PLEASE NOTE: This is a minimally-edited transcript that originates from a program that uses AI.
Anita Rao
This is Embodied, from PRX and WUNC. I’m Anita Rao. Pair figure skating is a sport of coordination and high-risk maneuvers. It requires a lot of trust and teamwork, so what is it like when your partner is your sibling?
Jocelyn Cox
Brad was, you know, really tracking all of the specifics and I just wanted to go out there and say, ta-da, and put out a costume and listen to the music. So we had definitely had different approaches.
Anita Rao
Despite their differences... Jocelyn and Brad Cox became a strong pair and competed together for 11 years. That experience solidified a partnership that continued into adulthood as coaches — and caregivers.
Brad Cox
I think the coaching partnership was easy and natural and smooth, and the caregiving partnership was foreign and frustrating and difficult.
Anita Rao
A conversation about the bond forged by figure skating siblings, just ahead on Embodied.
It was the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York. The pair skating event was underway as teams took to the rink for axles, spins and lifts. Two kids halfway across the country were glued to their television
Archival Olympics Tape
Right double axles side by side.
Jocelyn Cox
I was of course, very interested. In the costumes and the music and the sparkle and the drama of the whole affair.
Anita Rao
Jocelyn Cox was eight years old. Her brother Brad was 13.
Archival Olympics Tape
The speed twist...
Brad Cox
I was very impressed by the athleticism. It was pretty incredible the things that they were doing and that they were able to do.
Anita Rao
Then one duo came on the ice: Kitty and Peter Carruthers. American skaters who were siblings.
Brad Cox
It was sort of like an aha moment. Oh, wow. There's a brother and sister I, I have a sister sitting right here next to me. I wonder if that would be something that we could do.
Anita Rao
The rest is history. This is Embodied, our show about sex, relationships, and health. I am Anita Rao. In that winter of 1980, Jocelyn and Brad became figure Skating partners, and over the next 11 years, competed four times in the US figure skating Championships.
All of that training and performing forged a tight bond, which they continued to build upon in adulthood, first as skating coaches and later as caregivers for their mother with dementia. Jocelyn wrote about it all in motion Dazzle, a memoir of motherhood, loss and skating on thin ice. The Paris Talents and differences as skaters emerged early at their first formal skating lesson.
Brad Cox
In those days there was something called figures. It is called figure skating. So figures are drawings on the ice, and it's sort of a very slow, methodical process of trying to get your body in the right position to. Make the circles perfectly round. And that was something that definitely appealed to me. And I think that I really enjoyed the idea of incremental improvement. Like if I could do something maybe once today, could I do it twice tomorrow? And I think I did see progress and it was, it was exhilarating.
Anita Rao
So Brad is following the circles. He's very meticulous. He's noting his improvement. Jocelyn, what were you doing? What was your reaction?
Jocelyn Cox
I was more of the performer Uhhuh, and I did not really love the methodical technique that we had to learn. It seemed ridiculous to me that we would have to do such specific things with our feet. So Brad was tracking all of the specifics, and I just wanted to go out there and say Tadda and put on a costume and listen to the music. So we had definitely had different approaches. It took me a while to understand that it was absolutely necessary to. Absorb some of this technique in order to be able to do the various items that that we were being asked to do.
Anita Rao
So you all were soon approached by one of the coaches at the rink to start taking private lessons and things really ramped up quickly from there to daily lessons skating practice on the weekend. I'm really curious about what it was like to spend so much time together given your age gap. Like Jocelyn, had y'all been close before this, or how did skating shift your sibling dynamic?
Jocelyn Cox
I think we had already been close, but yes, we were five years apart. And at eight and 13, that's, that's quite a gap. So doing this shared activity did mean that we were spending far more time together than. We may have expected and far more time together than most siblings would because it was such a shared goal that developed, I would say for the most part. Of course, we had occasional squabbles, but we had a good relationship and I think part of that. Was the age gap. I think I sort of thought of Brad in those younger years as being in charge When he's 13 and I'm eight, I think, well, he knows more than I do and so he's gonna set the tone and decide how many millions of repetitions of this one thing we're going to do, and I will try to go along with it. Of course, as I got older and matured, I definitely developed more of a voice, but I think it was exciting for me to be able to hang out with my older brother. And I admired him. So I think that really is a huge part of what kept me going.
Anita Rao
I can totally see that as someone with an older sibling that kind of idolizing the older one and looking up to them. But Brad, for you, like you were 13, you're in in middle school, did you wanna be hanging out with your kid sister as much as you were?
Brad Cox
I think we, you know, we developed goals of what we wanted to do with our competitive skating, and I can't ever remember thinking, oh, this little, this little pip squeak, I don't wanna be around her. I mean, we had, we had a lot of fun together. We had very much the same level of skill on the ice, and she was equally as strong a skater as I was.
Anita Rao
So y'all began to learn how to skate together as a pair. You started doing overhead lifts and jumps, which I find terrifying to watch as a viewer. Brad, I wanna know what it was like to throw your sister up in the air like that seems like a lot of pressure.
Brad Cox
I think, you know, you start sort of out with baby steps. So the things that you see people doing on the ice, they don't just step onto the ice, you know, they've done it thousands of times on the floor before they do it. So there is definitely a process. It is somewhat daunting and, and it is dangerous, I think that you don't think about how dangerous it is until 15 years later and you watch a video and you wonder why you ever would've thought to do that. But Jocelyn was doing a lot of pretty adventurous and courageous things, and I think that if I had to do all the stuff that she had to do, probably we would not have had much of a skating career. But I always felt a responsibility to keep her as safe as I possibly could.
Anita Rao
Jocelyn, you write that the throes and the kind of risky elements were. Kinda your least favorite part of the process. How did you navigate that fear with your brother or, or did you kind of keep it really internal?
Jocelyn Cox
I was absolutely terrified most of the time that we were doing those more difficult elements and more acrobatic elements. It was so antithetical to my personality. It really was a matter, and I'll use a term from our mother. It was a matter of grinning and bearing it. I really just gritted my teeth and got through it because that was a part. Of the process. If I wanted to do all these glitzy and glamorous things like fly across the country and compete, if I wanted to sign autographs after an ice show, then I had to figure out how to get through those more difficult things. But I was definitely aware of the danger and the risk. I had to keep myself safe and I did trust that my brother would keep me safe, but he couldn't always do so. So I was injured quite a bit and that probably then snowballed a little bit and made me more fearful. As we went on with every injury. I probably got a little more fearful.
Anita Rao
You just alluded to your mom and, and I wanna talk a little bit more about her because as you all improved, as skaters, you were competing in two different events, pair skating and ice dance, and this hobby really was not only becoming your life, it was your mom's life. She was driving the two of you all over the state for lessons and and competitions. What was her role, Jocelyn, in y'all's budding career? Like how did you think of her as a character as part of the dynamic?
Jocelyn Cox
I wouldn't characterize her as a quote unquote skating mother. You know, there's this trope of the overbearing, very de demanding mother that's always in the rink and helping to coach, et cetera. Our mother was not like that, but she was behind the scenes making absolutely everything happen as far as coaching, as far as costuming, as far as equipment. Not to mention that she was driving us all over the place all the time, but it was a quiet strength that she had, and it was a kind of dogged persistence that she had that I think was. Trickling down to us for sure. And so she was setting that tone that well, the coaches said that you have to train X amount, so we'll sign you up for that many sessions. And she was really just taking her cues from the coaches and making sure to do everything in her power to make it happen for us.
Anita Rao
So you say she wasn't kind of that stereotypical skating mom being the one to really push you all. Brad, did you feel pressure from her or, or do you feel like you two were really driving, driving the train?
Brad Cox
Jocelyn's Correct. Our mom was the furthest thing from a skating. Parent or a, or a stage mom or something like that, she would not have been able to tell the difference between different elements that we would talk about. She really had no idea of what was going on in the ice. Oh, but your hair looked good. Um, so she was not that at all, and I think that if we decided that it wasn't for us anymore, she would've been totally fine with that. She wanted us to try hard at whatever we did, but she definitely was not pushing us and the, and the setting of the goals and the drive was coming from us and the coaches.
Anita Rao
So, Jocelyn, you write in your memoir that around the time you were 13, you did start saying aloud that you wanted to quit skating. That feeling was coming up for you and you were voicing it to Brad and your mom. What was going on and what was shifting about how you felt about skating?
Jocelyn Cox
Well, I think the main thing that was going on is that my body was changing. Mm-hmm. And things that I could do when I was say 11 or 12, by the time I was 13, 14, 15, my body had developed in a way that I wasn't rotating quite as quickly and I was becoming quite tall. For the sport, I am currently five foot six inches and that's, you know, an average height. But for. Predominantly for pair skating. It's more of a gymnastics body type, very small and compact. So it was becoming more and more clear that for pair skating you needed to be brave and you needed to be small, and I was neither of those things. So yes, I started to fantasize about quitting. The thing is that our mother, while she did. Express that we could stop. She did always want us to complete the season. Halfway through the season, we've we're already signed up for all the competitions. We have in her mind, a, an obligation to each other, an obligation to our coaches. The costumes have already been sewn, and so the option to quit came at the end of every season. Of course by the end of every season, I was quite dazzled by having gone to Nationals and the Nationals party and meeting all these kids from all over the country. So I kept not quitting. It became a bit of a cycle and a bit of a loop, and I couldn't figure out how to get. Out of it.
Anita Rao
Just ahead, we'll hear about how Brad and Jocelyn's relationship evolved as their skating career began to ramp up. You're listening to Embodied from WUNC, a broadcast service of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. You can also hear Embodied as a podcast. Follow and subscribe on your platform of choice. We'll be right back.
This is Embodied. I am Anita Rao. Today we're talking about how competitive figure skating can shape a sibling relationship. Jocelyn Cox and Brad Cox started skating as a duo in 1980 and competed together for 11 years. Today, Brad is a figure skating coach, and Jocelyn is a writer who recently penned the memoir Motion Dazzle. Their skating journey began when they were kids in a small town in Wisconsin. After years of practicing and competing all across the Midwest, they were ready to level up their training. So Brad, Jocelyn, and their mom, Barbara, moved to Delaware. Barbara would get a fresh start after divorcing their dad, and Brad and Jocelyn would get to work with one of the best coaches in the country. Here's Brad.
Brad Cox
It was the country mouse going to the city. Um. You know, we had been in our little rink in Wisconsin where after some point in time we were the only ones that were going, you know, to larger competitions. You know, not really lighting the world on fire, but we were getting stronger and, and in our rink we were like, you know, de bomb, but. But then you get to, you know, the place where the real skaters are and you realize that you do not have a clue and that you are very slow. And, um, it's a whole different situation. The coach that we were going to train with was actually the coach of. Kitty and Peter Carruthers, who were the, um, brother and sister pair team that we saw in the 1980 Olympics. So we were in the epicenter of American pair skating and ice dancing at that, at that moment, I think it was the potential to be overwhelming, but I think we just like dove in and just. Took everything that we could, uh, as a sponge. And there was also a whole bunch of kids who were brother and sister pair teams. So we had a whole little network, mafia of pair skating siblings with whom we are friends with, you know, for life. So it was, the friends that I have from that period in my life, uh, which was the early part of like into college, are pretty much all skating friends. I was much more at the rink than I was at at college.
Anita Rao
I'm curious about that experience of getting to know and skating with other sibling pairs. Jocelyn, was y'all's dynamic similar to other people's? Like what? What was it like to kind of have other mirrors for this kind of competition together?
Jocelyn Cox
It was both fascinating and thrilling to be. Making friends with these other teams and also these other teams that were brother, sister, and I very quickly formed a crew of little sisters and the older brothers formed a crew. And yes, there was a lot of similarity between what we were all experiencing and there was a nice opportunity for us to grumble about our older brothers and what they were, you know, either not doing well enough or forcing us to do, or, you know. All different kinds of, uh, ways to connect and mostly it was fun on Wednesdays, we'd all try to wear the same color tights in the summer and the guys would wear Batman t-shirts. And there was a lot, there was a lot of fun to be had. I don't know why it was always on Wednesdays, but there was a lot of fun.
Anita Rao
You all were training really hard and started to compete at the national level. I'm really curious about how y'all navigated mistakes once you were in this higher stakes context. Jocelyn, I know there's a story you tell in your book about a sectionals competition in Tulsa. Can you take me back to that day and tell me about what happened?
Jocelyn Cox
Yes, this was one of the funnier and maybe sadder things that ever happened to us. We were in first place at the sectionals after the first part of the competition. There were two parts of the competition, the short program and the long program, and it was very exciting for us to be in first place after the short. When we got out there for the long, we didn't realize this, but we were just facing in the wrong direction. Oh. And we started our program, we probably both realized about three seconds in that something was very wrong and we were kind of going the wrong way. Oh, no. But we tried to fix it on the fly and in so doing, we came around a very, very tight circle. We're pushing very, very hard. Mind you, we haven't really done any elements yet. And we fell quite dramatically into the sideboards right in front of the. Videographer and you see the camera sort of wiggle and you see us come back into the frame completely flattened. You know, these boards are very hard and hockey players, you know, ram up against them all the time, but in full body padding. So in that moment I'm thinking, you know, imagine that it's slow motion. I'm thinking, well, that season's over, we are done. We haven't even started the program. We're done. And Brad is immediately get, you know, grabbing my hand and saying, get up, get up. And I did. And we did what are called two back crossovers into an element called the split double twist. And we were late to the music, but we ended up doing absolutely everything in that program. Maybe just a little bit wobbly and a little bit wonky. But I learned a lot from that moment, and I've analyzed it many times that, you know, my brother's instinct was to keep going and mine was, maybe my natural instinct was to maybe give up. And I'm so grateful for that moment that he, you know, kind of forced me up because we did keep going. We did drop to third, but we did go on to the nationals and that would've been our first nationals. And I'm just. Grateful in a more general sense that he's always sort of had that level of determination and that. That concept that you get up, you just keep going, you keep trying.
Anita Rao
Brad, did that moment register as strongly for you? I know like with shared family experiences, sometimes someone remembers something so well and it's formative and the other person doesn't have a recollection of it. Like for you is, was that a formative moment and y'all skating career,
Brad Cox
Jocelyn correctly, states that the wall was very hard. Yes, I do. I do. I do remember the moment very clearly. I have the costume had. Paint on it that could not be gotten out by any means, so Oh wow. The pants. The pants actually had to be changed because the paint was so ground into it, but it was our first national. Opportunity to qualify for the first time to go to the national championship. And so that is like such a moment that every single skater remembers. And I can also remember just like getting on out onto the ice and at most competitions they had just announced one's name, but. In this competition, they announced the placement of the person as they got on the ice. So it was, it was like you were on TV and in first place and I'll,
Anita Rao
Oh geez, the stakes are high.
Brad Cox
Jos and Brad Cox. And so we came out and, you know, there was applause and we were so confident and we lined up and we were, you know, as Jocelyn says, we were facing the wrong way. Um, and, and then she told the rest of the story.
Anita Rao
How did this level of intense training and competition affect y'all's relationship? Off the ice, like what was your sibling dynamic like when you weren't competing? Training, performing Brad?
Brad Cox
We had a good relationship. If Jocelyn needed some help with her homework, I was happy to do that. Um, she didn't need that much help with her homework 'cause she was valedictorian of her high school class. But if she needed some help, I was there to do that. We definitely had a social scene with the other pair skaters and sibling pairs. We would go. Out for like Taco Tuesdays for 25 cent tacos at this one restaurant. So I think we had a very good and amicable relationship, but honestly, most of our relationship was like a professional kind of a relationship. Mm-hmm. We spent a heck of a lot more time together than most siblings, but the great majority of it was on the ice and training.
Anita Rao
Jocelyn, did you guys ever get sick of each other? Like, I'm thinking about spending all of this time together with a sibling. Like did, did you fight? Did you ever get tired of one another?
Jocelyn Cox
Absolutely. I think for the most. Part though I think there was so much going on and so much that we had to get done, that there was a lot of focus and I learned a lot about dedication, determination, and focus from my brother. He was also a very good student. We were very busy, so. You know, we did get into it a few times and as I got older I certainly was pushing back against some of Brad's ideas and was a little less, uh, excited to do what he wanted to do and had some more opinions about what I wanted to do. But I think that was of course, natural and I. Proud of the fact that I was gradually able to find that voice and speak up for myself, and I'm proud of Brad for eventually, you know, over time listening to me and trying to accommodate what I wanted to do.
Anita Rao
So. There was a juncture about when you were 16 and Brad was 21, when things started to shift a little bit in how you all felt competing together, especially from your perspective, Jocelyn, you started to feel like you were holding Brad back a little bit. Tell me about that and what was happening.
Jocelyn Cox
Yeah, I, I, that time was very crushing to me because as I said, I was. Getting taller. I was developing. I was not able to do some of the jumps and tricks that I was formally able to do, and I was kind of hitting a wall as far as doing things like a throw double. I could do a throw single axle, but I couldn't do a throw double axle as many times as we tried it. I could do a split double twist, but I couldn't seem to get the split triple twist. So it was very frustrating to me to see these other skaters excelling or starting to move through these elements. And master them. And I just couldn't seem to do it. And my fear started to get the best of me. When we first went to Delaware, we had decided to just focus on pair skating, which is the more acrobatic part of skating. And we did also have a, a background in ice dance. And so that's when I sort of became intrigued by the idea of doing ice dance, which theoretically is, is safer. You're on the ice more and it's more of a a ball roomy sort of experience. And you could be taller in that category, and you could have two people that were of similar size. So I was starting to become very intrigued by that part of skating.
Anita Rao
Brad, how did you respond to Jocelyn's growing doubts and feelings like that she was holding you back?
Brad Cox
I think it was probably obvious to everyone, including us that we were not advancing, as Jocelyn says, as quickly as some of the other people, where the size difference was greater. And, you know, I also, I, I wanted her to be able to do what she wanted to do, so I was definitely torn. Like I, I did love pair skating and I also wanted to skate with Jocelyn and have her. You know, be sort of fulfilled in her, in her skating. And so ultimately we decided that I would look for another pair partner, but I would continue to do ice dancing with Jocelyn.
Anita Rao
What was it like to build a partnership with someone else, like someone else you weren't related to, to skate with that kind of person for the first time?
Brad Cox
It was very foreign because it would had always just felt so natural. And now you have someone whose technique is just a little bit different or does things in a slightly different way. There was sometimes a struggle to get the technique right. You're also dealing with another family. And I had two partners after Jocelyn and they both were pretty successful partnerships, but of course it's not, you know, as close a relationship as I had with my sister.
Anita Rao
So a couple of years after you all stopped competing together in pair skating, Jocelyn, you decided to quit all together. What led you to stop competitive figure skating for good?
Jocelyn Cox
Well, I had a six month stint with my own ice dance partner, Uhhuh by my late teens. It was clear that it was difficult to share my partner with another person, just time-wise, you know, just logistically. And my brother, it was very valiant of him to do two events, but it was really difficult not to mention that he was an amazing student. He was in college, you know, a very, very diligent student. Guy was very busy. So I did get a new ice dance partner for a while, and that unfortunately ended with a very big accident where I was dropped on my head and got a big gash across my forehead. And Wait, you were, you were literally dropped Hollow bone.
Anita Rao
You were literally dropped on your head. I need you to explain more.
Jocelyn Cox
Yeah. So we were doing this lift, I don't know if it has a name, but he was holding me by my ankles and. And skating across the ice and spinning and. Honestly, I don't know what happened because he fell and I was knocked out and I've lost about 10 minutes of my life. And I either was kicked in the head by his skate and blade, or I hit my head on the ice or some combination of both. But I was taken from the ice and a stretcher, and I, when I came to, I looked to my right and my friends were in a semicircle around me crying. And I thought, well, something bad seems to have happened, but. I knew from that second on, I would never, I never wanted to get back on the ice again. I'd already had a panoply of injuries. I had, you know, broken other bones, sprained other bones, bruised every part of my body, and I said, that's it. I'm not doing this anymore. And I had, I was already planning to go to college and I ended up going to college in a more, let's say, robust way. I was gonna try to skate while I was in college and I said, no, I'm just gonna go away to college and have a college existence.
Anita Rao
You say in your book that in the wake of this injury, you, a lot of feelings started to come up about spending all of these years on the ice and you started to feel some resentment toward skating toward your mom, toward Brad. Tell us more about those feelings and and what you did with them.
Jocelyn Cox
I think I was just so disappointed. Like I said before, I had put so much time into this sport and it just didn't play out the way I had wanted, and I just didn't get as high up the ranks as I had wanted. So I felt kind of crushed. Hmm. Not to mention that I was hurt. I was heading to college with a big scar on my face, and I literally moved into the dorm room with my collarbone still. Broken and yeah, I think I was very angry in that time. Over the years I've done a lot of work to, you know, pull back, you know, my perspective and broaden it. And honestly, writing my book has allowed me to work through a lot of that and find a lot of forgiveness for. My brother for the sport itself and for my mother. I was, I was, I was kind of blaming all of them and I could sort of see why everyone was doing what they were doing and how it became such a shared project. And I think along the way I also started to forgive myself. I didn't get as far as I had wanted, but when I watch those tapes now, I am really proud of what I did, given the constraints that I did have.
Anita Rao
Brad, were you aware of Jocelyn's resentment at that time? How did that affect y'all's sibling relationship?
Brad Cox
I think that she, from my perspective at that time, she kind of went on to be a college student and kind of tried to step away from the ice. I, I can't say that I felt, you know, like a, like flames of resentment coming off of her. I think that she felt more of like. Grief or sadness or something. There's always, you know, when you stop skating, if you achieve your every dream, then you don't have that. But most people have, you know, are leaving it with something on the table that they wish they could have been able to do more. So I think that's kind of natural. I think it was probably harder for her because I was still skating and I. At that point, I was starting to get to some of the places that we had hoped to get to together that just were not possible for us. So I'm sure that there was, that she didn't really, you know, she wasn't hating on me or anything, but it, it had to be a, a tough transition for her.
Anita Rao
So Jocelyn, you said that kind of going into college, um, you had kind of sworn off skating for good. You said, I don't wanna, I don't wanna get back on the ice again. But then you did eventually get back on the ice again, and you even became a figure skating coach. How did you get to that place of deciding to return to the rink?
Jocelyn Cox
Yes. When I first started college, I didn't tell anyone that I had skated. I was determined to. Present myself as a quote unquote normal person. And, uh, gradually, honestly, I just needed, um, some spending money. So I wandered down to the rink and there were group lessons being offered and they did need more coaches. That just kind of increased over time, and I found. I really enjoyed it. You could argue that I almost enjoyed it more than skating to some degree, because there was less chance of getting hurt. Not that there's zero chance of getting hurt as a coach, but the danger and risk factor had been taken outta the mix for me. So it was, I actually really enjoyed it.
Anita Rao
So you taught in college, then you did coach again after getting your MFA, and Brad joined you. That was about 10 years after you two had stopped skating together. Brad, what was it like to be a team again and this time as coaches?
Brad Cox
I think that anybody that is, you know, whatever working situation you're in, it's kind of rare to find someone who sees the world very much as you see it, with whom you have a shared shorthand of, you know, expression and understanding, and someone that you can really trust to have your back do the right thing. It was really fantastic to be able to. To be able to work with Jocelyn and I think we, uh, you know, we have different strengths. Mine is perhaps a bit more technical and hers is more theatrical and more, you know, with the performance. I think we both teach those things. To the kids, but I might have a question for her about, well, what do you think about this music? Or what do you think about this arm movement? And she might have a question for me about a jump or a spin, and we would just work together. It was just, it was just really, really easy to have an extension of yourself in the rink and, and getting, getting the skaters better. And, uh, she's not teaching anymore. And, and I deeply miss her from, as a college.
Anita Rao
Just ahead. Brad and Jocelyn apply their teamwork skills to a new challenge caretaking for their aging mother. As always, you can hear the podcast version of the show by following Embodied on your platform of choice. We'll be right back.
This is Embodied. I am Anita Rao. Today we're talking with former competitive figure skating duo and siblings, Brad and Jocelyn Cox. Brad is now a figure skating coach, and Jocelyn is a writer. Who recently published the memoir Motion Dazzle. Brad and Jocelyn competed together for 11 years, and then after a decade long break, they started coaching together. In the early two thousands, they were both living in New York, and then when Jocelyn was in her late thirties and Brad, his early forties, a new challenge arose. Their mom, Barbara began experiencing frequent health issues and hospitalizations. Barbara lived in Delaware, but the three family members were still close.
Jocelyn Cox
It was very troubling and upsetting, and there was a many years there where we would get a call from our mom and one of us would have to drop everything and go down there, or both of us. Our mother did not have any family. She had some friends. But we were really her primary support system, and we knew that
Anita Rao
It was really the, the three of you were still a, a unit at that point. Brad, tell me about your dynamic between the three of you and, and how it was shifting as your mom started to experience more and more health challenges.
Brad Cox
Well, Jocelyn mentioned the, you know, phone call that we would get from our mom and the. First thing that she would say was, Brad, I'm so sorry because she, you know, she didn't want to be a burden and all that kind of stuff, but she had, you know, done so much for us for so many years. There was no question that we were gonna go and help her, but. On the other hand, she had kind of reinvented herself after, after the divorce and moving from Wisconsin to Delaware. So she was, she was making her way in the world. She wasn't sort of sitting there, uh, boo-hooing and waiting for her children to come home. So she was a very capable woman and a very determined, and a very, uh, you know, you're not gonna give up and you're gonna get through this. That applied during the days of skating and, and it applied to her life in general.
Anita Rao
So you describe her as this really kind of this, this force, even as she was having these health issues, she was still very much herself in a lot of ways, but that eventually shifted. She started experiencing some confusion and disorientation. She stopped being able to work and did get a dementia diagnosis. Jocelyn, take me back to that moment and the initial conversations the two of you had as siblings about how you were gonna. Approach this new phase of your mom's life.
Jocelyn Cox
Yeah. I think when you start noticing someone having mental lapses or you know, some cognitive decline, there's a little bit of resistance. You know, you think, well, you know, we all make those kinds of mistakes, or we all forget, you know, how to. Drive somewhere, or we forget a word. So I think there's a lot of denial at first. And she had broken her leg at work and it meant that she couldn't drive and she couldn't go to work. And in those months, I think she became extremely isolated and. Possibly depressed. And that's when we really started to see that her personality was changing, anxiety was taking over. And we did try to visit her a lot and we did invite her to visit us a lot up where we were. And I think that because of how we were as a family, we believed that. It seems naive now, but we believed that she could get better with a little more company, you know, with us cooking for her, with us, you know, spending more time with her, giving her some crossword puzzles, et cetera. I think we thought it was something that we could work through and. Change and in hindsight it's pretty obvious that it was really only going in one direction.
Anita Rao
You write really honestly in your book that you kind of held on for a while to this, what you call childish hope, that Brad was gonna be able to fix things. Like, okay, we, as long as we can just like figure this out, I'm sure we can get on top of it. What were you, I guess, feeling and thinking. In terms of like realizing that he couldn't, like this wasn't gonna be something that he was able to kind of make into a project and accomplish like so many other things in y'all's partnership.
Jocelyn Cox
Well, at the time when things got really difficult, Brad had two children under the age of five and I was pregnant, and we both were starting to see our limitations. Our logistic limitations, our time limitations, while we were also still trying to work, and I remember really vividly during what we call Zamboni breaks at the rink where, you know the Zamboni is cleaning the ice for 10 minutes every couple hours, and we would be sitting off to the side trying to strategize and trying to figure out how to help her and what kind of appointments we could take her to and what kind of stimulation we could suggest next. But. Yeah, it was very clear that he didn't know how to help her. I didn't know how to help her. And really the doctors didn't have any definitive suggestions either. There was just a bunch of things that we could try and so that's what we did.
Anita Rao
That Zamboni moment image is, is really gripping. I can, I can totally imagine that. And I'm curious, Brad, like how y'all were balancing these two very. Different kinds of partnerships or, or did they feel different like the coaching partnership and the caretaking partnership?
Brad Cox
I think the coaching partnership was, you know, easy and natural and smooth, and the caregiving partnership was foreign and frustrating and difficult. Not because we were fighting with each other, but because there was, you know, as Jocelyn says, it's, it's. It's a game that you seem ultimately destined to lose. We at least had one another and we were sharing the burden and, and trying to do it together. There's lots of people that have to do that by themselves, or they have two parents going through that at the same time. But I think it's something that in our society has become, you know, an increasingly difficult as, as the, the age of having children gets a little bit older, that means that. You know, by the time you're a grandparent, you're maybe not 60, maybe you're 70 or 75, and then you're starting to have health problems when your grandchildren are getting to be, you know, in primary school and, and middle school where their parents are really busy. So, you know, Jocelyn is, is trying to do everything that she can. I'm trying to do everything that I can and we also are, you know, trying to do stuff with our own families.
Anita Rao
We've established that the two of you obviously have such a close relationship, but you're different, your personalities are different. That showed up the first time that you went to skating lessons. I'm curious about how those differences showed up in this phase of your life, like when you were dealing with uncertainty together or when you had to make a big decision, how your differences showed up in, in what that looked like. Jocelyn, I'll, I'll give that question to you.
Jocelyn Cox
Well, there was definitely a division of care. It so happened that the house my husband and I bought in New York had an attached apartment. So it turned out that my mother lived with us for nine months during the challenging sort of plummet that she started to go through cognitively. So I was taking care of a lot of the day to day and daily things. Brad took over power of attorney and started taking over her finances and trying to muddle through everything that she had set up and figure out how to get all the bills paid, et cetera for her. And I felt really grateful that we could have that division of care and that we weren't both doing everything. I was also really grateful for the fact that we could communicate by all of it. He wasn't making any decisions without checking with me first and vice versa. So we were lucky to have that opportunity to bounce ideas off of each other and say, Hey, does this sound right? Does this seem like a good idea to try next? Not that it was easy, but. I'm just really grateful that we had that working relationship, and I do understand that not all siblings do that. It can often do to geography fall, fall on one person or based on their work situation, et cetera. So I think in all while it was challenging. We did work through it fairly well together.
Anita Rao
Brad, are there any kind of skills that y'all built in your skating days that you think shaped how you navigated this new territory?
Brad Cox
I, I think when you're skating, there's sort of like a finite window of like, okay, we have this season, or we have goals that are, that are further out. So you do look forward and, and see what you can do today that will turn out to, you know. Be better tomorrow or to improve things for tomorrow. So I think, you know, we, we were both kind of thinking ahead, like, what, what comes next? What comes next? What if this, what if that, and Jocelyn was talking about how. Our mom was living in the, in the mother-in-law apartment at her, at her house, and at some point I came over and it was just clear that it wasn't gonna be able to continue it. It was gonna be too much for Jocelyn and we needed to do something else she was gonna need probably to be in a nursing home, or she was gonna need to be in her own house and have 24 hour care and. That was gonna be like three hours away to be in her own house and, and to be faced with this decision was just one of the most gut-wrenching decisions of our life, because having her three hours away, that wasn't too good. But she begged us every day not to put her in a nursing home. So we felt like perhaps the familiarity of her own surroundings would be more helpful to her. So that's what we decided to do.
Anita Rao
So your mom was living at home in Delaware with? Caretakers, Jocelyn, you were in touch with them often. You were getting updates from these people doing in-home care about how things were going, and eventually things did progress. And your mom died at age 78, about two years after she'd been diagnosed with dementia. You were a mom to a 1-year-old at that point, had a lot going on, a lot of it that you write about in your memoir, but I wanna come back to the relationship between the two of you and hear about what it was like to be with one another in your grief. Like, did you continue to turn to toward each other? How did that, um, sibling dynamic look?
Jocelyn Cox
It was very comforting to have Brad to go through that with. And typical Brad, he immediately took on the project of. Trying to sell her house. So we did that almost immediately after the funeral. We cleaned out the house On the one hand, that felt very soon and kind of fraught. On the other hand, I think it gave us an opportunity to celebrate our mom together and celebrate the home that she had built and. She loved her belongings in kind of a sentimental way, and a lot of the things she owned had meaning to her. And I think for us to go through those belongings together, and she was what we wanted, it felt like a way of honoring her together. I think that it added a really positive and kind of joyful, uh, uh, celebratory aspect to that really early grief.
Anita Rao
Brad, I would love to hear about your perspective on, on working through that together and that phase of y'all's relationship of moving from this, um, really active caregiving to grieving and, and trying to kind of rebuild.
Brad Cox
We were kinda like the Three Musketeers for a long, long time, like through the skating years and even after. And so, you know, Jocelyn and I very much thought that we had lost the third member of the team and uh, you know, there were definitely. Lots of times when one or the other of us would remember a date or something, uh, significant and write to the other one or see, see something on television or in the news or something that would remind us of our mom, and then we would, you know, write to the other person or call the other person. And, uh, you know, we did that. We did that pretty frequently.
Anita Rao
So, Jocelyn, it's been about 12 years since your mom passed. You all are no longer coaching together. You stopped coaching in the pandemic, um, but you still live near each other. I'm curious about this phase of y'all's sibling dynamic when you don't actively have something you're collaborating on as closely as you have with caregiving and coaching and skating. What's it been like, Jocelyn?
Jocelyn Cox
Yeah, I think we've moved into less of a professional relationship and more of just a more typical family relationship. I have one son and Brad has three children, and the cousins enjoy each other's company and we go skiing together. So I think it's become probably more typical. And yes, I haven't been coaching for five years and I will also express that I really do miss having that constant contact with Brad and getting to see him every day and coach alongside him. I made the decision to write full time and I, uh, have no regrets about that. But one of the more difficult things is to not see Brad as much as I used to.
Anita Rao
So I would love to end on how y'all's close sibling relationship informs how you parent your own kids, how you kind of encourage those dynamics in them. I know that, uh, Jocelyn, you just have one kid, but I, I'm curious, um, whether or not your upbringing and, and the closeness of the two of you informs how you all have built your family units in this current phase of life.
Jocelyn Cox
Yeah, I think it's been interesting navigating. Having an only child, given that I did have such a close relationship with my sibling and a really profound relationship with him. So it is something that I do grapple with and think about a lot and. I think the, the one upside is that ability for my son to be completely his own person. He's not ever really bouncing off anyone else's ideas. He's really become a very strong individual and he doesn't have someone in the house all the time that he's either fighting with or trying to emulate or trying to differentiate from. And so it's given him a certain social confidence that I think has been really interesting to observe.
Brad Cox
So my kids are 19, 15, and 10, and I have a boy, a girl, and a, and another boy, and there's not really any good analog to the, the amount and intensity of the time that Jocelyn and I spent together. I guess I encourage them to. Remember that the only people that you have that you can't change your relationship with for your whole life is your siblings. So you can have a boyfriend and then not have that boyfriend and you can have other friends in your life and then they can not be your friends, but your siblings are always your siblings for forever. And um, you have to take them as they are and love them as they are.
Anita Rao
Well, Jocelyn, Jane Cox and Brad Cox. Thank you both so much for the conversation and all the stories you shared today. I really appreciated talking with you.
Jocelyn Cox
Thank you so much.
Brad Cox
Thanks so much for having us.
Anita Rao
You can find out more about Brad, Jocelyn and Jocelyn's memoir Motion Dazzle at our website, embodiedwunc.org. Today's episode was produced by Kaia Findlay and edited by Amanda Magnus. Sara Nics provided additional editorial guidance. Nina Scott is our intern, and Jenni Lawson, our technical director. Quilla wrote our theme music. This program is recorded at the American Tobacco Historic District. WUNC is a broadcast service of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I'm Anita Rao.