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Dan Kennedy (1:21)

Welcome to the Moth Podcast, Dan. I'm Dan Kennedy and by now you know that the Moth features true stories and they're all told live and they're also all told without notes. The stories on the podcast are taken from our ongoing storytelling series in New York and Los Angeles, and now we've added Chicago and Detroit to the list as well. We also take stories from our tour shows across the country. For more details, visit themoth.org we also wanted to remind you of the upcoming Mothball, which is the sort of formal Moth fundraiser party of the year, an incredible event actually in New York City every year. It's going to be on November 17th and Garrison Keillor is going to host the night. Anna Deavere Smith will accept the 2009 Moth Award. Come out and support the Moth. Tickets are on sale now@themost.org the story you're about to hear is by Mike Destefano and it was recorded live at the Moth main stage in in January of this year. The theme of the night was In Harm's Stories about Danger.

Mike Destefano (2:24)

Hi everybody. Just want to say it's an honor to share the stage with such amazing human beings. Thank you so much. My story's about. Well, when I was a kid, I had a spark in me. You know, like I was always a happy kid. I always had a little bit of a flame going and nothing could really knock it out. You know, I was beaten by My father and my mother wasn't around much, and I went to Catholic school. None of that. None of that. The nuns couldn't extinguish the flame that dwelled inside of me. They tried. I was 28 years old. I was living in West Palm Beach, Florida, and I was walking around in the Winn Dixie supermarket, and I'm shopping, and I felt this, like, weird feeling come over me. And then I fainted. Well, I blacked out. Just went into a blackout. And that's happened to me before, but it was on purpose with drugs this time. It was a little scary. I just knew something was wrong. And, you know, I was in and out of consciousness. I did get in an ambulance. I ended up. I'm in a hospital now. I'm in Palm Beach Gardens Hospital. And I'm laying there and I got machine like a tube in my nose. And I'm just. I'm in this incredible pain and can't really move much. And what the problem was was I had pneumonia. I had double lobal pneumonia in all five of the lobes. There's only four lobes. That's why it's funny. I'm a comedian, you know, I'm going to tell jokes here and there. So I'm laying there and I was just. I was like. So for a minute, I was really concerned about myself, which was weird because I hadn't had that experience of worrying about myself for a few years, because at home, my wife was dying of aids, and she was really sick, obviously, and she had. They didn't have diagnosis for women years ago when they had aids. They just called it wasting syndrome. So whatever that is, is what she had. You know, she didn't have a specific thing, but everything was just falling apart. And all I could think about is, I got to get out of this hospital. I got to get home and take care of her, you know, because that's all I did, was take care of my wife. That was my life, my job. And I loved it. It wasn't a problem. I loved it. You know, people would say, how do you deal with it? How do you ask a question like that? Like, have you ever loved somebody? You know, it was weird to me. So I just was, like, laying there, and the phone rings, and my friend Jimmy calls me and he says, mike, Franny was in a car accident. And I said, no, she's. She can't even fucking walk. She's on so much morphine, there's no way, you know why. He goes, yeah, she got in the car. And I believed it. Because I knew her. She was drug addict. We were former drug addicts, recovering people. So drug. Like, if you cut my leg off, I would be upset. But if you gave me heroin right afterwards, I'd be, eh, I can handle it, you know, I'll be all right, you know. So even though she was suffering with AIDS and going through all this horrible stuff, the morphine helped her feel better. Like she would, you know, be okay. And I just couldn't. And she probably just thought, hey, I can drive. And she tried to. And the car flipped over. He told me several times, and I knew she was dead, you know, So I laid back, and I was just like, wow. And I had these Buddhist rosaries. Cause I'm from the Bronx. I was sort of between religions at the time, if anybody knows what I'm talking about. Well, I needed something, you know, I couldn't. Because quite honestly, you know, my life, you know, the drugs and the tragedy and people dying that I loved. And most of all, my wife being so sick after being off of drugs for so long. And really us trying to get our lives together, you know, it just seemed really unfair, you know? And all I could think about, about a God was the one that I was told as a kid, you know, God's watching. He knows. So I figured that the God who's doing this to me and my wife, you know, I'm not gonna fucking pray to him. You know, hey, can you. What am I gonna say? Can you help me? I'm like, what the fuck are you doing? You know, it's like, get off the fence. Make a move. You know, kill us or help us do something. So that wasn't really working for me. So I went to this Buddhist place. Cause I saw an ad in the paper, Buddhism. So I'm like, oh, maybe, let's see, what. And it was a guy just sitting there. They just sit there, these people. And there's no nails or blood or anything. So I found. I was like, I can do that. I probably can do that sitting stuff there. So I walk into this place and I hear. I'm in the. You know, they told me to take my shoes on. Fucking take my shoes. You know, I was like, from the Bronx. Take my shoes off. And then I still. Everyone else had their shoes off, so I took my shoes off. And that was all they really asked, you know. And they were just nice people, you know, they were very sweet and kind. Compassion. They had a lot of compa. That's what they do. They try to get compassion. These people here. We Fucking call it codependency and charge you money to get rid of it. So that's it. No one else got that one. All right. So thank you. So, yeah, so this woman says to me, really sweet, kind darling. She said, would you like to see the llama? So I'm thinking, there's a fucking animal somewhere, like a sheep type of thing, whatever. So I said, what's the law? So she said, no, it's a Tibetan priest. A holy. I said. When she said the word priest, I immediately thought of scary priest. So I went to the room, and I'm like, you know, I don't know about anyone else, but if I was in church kneeling, if my knees didn't hurt, I was in trouble. You know, I was like, your knees have to hurt in order to be really fucking praying, right? You know, there's none of this comfort shit. You know what I mean? So I walk in there to meet this guy, and he's just sitting. He's this little man bent over, and he's like, oh, money about me. Oh, money about me. Oh, money. And I'm like, what's he doing? She goes, he just prays and meditates. He's been doing that since he escaped Tibet with his family. And he just does that for 20 some odd hours a day. Like 21 hours a day. And then he eats and goes to sleep for an hour. Who the fuck's paying for this? I want to know. Is this guy getting federal assistance? Are my tax dollars paying for this guy? Like, this is all I can come up with in my head. So I'm so. So. So the woman says, well, come. Come sit near him. And, you know, so I actually got on my knees, you know, like a Catholic, good Catholic. And I'm like, on my knees. And she says, no, relax, relax. And. And he looks at me, and he couldn't speak any English, but he said. He said, oh, West Palm Beach. Thank you. Thank you. So what the fuck? West Palm Beach. Thank you, thank you. So I said, what is she. Well, he's just letting you know that you're in West Palm Beach. And he's saying, thank you for being there. You know, just simple thing. I'm like, am I gonna go to hell another if I don't sit right? So I'm sitting there, and he puts his hands out. He said, oh, put your hands out. She was excited that he put his hands out to me. She said, oh, put your hands out. So I put my hands out, and he took my hands, and when he touched me I tell you, I'm a. I felt like this fucking relaxed. I. So relaxed, you know? And I was like. I was just there in the moment and just so relaxed. And I wasn't scared. And pain. All the pain went away. And then he put his forehead out, and she said, put your forehead out. So I did the same thing. And he put his forehead against mine and he said some Tibetan stuff. I don't know what he. Blah, blah, blah. That's what he said. And all I know is I just felt really good and happy. It gave me a great feeling. So I leave. And so now I'm laying in the hospital and I got these rosaries, and I'm thinking of this man, and I'm okay, I'm holding it. And he blessed these beads for me, by the way. So I just. Every time I touched those beads, I thought of him. Whenever I saw orange or yellow, I thought of him because that's the kind of robe he had. It was just amazing. To this day, when I see orange thing, I go, wow, I love that color. So because of him, so. So I leave and I spent a few weeks there meditating and praying, and now I'm in the hospital and the phone rings again, and it's my mother. And she said, daddy has a brain tumor. Yeah, this is a bad day. And I just laid back and I had the beads. And I was like. I was so overwhelmed that I wasn't feeling anything per se. It just like froze me. I don't know if anyone knows what I'm talking about. You just like, there was no feeling. It was just okay. And I took the beads and I kind of threw them. I was like, fuck this. And I don't know if anybody gets this shit, but I was like, you know what? I've been a Christian, Catholic, angry person for 27 and years and 11 and a half months, and now I'm a Buddhist for like three weeks. I'm gonna fuck the Buddhism. I don't want that little bit of peace, man. It just makes the rest of it seem so much shittier. Do you know what I mean? So screw this. I don't want nothing to do with this. The phone rings again. So now I'm like, okay, this is them. They're telling me my wife's dead. Like, I know this. And it's Jimmy. And he said, mike, I'm outside. I'm coming up. Franny's. Okay, relax. I said, oh, my God, that's amazing. So I got up out of the bed and she's actually in the emergency room of the hospital I'm in. So I have to go visit her down in this emergency room. And I got this robe on and my morphine pole and another machine that's giving me oxygen. And I just. I said, you know what? And I took my robe off and turned it on backwards so that my balls would be hanging out. I don't know why to this day there's any psychologists in here if you can talk to me afterwards. No idea. I think it was just me saying, fuck you, everyone. You know what I mean? Will you give me a break here? I'm going to visit my dying wife down in the hut. She didn't die from the flipping over the car, but she's going to die soon anyway. But I'm going to go visit her now. And I got pneumonia and who knows what the hell's going on here? So I'm like, you know what? Here's my balls. Like, I don't know what the process was, but that's what I did. So I go down and I. And she's in the. And she's sitting up in the bed, and she was a pisser, and she's like. She's out cold, sitting. And she got a little. Little cut on her lip from the accident. Tiny cut. Car flip five times on I95. Little cut. And I woke her up. I said, honey, honey. She goes, hey, what are you doing? She was wasted on morphine. She goes, I wanted to surprise you. I said, well, you did. And she. A couple of weeks went by and she ended up in the hospice again. She was in hospice two or three times. Young people don't like to die, you know. Not that old people do, but some old people. I had a good life. She didn't feel that way. She was pissed. She didn't want to die. She was thrown out of hospice for not dying. They put her in. They said, look, you can't stay here. You've been here for four months. It's for like a week, two weeks. You gotta go home. Came back again? Yeah, three times. It happened. Finally this time, she died. She died. They told me she was gone. I was at home. I'd never stayed home. I stayed with her every night. Her mother was in town, so I took a night and stayed home. And she died that night. When they called me, there was no feeling about it, you know? And it reminded me when my grandmother died when I was a kid. I didn't have a feeling. It was just okay. And I froze. And I held in all of that Death that I had. And because I knew my father is now gotta die. And I loved my father. We were so close. And I was like, I gotta save this angst up, man. I gotta hold on, you know what I mean? You can't fall apart. And so nine months after my wife died, I was out at a movie. I came home and there was a voicemail from my brother, Mike, pick up the phone, Mike, pick up the phone. The second time. Every time I heard him say, pick up the phone, I little more and more fear of what he was going to say. And finally he said, mike, I'm sorry to tell you this on the phone, but Daddy's gone. And, you know, I never forget where I was. I was looking at my laundry machines, listening. And I literally felt my heart be ripped out of me. Like I actually reached for it. It was the weirdest feeling. And that was it. The flame that I had as a kid, all of it gone. Because now everyone died. All at that one moment, you know? And I made arrangements to fly home the next day. And I got on the plane. And when I got on the plane, I decided that I was going to end my life. I'm pretty much done. And I wasn't telling anyone. It wasn't a threat. It was a total fucking decision that I've pretty much had enough of this. There is no more nothing else to live for, and I'm done. And I got on the plane and I was so excited because I'm like, I'm really gonna fucking die. This is so great. Like, I was thrilled and at peace. I couldn't wait. I couldn't wait till the funeral was over. Because that's when I'm gonna do it. I'm not gonna jump off a building or jump in front of a car. People haven't heard of overdosing on drugs. So I'm on the plane and I've got this decision of ending my life. And I'm at peace. And I am happy. And all my life, God, or the universe, whatever the fuck's running this thing, would always go, yeah, it's really awful now, you're almost out of hope. But here's a little something to keep you going. Here's something nice to keep you going. I get up, I go to the back of the plane to go to the bathroom. And Lama Chmed, the monk that I had met, is sitting in the back row. And he sees me and he says, west Palm Beach. And I said, you little motherfucker. And he put his hands out like he did before. Again and he put his head out and I did the it's called tonglen. And to meet a lama you have to have amazing karma, they say to have a lama actually want to do tonglen with you, which is giving and taking. That means give me all of your pain and I'm going to give you all my joy. And the reason he sat for 30 years in meditation was to open his heart so that it gets as big as the ocean, so that if you pour some pain into it, it absorbs it. That's what his whole life was about. And it worked for me, that particular tonglen, it just, it worked. And I got home and I quit my job like Tom and I said, you don't want to be a fucking comedian.