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- [00:00]
Rosetta Stone Representative
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- [01:09]
Dan Kennedy
Welcome to the Moth Podcast. I'm Dan Kennedy. This podcast is brought to you by Audible.com, the Internet's leading provider of audiobooks with more than 75,000 downloadable titles across all types of literature. For the Moth listeners, Audible is offering a free audiobook to give you a chance to try out their service. Listen to star personalities like Andre Agassi, William Shatner and others tell their true life stories. Rob Lowe narrates his autobiography Stories I Only Tell My Friends, and Steven Tyler's rock and roll memoir asks the question, does the noise in My head bother you? Listen to an autobiography read by the author for Audible. To try Audible Free today and get a free audiobook of your choice, go to audible.comthemost that's audible.comthemost the story you're about to hear by Daisy Rosario was recorded live at the moth in 2010. The theme of the night was stories of the nearly and dearly departed.
- [02:17]
Daisy Rosario
Hello? Yeah, thank you. So my father had just died, and after three days of sitting in my teeny tiny studio apartment staring at walls and eating in excess, it was finally Friday. The funeral. I was eager to get the funeral over with. I wanted the event of my father's dying to be finished so I could just mourn and grieve. But it felt like there was still so much business business to be had. It was about two hours before the funeral when I received a text message from my mother it said, I just called your grandmother to give her my condolences. Your brother was there. You're going to get to meet him. My brother and I had never met, never spoken, never seen each other, nothing. We were raised on opposite coasts by our moms, him in California and me in Brooklyn, pretty much, because, well, my dad was not a good man. And you should know that I'm fine with this fact. My father was a thug, a drug dealer. Sometimes, to keep it simple, I like to say he was what rappers claim to be all the time. But more than anything, he was a fighter. He was a fighter in the streets. He was a prison boxing champion. And I watched him fight for over two years as AIDS ravaged his once very strong body. In the end, we had to make the decision to take him off of life support. And that was the week that I had had when I got this text message from my mother. So I had no energy or emotional stamina by which to be nervous or even worried about meeting my brother. But I do remember thinking two things. I remember thinking, one, I was hoping he would be a distraction because my recent reconnection with the family had made me something of a novelty and I was a little tired of being stared at. And two, I was hoping that he was weird like me because I don't quite fit in with my dad's side of the family. My boyfriend and I took the A train deep into Brooklyn to the funeral home. And when we got there, we were greeted outside by one of my cousins who, when she saw me, said, oh, Daisy, your brother's in there. Go meet him. She said it like that. She said it like a command, as if it would not have occurred to me otherwise to do so. In my head, I reverted to being like a 12 year old girl, and all I could think was, duh. So I walk in the building and all of a sudden I realize that I'm kind of hiding behind my boyfriend and I'm peeking over his shoulder as we get up the stairs. I wasn't really nervous about it until that moment when I realized, this is about to happen right now. And I got up the stairs and I tried to peek into the room because I wanted to get a glimpse of my brother before, you know, he saw me. And when I peeked in, I spotted him right away. I did. It was hard not to. He was the only person who was sitting with the family whom I hadn't met before, who was in the right age range. I knew he was supposed to be about a year and a half older than Me. But more than anything, he looked like me. I mean, he really looked like me. My entire life, I've always been told how much I look like my mom. And it's true. If you saw her, I got my skin color from her and my hair. But there's always been a little something about my face that I didn't quite know where it came from. It looked a little different. And if you asked me to tell you what it was, I couldn't explain it possibly. And the minute I saw my brother, he looked exactly like that inexplicable thing. Excited whispers started in the room as everyone realized I was standing at the door. And as I started to make my way across, everyone turned to me with this excited expectation. I wasn't expecting to see that at a funeral. It was more like the look I would think you would give to the entrance of a particularly grand cake at a wedding. And as I made my way across the room, I stopped in front of my brother, and he stood up, and cameras came out, and flashes went off as we started to hug, because my family are emotional paparazzi. I had no idea what to say to him, and I just said the first thing that came into my head. And for you sports fans out there, I say, please forgive me, because this is over a year ago. It made more sense at the time, but the very first thing I said to my brother was, I whispered in his ear, you are the Brett Favre to my Eli Manning. I was so worried that after winning the super bowl, all the newspapers would be writing about me, and I'm kind of a shy player. But now that the jets have traded for you last minute with all this controversy, nobody's writing about me at all. That's actually what I said to him. He didn't say anything. He just kind of started to sit down, and I wondered if I had said something wrong. The minute we broke our embrace, the family kind of started to swarm me. People were running up to me, trying to, like, say hello and show me pictures. And my Aunt Margie barged right through the middle of the mall, and in a voice you, again, wouldn't think anyone would use for anything at a funeral, said, oh, so you finally met your brother, huh? Well, maybe you can get him to talk, because he doesn't say anything. She was standing about 2ft away from him. I looked at all of this, and I took it in, and it occurred to me that if I was in my brother's position, it would look like I had been raised by this part of the family. And I didn't want him to think that I was the chosen child while he was out in California with no one looking for him, because the truth was that no one had looked for either one of us. And so when everyone was slightly out of earshot, I leaned in to my brother again and I said, hey, I just want you to know I didn't grow up with these people either. I was raised by my mom just like you were raised by yours. And I just met most of them at the hospital this week. So even then, it's not like I was there because he called me. I went looking for him a few years ago. My brother didn't say anything, but he shifted in his chair, and it felt like a larger shift had taken place as well. I don't know if it was that the air between us had warmed or that we were making more eye contact, but in a little while, I looked up to realize that we were talking. He and I had kind of moved into the corner, away from everyone standing by the door where everyone could see us, because it was very clear that everyone wanted to be looking at us. And we just kind of were standing around commenting on the situation at hand. We weren't trying to catch up on everything that we had missed. No heavy conversation, just kind of united in our awkwardness against this room full of an extended family and friends, of a family that we didn't know. At one point, he turned to me and he said, what are you doing this weekend? Because I'm here until Monday, and I hope you know I want to see you every day until then. I was surprised, and I liked the idea of it. I could see why now that we were beginning to chat, but I still didn't know what it meant. And then a little while later, he added, oh, by the way, I have a son. His name is Damian, and he's 12. You have a nephew? I really like the sound of that, because I'd grown up an only child, and I never thought I would have a niece or a nephew, but I still didn't even know what that meant. I mean, was I ever even going to meet this kid? As the day wound down, it was time for the speeches, and the official eulogy was given by one of our many cousins. This one happened to be a preacher, and he did a good job. He recited what he said was my father's favorite psalm, and he told a couple of little anecdotes about my father's last few years, his realizations that the problems that he had gotten into in his youth had led him to where he was at the time. For example, he had always been known by this nickname on the streets. Like, ever since he was really young, my father had always been known by this nickname. So much so that more people in the room at the funeral home were calling him by that name than by his real name. And in his last few years, he didn't want the kids in the family to call him by that name. Now, that name was trouble, because that's what he is, and that's what he was. And, you know, when you're from where he's from, you just need to let people know what they're dealing with right away. Like, there's no effort to be clever. It's just kind of like, this is the deal. So my father always was trouble. But in his last couple years, he insisted that the little kids in the family called him Bubbles because he didn't want them to associate him with such a negative name, you know, which for him is like the sweetest thing, you know? And so they talked about that, and I thought it was nice. And then the preacher wrapped it up and sat back down. I started to look around the room, and I realized that people were kind of looking at me. And while I didn't have anything planned to say, you know, I had that moment where I thought, well, you only go to your father's funeral once, and if you don't say anything, you might regret it. And so I got up and I made my way across the room. I turned and I faced out into the audience and. And they were just staring at me. I mean, much differently than this. They had spent their whole lives hearing about me but not meeting me. So they were not just looking at me, they were absorbing me with their eyes. They were trying to catch up on years worth of information and just that look. And since I had nothing planned and I didn't know where to begin, I just started there. And I said, I wish you could all see what it's like looking out onto all of you, looking back at me. But it's a lot. And, you know, you all very kindly keep coming up to me and telling me how sorry you are. But I have to tell you, I'm so sorry for your loss, because you all know him so much better than I ever did or I ever will. You have stories about him? I barely have any. I only have a couple from when I was really young. Like, I have a story about the time that he promised to take me to the Bronx Zoo, and he took me to The Bronx. And then we sat in somebody's apartment most of the day. And then he got me to the zoo about 10 minutes before it closed, ran me through the exit so we didn't have to pay, and, like, went as fast as we could back out the entrance. Or, like, the time that he said he was going to take me to the movies and he took me to see Exorcist 3, which was, like, extra weird because I hadn't seen Exorcist 1 or 2 and I was 8 years old like you guys. They laughed, and I was glad because I didn't want them to think that I was making fun of him so much as those were the only stories I had. And I had long ago stopped associating any animosity with them. And I just started to see the humor in them myself. I finished up what I had to say. I made my way back to my seat, and I was completely shocked. My brother got up and he walked across the room to the podium. I mean, if I didn't have anything to say, what was he gonna say? He'd only met our father one time. He was spending the summer in New York with his mother's extended family. And I think one of our aunts took. Took him to visit our father in prison. That was their only meeting when he was seven years old. So what was he gonna say? He got up there and he looked out on everyone. He paused for a moment, seemingly taken aback by the crowd, the same way I was. And then he began. I don't really care that he's dead. I mean, it's not that I don't care. I don't wanna be rude or anything. It's just that, like, you know, I didn't know him at all, and it's like I never even spoke to him. So, you know, I don't want to be rude. It's just. I wasn't even going to come here today. I mean, when they called and told me about it, I was thinking, why bother? But then on the phone, they said, you know, your sister wants to meet you. And when he said that, he started to well up and he started to cry. And he didn't just start to cry, he started to bawl. And you could tell just by looking at him that he was not someone who cried often. And if you couldn't tell that by his demeanor, you could tell that by his reaction to crying, because it didn't make any sense. He didn't try to wipe away his tears. He tried to take the heels of his palm and jam everything back into his eyes, as if everything was just going to go right back where it came from. And then he continued and he said, and now I've met her. And his voice broke up some, and he pointed towards me, and she's beautiful. And I was so stunned. I didn't know what to think or to feel. I knew he wanted to, like, have dinner this weekend, but I didn't know that I was the reason he had even gotten on the plane. And so I just sat there, overwhelmed by the sense of flattery, which I tell you, when you get up in the morning to go to your dad's funeral and you put on that terrible little black dress that you've bought for just that occasion, you do not think you're going to feel that at any point during that day. But that is all I could feel. Just shock and flattery my whole family. Because, you know, at a funeral, we all sit in the front row together. I'm sitting in the front row with them, and as this is happening, they all are looking at him and they are crying. And then they all turn to me and they say, daisy, go be with your brother. Go be with your brother. Go stand next to your brother. Go be with your brother. Because for people that I didn't grow up knowing, they have no problem telling me exactly what they want me to be doing at any given moment. And so I got up and I kind of awkwardly walked over there, and I got there and realized that I had nothing. So I just kind of awkwardly tapped him on the shoulder and stood back, and I guess I'll be here if you need me. Pose. And he wrapped it all up by saying, oh, yeah, and I have a son, so, you know, like, the Rosario name is gonna go on or whatever. This is how I became both an aunt and a younger sister. At my father's funeral. We did end up hanging out that weekend. We went to see four Christmases. It was fine. We ended up talking and texting and emailing each other every day in the months that followed. And when my birthday came up, just about two months after, I was so happy and completely surprised to receive a huge shipping envelope full of birthday cards. 28 of them, in fact, one for every single year that we had not had together. We were constantly surprised to this day to realize how much we actually have in common. For two people that didn't actually grow up anywhere near each other, genetics are a pretty amazing thing. We laugh a lot. And I've gotten to go to his wedding. He's since gotten married and he's come to visit here and I've gone out there and taken my nephew to play video games and things like that. It's really amazing. But it was kind of crazy because one of the first things that we agreed upon that first weekend, just sitting in a diner and talking, one of the things that we just both could not deny was that as much as you want it to happen a different way, you know, I didn't want my dad to have to die to meet my brother. I didn't want it to happen in this pattern as much as you don't want any of that. With the lives that we had led, with the things that I had been going through the years before and the things that my brother had going on in his life, we realized that it couldn't have happened any other way and it'd be nice if it could. But it is what it is and we couldn't be happier to find each other. Thank you.
- [16:26]
Dan Kennedy
Daisy Rosario is a writer, storyteller, and sometimes comedian who is proud to be an assistant Moth Story Slam producer and Moth Shop coach in New York City. An avid fan of sports and space, Daisy can be found working day jobs wherever there's a long line for inexpensive entertainment. Visit her website@daisy rosario.com the Moth is a nonprofit organization, so consider supporting our free podcast by going to our podcast contribution page or by becoming a moth member@themoth.org this podcast is brought to you by Audible.com the Internet's leading provider of audiobooks with more than 75,000 downloadable titles across all types of literature and featuring audio versions of many New York Times best sellers. To try Audible Free today and get a free audiobook of your choice, go to audible.com themoth oh, and don't forget the gigs I was telling you about are actually happening this week. Portland, Oregon June 22 Seattle, Washington June 24 An Evening of readings and comedy, myself and some special guests including musical Guest Laura Gibson entertainmentfor people.com for all the details.
- [17:45]
Rosetta Stone Representative
Our podcast host, Dan Kennedy is the.
- [17:47]
Daisy Rosario
Author of the book Rock on An Office Power Ballad.
- [17:50]
Rosetta Stone Representative
Learn more@rockonthebook.com thanks to all of you.
- [17:54]
Dan Kennedy
For listening and we hope you have a story worthy week. Podcast Audio production by Paul Ruest at the Argo Studio in New York Podcast hosting by PRX Public Radio Exchange Helping make Public Radio more public@prx.org.