Heavyweight Short: Cody

So kayleie, Yeah, we have a heavyweight short for the people this week, a short that you produced. How do I best describe what a heavyweight short is?

I think you should just do like a heavyweight short, you say all the things you love about heavyweight, but just in a shorter, more digestible format for this fast paced world.

Guess what what you just introduced our heavyweight short.

Oh?

Okay, Today's heavyweight short Cody. Right after the break, Cody describes his mom, Paula as Cudley. Some of his earliest memories are of the two of them just snuggling, just.

Like her laying on the couch and me being small enough at the time where she had her like her legs crolled, you know, and you could almost hide behind her legs in the couch and make a little ford.

Paula provided Cody with comfort even when she wasn't around. When he was five, she sewed him a blanket stitched with cartoon bunnies, which Cody took everywhere, and when he grew too old for carrying around a blanket, he still slept with it at night. In the summer before Cody's freshman year, Paula went in for knee surgery. She suffered from arthritis, and over the years the pain had only

We drove to the hospital and you know, like when we were able to just walk in the room and my sister and you could just tell from just how everybody was positioned, just she's dead. And then I just sat down next to my grandpa. I don't think it fully hit me. I just remember just just staring and just sitting and not knowing what to feel.

Her death was so sudden that nobody in the family knew what to feel. At the funeral home, Cody placed the bunny blanket in Paula's coffin. The person who had always been there to hold Cody and provide him with solace during hard times was the person who is now gone. As for the rest of the family, rather than joining together, they withdrew from one another. His two older sisters and his brothers spent most of their time alone in their rooms, and their father, who'd been in poor health for years,

My mom was the glue. It's like when she died, it just we always just kind of drifted in our own directions. Yeah, we just didn't know how to talk to each other. So I kind of just receded into my own little my own little room, and did my own, my own thing. Just wanted to just be left alone.

Paula was buried in the cemetery across the street from Cody's house. The grave became the place where Cody went when he needed to unburden himself. Saying things in his head wasn't as good as talking out loud, but talking out loud in his bedroom and the rest of the family could hear, so he'd walk across the street and talk to a tombstone. Although still in a state of grief,

And I remember walking out and I don't know if he had said anything or there was a lead in. I don't think there was. But the thing that I remember was just him reaching out and just hugging me so just so tightly. You know how when you go for a hug you can do the up dat like one arm up, one lower. I didn't have that chance, like he just hugged me.

Since his mother's death, no one had done just that. Cody's family and friends weren't really the hugging type. There might have been a couple of polite hugs, some perfunctory hugs, but Coach Walling, basically a stranger, was hugging Cody with what felt like all his heart.

He held me for a few moments. I remember it so strongly. I get kind of teary eyed just thinking about it, just because it was just something I just I really needed without knowing it, and I just it was just something that I needed. It felt caring.

Shortly after the day of the hug, Coach Walling took a job at another school and Cody never saw him again, but the moment remained with Cody. From then on, Cody started hugging all the time. He became the guy who'd hugs friends when they were having a bad day.

And like even now with my wife, I just want hugs more than anything from her. Like I came home, I want to hug before I go to bed, I want to hug. And she didn't understand it, and so actually I had told her this story, and she's like, that makes sense. Why you want to hug all the time, Like there's a you know, there's always a few things you always remember in your life. You know, your your your kid being born, your marriage, and then for me, it's that hug. He's going to be included Holy how God.

After doing some digging, I found out that coach Walling is John Walling. He recently retired after thirty six years of coaching. I tell Cody I was able to track him down. Oh okay, I have his phone number and we can give him a call right now.

Would it be okay if we rescheduled for that. I actually have to be in bed and a half hour so I can make my time tomorrow.

Cody's a truck driver and a shift begins at two thirty am. I understand why he would want to call it a night, but as we continue to talk, it feels like something else is at play.

No, im not like I do, I really do, but no, that's amazing, Like I'm that give me just one second.

Okay, yeah, of course, of course, take what you need?

Thank you? H Okay, yeah, I don't I don't know it, Like what do you say? I don't know. It's just I'm really nervous now, but but yeah, we can. We can do it.

You want to do it? Yeah, okay, let's do it.

It's uh, it's John. Right before I don't.

Yeah, it's it's yeah, it's John. It's John Walling. Yeah. I guess I'll say hi first.

Okay, Hello, this is John.

Hi John, This is Jonathan Goldstein.

Oh, Hello, how are you.

I'd let John know I'd be phoning with a student of his name, Cody from sixteen years ago. Oh, but hadn't said much more than that. I have someone here who is wanting to talk to you.

Hi, Hi, John, Hey, what's going on? Hey? Been been a crazy life. Have a little farm that we live on. We're up in Marshalltown.

My dad lived in Marshalltown. His claim to fame is that he was the longest baby born in Marshalltown.

With the pleasantries and the my dad was a longer baby than your dad, macho male bonding out of the way. I asked John if he remembers Cody.

I do, I do. So. Do you remember that that summer in the in the weight room, my uh my mom had passed away, and I remember you reaching out and just and just give me the this biggest, this long heartfelt hug, and it meant It's just been following me for years and years and years now, and I've been wanting to thank you for it for the longest time, because it just meant so much to me.

When two people overlap in time and space, there's never any guarantee that what one person experienced as a special moment isn't for the other person just to BLib something they sort of remember or want to remember out of politeness or kindness. But today this isn't the case.

I do remember that, and I'm sorry.

I remember that very, very vividly what I had lost my mom in nineteen ninety seven, and so it was those emotions were still raw and real, and I'm not sure they ever heal.

So when coach Walling heard about the boy on the football team whose mom also died, he felt compelled to say or do something. He just didn't know exactly what were you intending to hug him? Or was it something that just happened. Yeah, I didn't know, not at all.

I mean that it kind of came out of left field. I felt such a pain of losing my mama that it just felt that that reaction just seemed natural as a response to the pain.

Where were you would you describe yourself as a as a hugger before that? Before that day, no no, no. For Coach Walling, not only had the hug with Cody been a moment, it was the moment.

From that moment on, it became easier and easier and more okay and more okay.

For me to hug guys, and and you.

Know, to show that as a raw emotion. And so Cody, I I'm I'm very grateful and honored that it helped you, but I wanted you to know that you helped me as well.

John says that just like Cody, he didn't have a lot of huggers in his life. His dad was definitely not a hugger.

He was a World War two and Korea veteran.

Who I mean, I saw him cry when my mama died, and that was it. He was an old rugged warrior that you know that wasn't yet that was not what you did.

Yeah, and and and and with you Like with my dad, like he's in he's in a home now, I like to I like to tease him a little bit. So when I when I visit him and in the home, I'll be like, all right, Dad, here's your hug, you know, and I go in. When when I first started doing it, he would you know, shake his head and go no, no, no, no no, and and light me pat me back. But now I think I think I've whotled him down enough.

And I know, and honestly it sounds kind of silly to say that until you need it, you know. I'm I'm not ashamed to say I'm a hugger and I and I feel like I feel I feel like I have a fuller life because of it. I should tell everybody I love them too, And I don't if that sounds strange, fantastic.

John, John, I do the same thing. And I don't think that would have happened if it wasn't for you.

Well, I can't thank you enough for for you know, I'm the most blessed guy you're ever going to get on the phone. I feel so very blessed that you took the time and effort to try to find me. I appreciate that, and I love you.

I love you too, Jean.

Well, you know there's only one thing left to do.

Oh, I don't I don't know, I don't know what.

Virtual hugs, virtual.

Okay, you have a good you have a good night.

You too, take it easy, and I guess I love you. I love you too, man.

Thanks John, Bye, bye bye.

This Heavyweight short was produced by senior producer Khalila Holt Hello and Me Jonathan Goldstein, along with Moheeney Mictgawker. Our supervising producer is Stevie Lane. Production help from Damiano Marquetti. Special thanks to Emily Condon, Aaron Randall, and Hannah Chan. Bobby Lord mixed the episode with original music by Christine Fellows, John K. Sampson, Blue Dot Sessions, and Bobby Lord. Follow us on Twitter at Heavyweight or email us at Heavyweight