Kimberly Reed: Life Flight

Summary

Podcast Summary: Kimberly Reed: Life Flight

Introduction In the poignant episode titled "Life Flight," featured on The Moth podcast and released on June 6, 2011, storyteller Kimberly Reed shares a deeply personal narrative that intertwines themes of family, identity, and resilience in the face of tragedy. Recorded live at The Moth, Kimberly's story delves into her father's sudden illness, her own journey of self-discovery, and the complexities of familial relationships strained by unspoken truths.

Setting the Stage: A Family in Crisis At [02:17], Kimberly sets the scene with an emergency phone call from her mother in Montana: her father is on a life flight to Denver for an urgent liver transplant. Despite her mother's unwavering optimism—"Don't worry, it's going to be okay. We're going to pull through this. It's going to be all right" ([02:35])—Kimberly senses the gravity of the situation.

Rushing to the Hospital Determined to be with her father, Kimberly catches the next available flight from New York. Her quick action allows her to spend precious hours with her father before his passing. As she sits beside his hospital bed, she reflects on his character: "He was a strong, silent type. He grew up on a farm, and he was the town's one of two eye doctors. So he could fix anything, you know, he could fix tractors or eyes." ([03:20])

The Unspoken Truth The narrative takes a significant turn as Kimberly reveals a long-held secret: she had transitioned from male to female years before her father's passing, a fact unknown to her older brother, Mark, and most of her hometown. This revelation is central to the story, highlighting the tension between her authentic self and the fear of familial rejection: "There was something really big about me that he did not know, and that's that the last time he saw me, years and years before I was male, he was not aware that I had transitioned from being male to female." ([04:10])

Confronting the Past Facing her father's death, Kimberly and her mother must navigate the complexities of reconnecting with her estranged family. Kimberly expresses the internal conflict of returning to a place she had long distanced herself from: "As soon as there was a reason to go back, I had this really deep, strong yearning to go back." ([07:45])

Reuniting with Mark During the funeral preparations, Kimberly's mother orchestrates a heartfelt reunion. At [10:30], during an Applebee's gathering celebrating her father's birthday, Kimberly presents Mark with her new business card, signaling her readiness to embrace her true identity and mend their strained relationship. "You know, we haven't talked for so long, but here, anytime, any place, call me anytime you want. We can talk anytime you want." ([11:15])

The Tea Party Announcement Kimberly's mother takes a strategic and compassionate approach by informing her friends about Kimberly at a tea party. She empowers her friends to act as ambassadors, sharing Kimberly's story with sensitivity: "I want you to know tonight that I have a daughter and her name is Kim, and this is my child, and I love my child, and I hope you do, too." ([13:05])

Support from the Past The emotional climax unfolds when Kimberly's high school friend, Tim, rallies the football team to show up at her home, bringing familiarity and support. Kimberly recounts the overwhelming sense of community and acceptance: "They were in my living room. This living room I never even thought I would see again. And people were either laughing or crying, mostly laughing." ([13:50])

A Father's Legacy of Resilience In a touching moment, Kimberly's mother shares a poignant observation: "Dad was always fixing things and it looks like he fixed this too. Even though your father has died, you've been reborn." ([15:10]). This statement encapsulates the enduring strength her father instilled in his children and the transformative journey Kimberly undergoes.

Conclusion: Embracing Authenticity and Family Kimberly Reed's "Life Flight" is a testament to the enduring bonds of family and the courage it takes to live authentically. Through her eloquent storytelling, she navigates the turbulent waters of loss, identity, and reconciliation, ultimately finding solace and support in the very relationships that once felt insurmountable. Her story resonates as a powerful reminder that even in our most vulnerable moments, the truth can pave the way to healing and acceptance.

Notable Quotes

• "Don't worry, it's going to be okay. We're going to pull through this. It's going to be all right." — Kimberly's Mother (02:35)
• "He was a strong, silent type. He grew up on a farm, and he was the town's one of two eye doctors. So he could fix anything, you know, he could fix tractors or eyes." — Kimberly Reed (03:20)
• "There was something really big about me that he did not know, and that's that the last time he saw me, years and years before I was male, he was not aware that I had transitioned from being male to female." — Kimberly Reed (04:10)
• "As soon as there was a reason to go back, I had this really deep, strong yearning to go back." — Kimberly Reed (07:45)
• "You know, we haven't talked for so long, but here, anytime, any place, call me anytime you want. We can talk anytime you want." — Kimberly Reed (11:15)
• "I want you to know tonight that I have a daughter and her name is Kim, and this is my child, and I love my child, and I hope you do, too." — Kimberly's Mother (13:05)
• "They were in my living room. This living room I never even thought I would see again. And people were either laughing or crying, mostly laughing." — Kimberly Reed (13:50)
• "Dad was always fixing things and it looks like he fixed this too. Even though your father has died, you've been reborn." — Kimberly's Mother (15:10)

Final Thoughts Kimberly Reed's "Life Flight" serves as a moving exploration of personal identity and familial love. Her ability to convey vulnerability and strength provides listeners with a compelling narrative that encourages empathy and understanding. This episode exemplifies The Moth's mission to share true, transformative stories that resonate deeply with audiences.

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

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. One audiobook to consider is Bossypants, a memoir from Saturday Night Live alum Tina Fey. Bossypants perfectly captures Faye's sometimes self deprecating, somewhat sarcastic, but always hysterical outlook on life. That's Bossypants by Tina Fey, available from 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 Kimberly Reed was recorded live at the Moth this year, and the theme of the night was Between Stories of Passing.

[C]

So nice. So I get a phone call from my mom and she tells me that my father is about to get on an emergency life flight from our home in Montana to go to Denver to get an emergency liver transplant. My mom is kind of perennially optimistic and she's telling me, don't worry, it's going to be okay. We're going to pull through this. It's going to be all right. But I know something is really wrong. So I get the next flight I can to go from where I'm living here in New York, hoping That I get there before my father dies. And I'm really glad I got that flight as fast as I did, because I was able to spend a couple hours with my father before he passed away. And before I know it, I'm at the side of his hospital bed with my mom, and we're sobbing because he's passed. My dad was a. He was a strong, silent type. He grew up on a farm, and he was the town. One of two town eye doctors. So he could fix anything, you know, he could fix tractors or eyes, you know, no matter what. And he was always doing it, like, behind the scenes, you know, he never wanted to take credit for it. It was apparent that my mom and I and my two brothers were going to have to be fixing things ourselves this time around. And the first thing my mom did was was to call my two brothers. One's a year older, one is a year younger. And it was going to be really comforting to see my younger brother. We were really close. It was gonna. He was really gonna support me. It was gonna be much more complicated seeing my older brother. We'd always had a really complicated relationship. And there was something really big about me that he did not know, and that's that the last time he saw me, years and years before I was male, he was not aware that I had transitioned from being male to being female. And, you know, I always wanted to tell him I was trying to find the right time, the right place, trying to, you know, get up the nerve. I was worried about his reaction, maybe that, you know, he was a bit conservative, he had a temper. I didn't know how he was going to happen, and I just kept putting it off and never found the right time. And here we are at the time where I have to deal with all this stuff. Mark wasn't the only one who didn't know my story. My whole hometown didn't know about me either. And I was trying to find a way to tell Mark. I just kind of figured with my hometown, I just wouldn't ever go back there again. My mom calls my brother and in one phone call, tells him that he lost his father and that he now has a sister. And I have to say, I mean, Mark was. He was really great. He got off the plane. We met him at the airport. He gave me a hug, but it was awkward, as you can imagine. And, you know, I think we did what a lot of families do at times like that. You just kind of fall back on tradition. And we wanted to do something that my mom and dad had Always done, every year. Because, you see, it was my father's birthday. He had passed away 20 minutes before his 65th birthday. So we all went to Applebee's, and we got a slice of sizzling apple pie, put a candle in it. And my brother Mark, who really worshiped my father, got the honor of blowing out the candle. And when he was blowing out the candle, I still remember the expression on his face. He was, you know, trying to process my father's passing. He was figuring out why it had been so long that the two of us hadn't talked. Something that really frustrated him. And it was just all kind of coming together. I took a business card out of my purse. It was for this job that Mark didn't even know I had. I had my new name on it, and I wrote my cell phone number on it, and I gave it to Mark. I said, look, you know, we haven't talked for so long, but here, anytime, any place, no barriers, call me any where. You know, we can talk anytime you want. And my mom started crying because her. You know, her. Her children were reuniting. And also because for years, she had been running interference between the two of us and using every excuse in the book to explain why I wasn't getting back to him or why packages to me were being returned because they had the wrong name on them, and her job running interference was over. So Mark was in shock. We were all in shock. I was in shock because I was thinking about the fact that nobody in my hometown knew. And I'm wondering if I can go back for the funeral, if I should go back, if my mom and my brothers really want me to, really deep down. And I'm thinking that I never even thought I was going to go back to my hometown. And now I'm being pulled back right into it. As contradictory as it may seem, as soon as there was a reason to go back, I had this really deep, strong yearning to go back. I mean, I had gone to school in New York, in San Francisco, and traveled all over the world. And this place that I thought of as home, that I think I really repressed, knowing that I couldn't go back there, right? I don't need to go back there. But as soon as there was a reason for me to go back there, a very strong reason, I really, really wanted to go. I wanted to see the house, the only house I had ever known growing up. I wanted to go back to my hometown and these people that comprise this community that I thought of as home. My mom reassured me that she wanted me to be there, that she, in fact, needed me there for support. My brothers, too. And my mom had a plan to get us there. You know, our family had been separated for a long time, so she had the idea for all of us to rent a car and drive the 20 hours from Denver back to Montana. So before you know it, there we are in the car. You know, my brother hasn't seen me for years, especially not as female. And here we are. And we had so much to do. We were planning. We were planning his service, my father's funeral service. We were writing his obituary. My mom wanted to figure out. And I did, too. Wanted to figure out how we could introduce the information about me while still keeping the focus on my father. So she had me driving out across Wyoming, 70 miles an hour. She had me take dictation of her friends, and she wanted to invite them over for tea. So she had this really strategic list. It's like, you invite Judy, and she's going to tell all the people in the arts community that my mom was involved in. And you're going to tell June, and June is going to tell all the people at dad's office, and we'll find somebody else. And she's going to tell everybody at the church. And the next night, there they were, 18 of my mom's best friends and the minister from the church where the service was going to be performed, they're drinking tea. And my mom says, you all know very well by now that I've lost my husband. And I know a lot of you have wondered what happened to my middle son who seemed to disappear. And she said, I want you to know tonight that I have a daughter and her name is Kim, and this is my child, and I love my child, and I hope you do, too. And we can focus on this tonight. We can talk about this tonight. You all are my ambassadors. If someone has questions at the funeral and I'm caught up in things, I'm going to point them to you and let you tell this story because you can talk about it in a sensitive way. And she took a couple questions from the people there, and the whole tea party ended slightly different than the tea party we hear about in the news. The whole thing ended with everybody raising their teacups and saying, hip, hip, hooray for Kim. Hip, hip, hooray for Kim. There were a couple amens and some applause, and then everybody went home. And I swear there was a brown out from all the simultaneous phone calls that were being made dispensing the information Right. So then the next night, there was a viewing of my father's body at the funeral home. And I had elected not to go because, you know, I didn't want the focus to be on me. I was going to keep it on everybody and keep it on my father. But my best friend Tim from high school was at the viewing, and he calls me up. He had only known the new me for a couple days. I hadn't even told him, but he knew me really well, and he knew I was chickening out. And he called me from the funeral parlor and he said, hey, I got a lot of people here that really want to see you. I should probably tell you that the people he's talking about are the football team, because I used to be on the football team. And so applause for that. And so Tim says, where are you? I got a lot of people who want to see you. I'm like, yeah, I don't want to go. And, you know, I want to keep the focus on my dad. I don't want to be there. He's like, yeah, yeah, whatever. Either you come down here or we're going to come up there. What's it going to be? I said, come up here. I guess so. Before I know it, the football team is at my front door, and a couple of them have cases of beer under their arm. One case gets tossed in the snow bank to keep it cold. It's just like high school. And all of a sudden, they're in my living room, and it's this wake instantly and this show of support for me and for the memory of my father, right? And they're in my living room. This living room I never even thought I would see again. And people were either laughing or crying, mostly laughing. And I remember looking around the room, and there's Kevin. He was one of the co captains of the football team with me. And I look over there, and there's my brothers, Mark and Todd. And they were. And we were all very close in age, so we had friends in common. And they're telling stories about my dad. And there's. I look over on the couch, and there's Frank. Probably should have also told you that not only was I on the football team, but I was the quarterback. And so I look over on the couch, and there's Frank. He's an offensive lineman. It's the job of an offensive lineman to protect the quarterback. And Frank is protecting me once again, 20 years later, under very different circumstances. And he's got his arm around my girlfriend. They're laughing and knocking back cans of cheap beer. And that was the moment that I knew things were going to be okay somehow. And there was one more person there that night, and that was my mom. And she told me something that we ended up repeating quite a bit that weekend through the services. She came up and she said, you know, dad was always fixing things and it looks like he fixed this too. She said, you know, even though your father has died, you've been reborn. Thank you very much.

[B]

Kimberly Reed's story continues in her film Prodigal Sons, which won more than a dozen awards and appeared on many Best Films of the Year lists. Prodigal Sons was called a whiplash documentary that heralds an exciting talent, making her one of Filmmaker Magazine's 25 New Faces of Independent Film and Out Magazine's Out 100. For more information go to prodigalsunsfilm.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 [e-mail] 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 bestsellers. To try Audible free today and get a free audiobook of your choice, go to audible.com themoth Our podcast host, Dan.

[A]

Kennedy is the author of the book Rock An Office Power Ballad. Learn [e-mail] thanks to all of you.

[B]

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 [e-mail].