteen twenty os, so I'm gonna go check in.

Okay, great?

Are you here?

Yeah?

Here.

While her friends wait in the car, Maraa heads off to the test, where she will adjust mirrors and check blind spots. She will signal right, and she will signal left, making it everybody's business where she's going. When she approaches stop signs, she will slow down one hundred and fifty feet before the corner. She'll even deal with a lane hopping drunkard on an e bike that feels like an obstacle out of a video game, and fifty three minutes later, she will emerge, oh my.

God, look your own Thank you, my gentlemen. Still going I still cotton now? Oh god.

Maara is twenty eight years old and finally she has driver's license, like hot mouth. That's for years, Mara felt so much shame about not driving that she hid it from the people she loved. But now they're all here celebrating with her. She says she'd never have been able to do any of this without having asked for their help.

Let me see, Wow, you were so beautiful?

What like no one ever gets.

In the weeks after getting her license, Mara tells everyone. She calls her sister, she texts her friends, but there are still two people. She can't bring herself to tell her parents. The driver's license was meant to clear the way for a conversation about Shannon's death. But as hard as getting her license was, the idea of talking with her parents seems even harder. She's worried that she'll try to bring up her big feelings and her parents will make their here we go again faces and there let's

So we need to hear more detail. How did this all come about?

I don't know where do you want me to start?

Well, firstly, initially, I mean, how did you feel when you when you received Mara's email?

I was crying, really very excited for you fan you were admitting it.

I'm just so happy for her.

It was a huge obstacle for her, just emotionally.

It's a not to be too dramatic, but a demon if you will.

Sue nods, Yeah, I'm sure she probably told you.

The story of week of her test driving test was her cousin's.

Funeral, who died in a car crash.

Right.

Mara had told me that raising the topic of Shannon would be a struggle. I wasn't expecting Sue and Andy to be the ones to bring it up first, and neither was Mara. At the mention of Shannon, she freezes us up.

I am like, very surprised that you have always made that association because of the way that me not driving has been frequently brought up in our family. It's been talked about as this very intentional choice and feeling like, in some ways, like not entitled to grieve.

We even talked about Shannon in years truly.

I'm sorry that you felt like we were avoiding the conversation.

Yeah. I think during the experience the following years, my recollection is was that that it's something that we we tried to acknowledge verbally, but without you know, creating a crutch if you will.

Andy and Sue feared too much sympathy might provide Mara with an excuse to give up on driving altogether. But Mara didn't want a license to drive so much as she wanted license to feel whatever she was feeling.

This wasn't just a mental block, This wasn't something I was overthinking, But this was trauma.

Yeah. We knew it. Yeah, that's what I was saying. Something we do that we didn't maybe do a great job of communicating it, but we knew it. We knew it all along. We knew it right from that day. You know, we heard and this is the roughest thing about being a parent. There's no playbook I mean, we're at a complete loss.

No parent wants to watch their kids suffer in the aftermath of Shannon's death. They'd wanted to say something important and wise, something that might put an end to mars grief, But what can one really say? So in the face of an unsolvable problem, they focused on a solvable one, the driver's license, and talking about the license might have also been a distraction for Andy and Seue from their own grief. They'd love Shannon. Two, how do you guys remember that time?

If I can ask, I remember it in great detail. We were having about eighty people coming to our house for my son's high school graduation party, and Maria was busy sweeping through the lawn ready.

Even though Mara and her parents have never discussed that day, Sue raises all the same things Mara did. She remembers Mars sweeping the phone call, walking into the laundry room to tell Mara what had happened. For Mara, hearing Sue described that day the same way she always has makes Mara feel seen. Sue also brings up things Marara wasn't there for, like the day after the funeral, when she drove Shannon's mom and brother to the tow yard to

Understanding what grief I was battling, and we were all battling.

Yeah, I mean by the time, you know, by the time we even digested it, that year went by, you know, still stuck in our throats, and everybody dealt with it own way, just to try to protect themselves, try to protect their own heart.

And then I left for college, and like, I haven't lived at home really since.

You know, It's funny more, I never really put it together till you're just talking now that you're the only one of the siblings that was here full time in the aftermath of her death.

Yeah, Mara was the youngest of three siblings. It was just her and her parents alone in the house, the air thick with the weight of all that was unspoken.

I meanwhile, you were trying to figure out where you're going to go to college. I mean all your senior EVENTU rough.

That was a rough year.

It's a small conversation as far as conversations go, but after not talking about it for over a decade, it's something.

Maura, think about this. Ten years ago, we would not be having the conversation like we're even having right now.

Yeah, and I just really appreciate you both having this conversation.

There's so much room for improvement, and I think that's the and we're open to that. Yeah, and we're open to that. The book isn't written just a series of chapters.

It's the beginning.

Absolutely, we're proud of you more.

Do you want to show them your driver's license? Mar holds up her license for her parents to see.

Ooh, pretty picture, thank you, very nice, and that's me in hologram form.

Ooh, what's a little ghosts like? Ooh, it's a show.

The license no longer needs to be weighted down with implication and meaning. It can finally be a piece of plastic with a nice picture on it that gets you from point A to point B. One fall Saturday, Mara borrows a friend's car a miles She needs it to run some errands. No, absolutely, not. It's the kind of afternoon people have all the time. Really, what's Chicago like? But for Mara, it's an afternoon of first first time driving around DC alone, first time hitting a pothole, shit,

You.

She fits her milkshake into the cup holder and heads to her next stop, The Sun's Bold. Mara started this trek because of her family, and she finished it because of her friends. But today she's enjoying the drive all by yourself. Does think.

Now that the fernitures returning to its goodwill home, Now that the last Monsrand is scheming with the damage, the Bob take this moment to des.

If we imagine I.

Flee to series.

Felt around Far.

From Things, Accident.

Zero.

This episode of Heavyweight was produced by Khalila Holtz, Mohemy mcgauker, Stevie Lane, and me Jonathan Goldstein. Special thanks to Emily Condon, Aggie Goldstein, Alex Bloomberg, Bethel hoptay Anna Foley, Lynn Levy, Paul Bowman, Zach Schmidt, and Jackie Cohen. Bobby Lord mixed the episode with original music by Christine Fellows, John K. Sampson, Sean Jacoby, and Bobby Lord. Additional music credits can be