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The Moth
Al Letson: A Father Figures
00:16:41
Haunted with guilt, a father admits he was not quite ready for a second child. Al Letson is a poet, playwright and broadcaster. Â His public radio show State of the Re:Union is distributed by PRX and NPR and can be heard on public radio stations across...
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- [00:01]
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- [01:32]
Dan Kennedy
I'm Dan Kennedy and the Moth features true stories told live without notes. All stories from the podcast are taken from our ongoing storytelling series in New York, Los Angeles and from our tour shows across the country. Visit themoth.org hi, this is Jay Allison up on Cape Cod in Massachusetts. Right now we're producing our second batch of stories for the Moth Radio Hour. To hear the Moth Radio Hour on the air, contact your local public radio station and find out when they'll be airing it. We hope you like it. Thanks. The Moth team searches widely, the entire world, really, for very divergent stories and pulls them together based upon a night's theme for a show. And last week you heard my story from our February 2010 show. But the stories on a given night obviously run the entire emotional gamut. Here's Al Letson's story from Stiff's Stories of the Nearly and Dearly Departed.
- [02:34]
Al Letson
So it's late March several years ago and I'm in the Jacksonville Memorial Gardens graveyard and I've got on this black suit and I'm lost. And this black suit, I wear it here every, every time I come here this time of year and by the end of the day the suit will have grass stains on my knees. I'll have walked this area several times, looking for a grave that I can't find. And I will feel like the worst human being in the world, the worst ex husband, the worst father, because I can't find the grave of my daughter. Lauren Lashonda letson was born March 27, 1999. She also passed away on that day. But how we got there is a long story. It goes back way back. See, I got married really young. I mean, really young. So young that I was actually playing with Legos and reading comic books at the time. And, you know, the marriage might have worked out. It may have been okay. But right after we got married, I got a call from the Seattle, Tacoma, Washington district attorney's office telling me that I had a paternity case against me. See, when I was 17, I had gotten a girl pregnant. I didn't know about it. She moved away. And six years later she popped up. And so that really put a lot of strain on a young relationship. And so at the time I was a flight attendant, which was really cool because when things got bad at home, I could get on the plane and leave. But as time went on and you have a couple that has the emotional maturity of the entire cast of 90210, the first series, not the second. Things get really hard, you know, and it just became a little bit impossible. And things were falling apart everywhere. And as we all know, when a marriage is falling apart, the number one thing you need to do to bring that marriage together is have a baby. And so I wasn't really excited about having a child. I mean, I just kind of like, you know, whatever, it's whatever. I would go to all the doctor visits, I did all the requisite things that, you know, a good husband and father does, but I wasn't crazy about the idea. And then one night I was in the bed with my ex wife and my back was to her stomach and the baby started kicking me and she kicked so hard. It was really late at night, like 1:00. She kicked so hard that it woke me up. And, you know, I'm a little groggy. And so I poked her back and she kicked and I poked and she kicked and I poked and she kicked. And we must have played for about a half an hour, you know, it was a great time until her mother woke up and told us both to go to sleep. So after that, you know, I fell in love. I would play music on her stomach, I would sing to her, I would read books to her, the whole nine. I fell in love with this little Girl. And when my wife gave birth to my daughter, Brooklyn, she came out and she was screaming. And I walked over to her and I said, what's the matter, baby? And she stopped screaming, and she turned her head towards me. And after that, like, the deal was sealed. Like, she would cry sometimes as an infant, and all I had to do was come in the room and she'd stop. I used to have conferences with her when she was, like, six months old, telling her, listen, you have to be nicer to your mother. It's not cool that you only want me. She was really tight with me. But the marriage didn't get better. Things were falling apart, and I wasn't the best husband. I was really immature. And after a while, I decided that I just. I had to leave. So we started doing the breakup game, where you go away for a week, and then you come back and you go away for a week and you come back. And one of those weeks, when I had come back, one thing led to another, and she got pregnant again. And I thought to myself, well, okay, okay, I can't leave now. Like, you know, what kind of man would I be to leave this woman with two little babies? So I decided to stick it out. But I was just so angry, you know, because I felt like my entire life I didn't know who I was. And I was finally beginning to figure that out. And who I was wasn't really fitting into this concept of what this marriage was. But I decided to stay. And, you know, I did all the things that a good father is supposed to do. I went to all the doctor's appointments, you know, I tolerated the baby shower, all of that stuff, you know. And one night, I was laying in the bed, and her stomach was pressed up against my back, and the baby kicked. And this time I was so angry and so ticked off that I got up and got out the bed and slept somewhere else. And every time when the baby would kick and I would feel it, I would get up and move. And I didn't play any songs for her. I didn't talk to her. I didn't do anything. You know, I just pulled myself away from it. So one morning I wake up and her mother says that something's wrong. And later she would tell me that when she woke up, she didn't feel pregnant anymore. And it's funny, like, when you go to the hospital under these circumstances, it's quiet. Nobody really talks to you. No one wants to say anything. The nurses kind of keep their eyes on the ground, and they finally come over. And they tell us that they couldn't find a heartbeat. And my daughter Lauren was gone. She was nine months pregnant, about a week away from delivering the baby. And to me, it just seemed so crazy. I understood a miscarriage happening earlier in the pregnancy, but at nine months, you. You think that, like, nothing's going to go wrong at this point. So at nine months pregnant, you have to give birth, and it's just like regular labor. And I remember everything about it. I remember the room. I remember the way it smelled. I remember the weight of Lauren after she was born. And they gave me to her, exactly how she felt in my arms. And I remember being surprised at how warm her. Her body was. I thought because she had passed away that her body would be cold, but it was really warm. And when I looked down at her, she was the spitting image of my daughter Brooklyn. It could have been her twin. At this point, Brooklyn is about a year old or so. And I'm looking at this baby in my arms, and for the first time, I want her more than anything in this world. And there's a nurse behind me. And I think to myself, if I don't hand her to the nurse now, I won't ever be able to let her go. So I give her to the nurse, and she walks away. And, God, I just remember everything. My mom was in the room, and she had brought Brooklyn to the hospital to see us. And Brooklyn actually took her first steps in that hospital room. She crawled, walked, stumbled over to me. And a couple days later, we do the funeral at the Jacksonville Memorial. And I'm in that black suit, and I remember my family being there. And I remember my mother giving me all the cards for bereavement. I put one of them in my suit pocket, and they must have came off of some flowers because there was a pin. And the pin pricked me, and it really hurt. And right when that pin pricked me, my mother said to hold on to these cards because you needed to write thank you cards to everybody. And I thought, I'm not writing anybody any fucking thank you cards. And I'm there, and they bury my daughter, and we go home, and, you know, I stay with her mother about as long as I could. What I felt was a proper amount of time before I could actually leave, because I just. I couldn't take it anymore. I couldn't stand to look at her. Not because I thought that she had done something wrong, but because I felt that I had done something wrong. Like I couldn't stand her even looking my way. Because I just felt so guilty. And my little girl, as she's grown up, you know, she was fascinated with the idea that she has a little sister that passed away. And she would ask me about it all the time, and I would tell her anything she wanted to know. Except when she asked me how she died, I just could never bring that up. I could give her the physical explanation of, you know, the umbilical cord got wrapped around her legs, it cut off circulation, and she passed away. I could give her that. But I felt in my heart that that was a lie. That she died because she thought her daddy didn't love her. And it ate me up. And I couldn't tell my little girl that. So I would always tell her just to ask somebody else, Ask her mother. Years later, I meet somebody, I fall in love. And, you know, there are just some things that don't ever get better, you know? And the person that I meet, she tells me that I'm great. I tell her that I'm a murderer. She tells me, no, you're not. And, you know, it feels good for someone to say it, even though I didn't believe it. And we get married. She gets pregnant. And I'm overjoyed. I'm so happy, you know? And I am there, you know, more than I've ever been. Like, I'm there at the doctor's things. I was actually happy at the baby shower. But, yeah, it was a task. But, you know, I have this fear in me that's just eating me whole. So much so that, like, the whole front of my head goes gray. I actually dye my hair now. The whole front of my hair goes gray. And while all my other friends, when their wives get pregnant, they gain weight with their wives, I start to lose weight, and I can't sleep at night. And anything my wife tells me is wrong. I'm obsessing about it. I'm staying up all night long. I'm just a wreck. You know, the slightest little thing could tip me off. And she's about eight or nine months pregnant. And my daughter, Brooklyn, who I'm still extremely tight with, she asked me if this was the same time that Lauren passed away. And I tell her yes. And she asked me, how did Lauren die? And I just fell apart. I just wept and wept. I mean, I couldn't stop crying. And my little girl, she comes over to me and she wraps her arms around me, and she says, daddy, I used to dream about Lauren. And she told me to tell you that it's okay. After my son was born healthy and beautiful. The next March, I went back to Jacksonville Memorial Gardens and instead of like wandering looking for a grave that I can't find, I actually went inside and I asked him, you know, why can't I find my daughter? Help me. And they told me that when Lauren was buried, we didn't have a lot of money, we could barely afford the plot and we never paid for a permanent stone that we just had a temporary marker that had been pulled up. And so I paid them to put a marker down for my daughter. But I've never even seen it. See, I didn't have to go back there anymore because Lauren told me that it was okay. Thank you.
- [15:35]
Dan Kennedy
Al Letson is a poet, playwright and broadcaster. His public radio show State of the Reunion is distributed by PRX and NPR and can be heard on public radio station across the country. Or if you'd like, you can hear it online@stateofthereunion.com the moth is a non profit organization, so consider supporting our free podcast by going to our podcast contribution page or by becoming a Moth member and you can do that@themost.org also moth stories are now available on itunes by running a search for the Best of the Moth and this year's member show is going to take place at Cooper Union on June 23rd. Wanted to tell you it's going to be hosted by Adam Gopnik and there will be stories from Simon Doonan, Jenny Allen and others. So tickets are free for Moth members and if you'd like more information on membership, just check out the site themoth.org.
- [16:29]
Al Letson
Our podcast host Dan Kennedy is the author of the book Rock on An Office Power Ballad. Learn more@rockonthebook.com thanks to all of you.
- [16:38]
Dan Kennedy
For listening and we hope you have a story worthy week. Podcast audio production by Paul Ruest at the Argo Studios in New York Podcast hosting by PRX Public Radio Exchange Helping make Public Radio more public@prx.org.