The universe has good news for the lost, lonely, and heart sick.

The sugars are here, speaking straight into your ears.

I'm Steve Olman.

I'm Cheryl Strait.

This is Dear Sugar's.

Oh dear song, won't you please?

Yeah, some little sweet days with me.

I check my belly every day.

Oh, and this sugar, you see in my way.

Hi Cheryl.

Hi Steve.

You know Cheryl, there are many reasons that I love doing the show.

One of the reasons is because we come from very different places and it's rare and true gift when we become good friends with somebody who really is lived a different life, different story.

I think about this because when we conceived of this episode, we really were thinking about family.

And I realized my conception of family is very simplistic and very basic and intuitive.

It's kind of the generic American post-World War II version of family.

It's a nuclear family mom to add brothers, maybe there's some crazy cousins.

But in fact, as we've gotten to know one another on the air and off, I realize that the word family is much more complicated for you and for many of our listeners.

It's deeply complicated and I always marvel at our difference.

I'll never get over, for example, you have two parents who stayed married to each other.

Yes.

I know your mom died a couple of years ago, but she spent how many years was she married to your dad?

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