Meg Bowles (3:35)

From prx, this is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Meg Bowles from the Moth and and I'll be your host this time. At the Moth, we invite people to take the stage and share true personal experiences from their lives. Stories often run the gamut from harrowing to wildly funny, deeply moving to surprising, with a touch of crazy. The storytellers stand in front of an audience of anywhere from 200 to 2000 people. They have no notes. They simply tell their stories. They remember it.

Elise Hunter (4:02)

Today.

Meg Bowles (4:02)

We bring you four of those stories today. Tales of family pets, dumpster diving, obsessive compulsive parenting, and navigating the depths of depression and love. Our first story is from Steve Osborne. A word of caution. This story deals with some difficult material from his time on the job as a New York City police detective and may not be appropriate for all listeners. Steve told this story at the Great hall of the Cooper Union in New York City for an evening we called Laws of Stories of Chemistry. Here's Steve Osborne live at the mop.

Unnamed Apple Representative (4:40)

How you doing? My name is Steve Osborne. I was a New York city cop for 20 years. It's 6:00 in the morning and I'm just getting home from work. I'm late again, as usual. The night before, we caught a shooting. Two drug dealers get into a beef. One guy pulls out a gun. Boom, boom, boom. Shoots the other guy in the face. We catch it. I end up running with it all night long and I wind up doing a double. I walk in the door and my wife's waiting for me and she's got that look on her face and she says to me, we gotta talk. I hate it when she says, we gotta talk. This is never good news for me. This means bad things are coming. And she says to me, I can't take this anymore, you know? I'm tired of being alone at night. I'm tired of sleeping alone. I just can't take it. It's getting to be too much. So what do I do? You know, I count it with my usual, you know, a couple of hugs and kisses. I love you, too, you know? I miss you, too. You know, I don't like having to work so much. It's my job. But this time, she ain't hearing any of it. And she looks at me and she's real serious. She says to me, I want a dog. So as soon as I hear the word dog, I'm like, man, that was close. This could have been, you know, this could have been really bad, you know? I wouldn't have been the first cop to get divorced, you know, because I was married to the job. And as soon as I hear that word, dog, I'm like, yeah, I want a dog, too, you know? And right away, I start thinking, I'm gonna take him to the park. We're gonna play ball. We're gonna throw the Frisbee around, you know, we're gonna wrestle with the stick, you know, I like going on hikes out in the woods. I'm gonna get him one of those doggy backpacks, and me and him are gonna go for hikes in the mountains. And I'm thinking, you know, at night when I'm working, this is good. I'll have a big dog in the house, you know, for protection. So I says to her, great idea. What kind of dog you want? And that's when she puts her two hands out in front of her about 12 inches apart, and she goes, One like this. Now, right away, we got a problem. I want a big dog. She wants a little dog. But there's no way I could ever say no to my wife. You know, for the first day I met her, she always had me wrapped around her little finger. She could talk me into anything, you know? I think if she wanted a giraffe, I probably would have got a 2, you know, if I thought it would make her happy. So a little dog it would be. So she gets this dog. It's called a Brussels Griffin. I don't know if you ever heard of it. I never heard of it. It's actually not a Brussels Griffon. It's a Brussels Griffon. That's how he's supposed to say. He's supposed to say Brussels Griffon. And Griffon, I think, is French for, like, very expensive dog. But on top of that, he was ugly. He was little, and he had these long legs, and his hair stood straight up in the air. But the funny thing about a dog, and especially as a puppy, you cannot resist a puppy. I don't care how hardcore you are, nobody can resist a puppy. And it didn't take long before me and a little guy, we bonded. You know, it was like. It was like we were pals, buddies. We were doing everything together. You know, he would be sitting on the sofa with me watching football games. And I started taking him on hikes out in the woods. And you had to see the little guy scrambling up the trail, you know, climbing over the logs. Or if he couldn't climb over, he'd crawl underneath. He really was the definition of, like a big dog in a little dog's body. And I gained a lot of respect for him. One day I had to go to work. It was my day off. I had to go pick something up. So I figured, let me take him with me. Now, I had told the guys that I got a dog, but I was intentionally a little vague about exactly what kind. So we're walking down the station house block, and there's a couple of cops out front, and they see me coming. Well, this was, like, the funniest thing they ever saw. They crack up laughing. Now, my wife had wanted to buy him this little yellow raincoat. I put my foot down on that one. But she did buy him this red ski sweater with a hood with this pom pom on top. Right Then I'm thinking, thank God he's not wearing a sweater. You know, I'd never hear the end of it. And here he comes. He's walking in the front door of the precinct, all five pounds of him. You know, he's strutting in like he owns the joint, and everybody's cracking up. But I didn't care at that point. I really loved the little guy. And all day long, he would follow my wife around. He was a real mama's boy. But at night, for some reason, when she would put him in bed with us, he would snuggle right next to me. I mean, he would get right next to me. It was like I was his daddy or something. And, like, he felt safe there. And he would push up against me, and I would back up because I was afraid of rolling over on him. And he would push And I would back up, and next thing I know, I'm on the floor. And this happened every night. One day, me and him were out for a walk. And we're about a mile from the house, and he's walking. He's right alongside me. Sometimes you don't even know he's there. He's with me stride for stride, when all of a sudden, behind me, I hear this really loud bang. It was like a truck backfiring. Scared the hell out of me. I jumped like two feet in the air. Scared the hell out of Griff. He jumped about 2ft in the air, too. But when he jumped, he yanked the leash out of my hand and he took off running. The only chance I had to catch him was to go for the leash. I dove for it, and I missed. We were right by a busy intersection. There was four lanes of traffic going this way and four lanes of traffic going that way. And it was nighttime, and it was rush hour. And you could see everybody was in a hurry to get home. And he starts running right for the traffic. I'm frantic. Next thing I know, he's running right down the middle of the road, right in between all the cars. I take off after him. I know nobody can see him. You know, he's only this big. But I'm hoping that they'll see me. And I'm running right down the middle of the road and I'm jumping up and down and I'm waving my arms and I'm hoping that people will stop or go around us or just give me a chance to catch them. And cars are whizzing right past me and they're beeping their horns and they're flashing their high beams and people are yelling at me to get out of the road. And I know it sounds crazy, but at that moment, I did not care. I did not care if I got hit by a car. I did not care if I got plowed over by a truck. I did not care if I got killed. I had to save that little dog. And I ran after him, right down the middle of the road. And next thing I know, I saw this one car was bearing down on him. And all I could see was he got sucked under the wheel and he got shot out the other side. I ran up to him and I just fell to my knees and cars whizzing past me. And I didn't care. I wasn't moving. I was hovering over him. I was trying to protect him. I didn't want any more harm to come to him. And I looked down and I could see his little body, his broken, and he's just staring straight ahead. He's heaving like he can't breathe. I scooped him up as gently as I could in my arms, and I got on the sidewalk. I had to get him to the hospital, but I didn't have a car. I'm far from my house. And even if I did have a car, I didn't know where the animal hospital was. And at that moment, I never felt so helpless in my whole life. I turned around and I saw a police car pulling to the intersection. Now, there's an unwritten rule among cops. Like, if you ever have a problem, just go get another cop. No matter where you are, no matter what the problem is, another cop will always help you out. So I start running for him, and he's in the intersection, he's looking around. Somebody must have flagged him down and told him there was some nut job running in traffic. And I ran up to him and I had Griff cradled in my arm, and I grabbed my shield and I'm yelling at him. I'm like, yo, brother, I'm on the job. I'm on the job, man. You gotta help me. My dog got hit by a car. You gotta take me to the hospital. He took one look at me and he just says, get in. I jumped into the back of the car, and next thing I know, he pulls a U turn. I could hear the tires screeching, red lights are flashing, the sirens going. And he's on the radio with the dispatcher telling him, notify the animal hospital. You know, have him stand him by. You know, we're in route, we're flying down the road, and I look down at Griff and I could see him. He's. He's heaving. He said he can't breathe. And I see these frothy red bubbles coming out of his nose and his mouth. And I had seen this in people a bunch of times, and I knew his lungs were punctured, and I knew he was in bad shape. And I looked down at him and I'm like, I'm sorry, buddy. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Come on, man. Just hang on. Keep breathing. Keep breathing. Don't you go nowhere on me. Come on, man, just. Just stay with me. Stay with me. Just keep breath. Breathing. And as I'm saying this, I'm crying. Tears are just pouring down my face and my hand shaking, and I'm, like, sick to my stomach with grief. And all of a sudden, it hits me. I'm like, this isn't me. This isn't like me. I'm a cop, man. I've seen it all. I'm used to this stuff, you know. I've seen people shot, stabbed, beat, bludgeoned, thrown off a roof, hit by cars, trucks, buses, trains. I mean, even an airplane crash. And I never let it get to me. But here I am, I got a dying little puppy in my arms and I'm going to pieces. And I'm crying. I'm crying like a little school girl that got dumped on prom night. And all of a sudden it hit me. I started to feel a little self conscious, you know, Carrying on like this in front of another cop. You know, it's just. It's not manly. But when I looked up at him, I could see him. He's flying down the road. He's got one hand on the wheel and he's wiping his eyes with the other. He's crying, too. Now, I know he's seen his share of bad stuff in the world, but this little puppy's getting to the both of us. I looked down and that's when I saw it. Just this little puff of air just came out of his nose and his mouth and his chest fell and it didn't come back up. And that was it. That was the last breath that he would ever take. Cradled in my arms. Next thing I know, I feel the car jerk hard to the left. And we're in the parking lot of the animal hospital and the vet's waiting for us and he's waving us in. And I run in and as carefully as I could, I laid Griff on that, like, cold stainless steel table with the big surgical light. But it was over. There was nothing anybody could do. Me and a cop walk out of the hospital and he gives me a ride home. And now we're both in the car and I could see the two of us like we're putting our game faces back on, you know, we're both trying to put that crying thing behind us. I walk in the house and the house is empty. My wife's not home from work yet. And I was glad. I didn't know how the hell I was going to explain this. She loved the little guy, you know, she's such an animal nut, you know, she sees a dead deer on the side of the road, it ruins her whole day, you know? How was I going to explain this? So I go upstairs and I go in the bedroom and I'm a mess. I don't know what to do. I don't know whether to go this way or that way. And I find myself staring at the closet door. I'm just standing there staring at a closet door. And all I could see was those headlights flashing and the horn honking and the people yelling at me to get out of the road. And I keep seeing Griff get sucked under that wheel. And it just keeps playing over and over and over and over in my head. And all of a sudden it's just rage just built up inside of me. I was furious, you know, I was mad at myself, I was mad at the world. I was mad at God. I'm like, how could this happen? He's just a little puppy. He didn't deserve this. And I don't know whether I wanted to punish myself or I just wanted to hit something. But I hauled off and boom. I headbutted the closet door. I drove my forehead right through the front of the closet door. What a shot. I was stunned. Next thing I know, I'm seeing stars. And I could hear that little voice in my head saying, dude, come on, get a hold of yourself. This is getting crazy. I go in the bathroom and I look in the mirror and I got this huge lump growing out of the middle of my forehead. I look like a friggin unicorn. And I got blood running down my face. Now I don't want my wife to come home because I'm not looking forward to the drama, but I don't want to be alone anymore, you know, who knows what the hell I'll do next. Next thing, I hear the front door open and I hear her call out my name. I don't answer. She calls out, Griff. Obviously he's not answering. She calls my name again, again and again. And I hear her. She's starting to get a little suspicious, you know, so she comes upstairs looking for me. She walks into the bedroom and I'm standing there, I got this huge red lump, there's blood running down my face. I'm a mess. And she freaks out. She just starts yelling like, you know, what happened? What's going on? Where's Griff? What happened to you? And I don't remember exactly what I said because I had like a half a concussion going on at the time. But I blurted out something like, griff got hit by a car. But with the looks of me, she assumed that I got hit by the car too. And now my wife, you know, she's normally not good in a crisis, you know, something bad happens. Usually I'm the one that, you know is the strong one. But she really rose to the occasion this time and she took care of me. And we were sitting on the edge of the bed and she's holding an ice pack on my head and I explained everything and she took it. Well, you know, she was just glad that I didn't get hit by the car. But looking back, what I can't believe is after 20 years of police work, you know, and all the things I saw, all the blood, the guts, the misery, and the stuff that'll just tear your heart out, you know, the dead bodies, the pieces of dead bodies. And I never ever let it get to me. I had a little girl one time that drowned in a bathtub and I could not let myself feel anything. I would not allow myself to feel anything. I had a job to do. I had to stay professional. And as soon as I felt like a little bit of emotion, like build up inside of me, I just stuffed my head with thoughts of paperwork and reports and notifications that had to be made and all the things that had to be done. And that's how I got through it and that's how I was able to deal with it. But this time I didn't have any of that. So I guess cops don't cry, or at least we won't allow ourselves to cry. But daddies of little puppies do. Thank you very much.

Meg Bowles (20:08)

Steve Osborne has become a popular regular on the Mothman. Steve told me that in order to mend his broken heart, he and his wife decided to adopt another dog. They named him Spanky and proceeded to spoil him rotten. If you want to see pictures of Griff and Steve, you can Visit our website themoth.org In a moment, we'll hear of one woman's thrill seeking adventures in a dumpster behind Trader Joe's.

Mark Lukac (20:42)

The Marth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts and presented by the Public Radio Exchange.

Dan Kennedy (20:50)

Prx.Org okay, it's wintertime. A perfect time to talk about GoToMeeting for a second Here, winter weather can severely impact your ability to meet with your team. Roads are closed, flights get canceled, people stay home sick. So be prepared. Sign up for GoToMeeting with HD Faces by Citrix. The powerfully simple way to meet and collaborate online, no matter what the weather is like. You can sign up for GoToMeeting from your computer or mobile device and launch your first meeting in seconds. Then, no matter where you are, you'll be instantly connected to your team. Share your screen to collaborate on projects in real time and turn on your webcams to see each other face to face. It's just like being in the same room. So when you can't make it to the office, you can still meet in person and be productive. Start working smarter today by signing up for your free 30 day trial of GoToMeeting. To get started, you just visit GoToMeeting.com, click the Try it free button and use the promo code MOTH. That's GoToMeeting.com and use the promo code MOTH.

Meg Bowles (21:49)

From PRX. This is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Meg Bowles. Our next story comes from Elise Hunter, who competed in a Grand Slam competition in Ann Arbor, Michigan, which was supported by both 50 WDET and Michigan Radio. The theme of the night was more than meets the eye. Here's Elise Hunter live with the Moth.

Elise Hunter (22:16)

It's two in the morning. I'm covered in slime, and I only have my headlamp to guide me. I'm standing in a dumpster. I'm totally exhilarated. And it's all because of Gordy. Gordy was different. First of all, he was from Alaska. I had never met anyone from Alaska before. And he had done things like driven a snowmobile across the tundra and shot a bear. And at the time, I thought that was pretty sexy. I met him my sophomore year in college, and I was totally smitten. We spent a lot of time together and we kind of started dating, which also meant that I was kind of cheating on my boyfriend at the time who was studying abroad. But I didn't really think that was a big deal. So Gordy's favorite thing to do was dumpster dive. And anything that Gordy wanted to do, I wanted to do. So I joined this group of people who would do that every Tuesday night. We would put on our grungiest clothes, which was saying a lot because we were pretty grungy to begin with. And in the middle of the night, we would hit up Trader Joe's. We would drive out to the parking lot and creep up to the dumpster and open those corrugated metal lids and jump in and start digging around in the trash. And our clothes would just get covered in this dumpster sleep. But we found great stuff. I mean, it was truly a treasure trove. Boxes of clementines, fresh vegetables, cookies, crackers, cheeses, sometimes even really fancy stuff like smoked fish and jars of lemon curd. And one time I found this perfectly intact potted basil plant and I brought it home and I put it on my windowsill and I watered it and talked to it and nurtured it and treated it better than my boyfriend. And sometimes when we were digging around in the dumpster, I would just stop and look at Gordy with his half dreaded curls and his threadbare cargo pants. And he was filthy and he was stunning. And so when we were done, when we had filled our canvas grocery bags full of dumpster food, we would go back to someone's house and open a couple bottles of wine and just hang out and eat the whole night. And I would come home at dawn, stuffed and drunk and happy. And it was such a rush. The mystery of it, the risk of getting caught, the risk of getting salmonella. And perhaps the most intoxicating part was this feeling that somehow by doing this, we were saving the world. Or we were saving ourselves. We were saving something. It didn't matter what it was. And about six months into doing this, one night, we were digging around in the dumpster and we heard someone shout from behind, hey. We froze. Eventually, we turned around and there's this guy shining a flashlight on us wearing his Trader Joe's Hawaiian shirt. He said, what are you doing? We just kind of looked at our feet and shrugged. He knew what we were doing. We were caught. And then he didn't yell at us and he didn't lecture us. He didn't call the cops. But he said the one thing that would cause me to stop dumpster diving forever. He said, you know, I have some loaves of bread and some baguettes in the storeroom, and they're kind of stale, and I was going to give them to a homeless shelter, but if you really want, you can have them. And Gordy just shook his head and he's like, no, you should. No, man, you should just give them to the homeless shelter. So. And then we just. We stepped out of the dumpster, and that guy watched us as we trudged back to the car, and we sheepishly drove off into the night. And I never came back. Because when that guy shone his flashlight on me, he illuminated why I was really there. To thrill seek, to slum, to visit an exotic place, but not because I really needed to. And now the politics of dumpster diving are murky, just like the dumpster. And I don't know what the answer is for everyone, but for me, I was done. And as for me and Gordy, we didn't last. I guess our romance was the strongest when we were standing together on a pile of garbage. And eventually, I grew apart from that group of people. I stopped strutting around campus like a little proletarian cadet. And I realized I had ruined my relationship with that other boyfriend who was out of the picture the whole time. And I started thinking about things like where people get their food and how they get their food and what happens to waste and how is it that a perfectly good block of cheddar cheese can end up in the trash. And now, years later, I'm in graduate school studying in the field of sustainability. And I get to think about these things and work on them, and I think about these issues that go beyond just one trash can and one parking lot. But sometimes when I'm in a Trader Joe's and I pass a dumpster, I have to pause for just one second and think about what could be lying beyond those dirty metal walls.

Meg Bowles (28:11)

Elise Hunter now lives in Oakland County, California. She no longer dumpster dives, but she does work in the field of environmental sustainability. You can find out more about Elise and read her articles on social entrepreneurship, waste, and other topics at our website. We often compare telling a story at the Moth to telling a story at a dinner party. Sitting with your friends, sharing stories over a glass of wine. That's exactly how we first heard our next story by author Amy Brill. We asked her to share her story on the Main Stage and the Players in New York. The theme of the evening was Stories from the inside.

Amy Brill (28:51)

So it's October 2008, and I'm sitting in my living room on my red couch. It's early afternoon and I start to feel some twinges and some pinching in my midsection. And when it doesn't go away, I get v very excited because this is the moment I've been waiting for for 41 weeks. I am finally in labor with my first child and I spring into action. I call my husband, like, you have to come home from work right away. I inflate the yoga ball. I get out my birth plan. I check it out, and I've got everything on there. I mean, I'm ready. I have planned for this. I have studied the books. I have taken class classes. I've got like all 20 very important points on there. There's going to be no meds. It's going to be all natural. I'm not going to be hooked up to any machines. I'm going to be like doing yoga in the birth room. I've got it all laid out. I have a plan, and I have like a dozen laminated copies of this birth plan so that if there's some kind of apocalypse, everybody at the hospital, all the Nurses will know. No one should give me a catheter under any circumstances. So you know, I'm ready, I'm prepared. It's all going to be perfect. Thirty hours later, I'm in my hospital room and I am shrieking and thrashing like a bat in a net. I'm in so much pain. I'm doing everything that I'm supposed to do. I've studied the books, I'm doing the breathing, I'm doing the exercises. Nothing is helping. I'm in horrible pain. I'm just completely freaking out. It's total chaos. And I'm scared. I'm terrified. My plan is not working. And by the time I push this baby out, I mean, I've had every med in the book. I'm hooked up to every possible machine. The whole room is like bleeping and blipping and there's doctors and nurses and experts everywhere. But of course, when I look down at the face of my beautiful baby, I feel bliss. I mean, she's perfect. She's like joy. But secretly, in my heart of hearts, I feel like I failed. Like maybe I didn't do my best. And I commit to making up for this starting like on day one. I'm gonna be the best mother of all time. I've got that baby in the ergo carrier because baby wearing is bonding and I'm nursing her because breast is best. And I am waiting online for two hours at the food co op to buy the like cheap organic cilantro and the $3 a pound quinoa because of course I have to make all of her baby food from scratch. And I'm washing all her little bamboo onesies in the like hypoallergenic sulfate free unscented laundry detergent. And I'm rushing to like baby and me yoga so that she can be socialized and I can be fit and I can be heart healthy and I can be at milf. And it's just, it's all so overwhelming. And I am like underwater. I mean, I'm just, I'm really, I'm miserable and I don't even understand why. And one day I looked, I look at my beautiful infant and she's really not an infant anymore. She's not even a baby anymore. She is a toddler. And she is standing in the living room watching me ricochet from like the stove to the laundry pile to the mail pile to the door to the here to there. And she says her first complete sentence. She pats the red couch and she says, sit down, mama. Sit down. And like, I froze. I mean, and I looked at her and my heart sank. I mean, I felt like this crushing realization that in my effort to create this perfect life for her, I had utterly failed in giving her. What she really needed was for me to play with her. And she's looking at me like, step away from the Le Creuset, you crazy person, and get down on the floor with me and be a pretend animal right now. And the truth is, I just had no idea how to do that. I was raised by two greatest generation parents. One of them was a judge. And I was taught that expertise, success or failure was something that experts would judge. It wasn't some intuitive thing. Like when we went to see art, we would go to the Met because that's where the old masters were. That was like the best art. And my dad listened to music. It was classical music on wqxr. Mozart, Bach, Beethoven. Only the best that was worthy. That's what the experts said was best. And at playtime, like, I would sit on his lap and I would read the New York Times out loud when I was three. And so I became someone who was really good at doing things well or doing things very well. But I didn't know anything about sitting crisscross applesauce or like crawling around on the floor and being silly and being in the moment and playing pretend. But that's exactly what my daughter needed. And so I did it. I mean, I put the ladle down and I sat down on the floor and I. I crawled around, I barked a little bit and it was awkward, but I tried. And as time went on, I got better at it. I got so good at it that by the time I found myself very pregnant again with my second child in November of 2011, sitting on my red couch in the evening, like 8 or 9 o'clock, going into labor, I was very relaxed. I had no birth plan at all because, like, who has time? I mean, I had a toddler, I was working, I was really busy, and I thought, okay, well, the first time around, this took like 40 hours, right, to get done with. So this time I'm just going to be smart. I'm going to go to sleep for a while. So I went and I laid down in bed and I actually fell asleep. I slept. I managed to sleep or doze for a while. And when I woke up and things started getting a little bit more intense and I had to get out of bed, you know, I wasn't like, fighting against the pain of the contraction. I was just feeling the pain, I mean, it definitely hurt, but I was just experiencing it. I was experiencing the pain. I was like, okay, this hurts. I'm just gonna breathe. I'm gonna wait. It's gonna come, it's gonna go. And it did. One contraction at a time. I was just in the moment, and I wasn't thinking about experts or what I was supposed to do. I was just experiencing it. And soon enough, I started to feel like maybe it was time to go out of our bedroom and into some sort of more organized medical environment. And so I said to my husband, I think maybe it's time to go. And we sort of stumbled out into the light of the living room. And somehow in the, like, 10 minutes between calling the babysitter and calling the doctor and getting my socks on, things sped up dramatically. Like, all of a sudden, my contractions are rolling in one after the other, like weather systems colliding, and the babysitter's not there. And I'm starting to freak out, and things are happening that I'm just not sure what's going on. I'm having these weird spasms. There's some blood. I call my upstairs neighbor. I'm like, I'm having an emergency. I need you to come downstairs right now. And I wasn't scared, per se, but my daughter was asleep in the next room. Like, I couldn't actually leave the house until some other adult was there. So she came downstairs in her pajamas 30 seconds later, thank God. Poor girl's never gonna have a baby now. I literally crawl out the door going, thank you. I'm sorry. Thank you. I'm sorry. And I get outside on the sidewalk. It's cold. My husband gets the car. I have another contraction on the sidewalk. Now I'm thinking, okay, this is not good. Like, really don't want to have a baby on the sidewalk right now. He pulls the car up. I throw myself into the back seat, between the car seats, so it's in the space, like the size of a Frisbee. And I say to my husband, what are you thinking? I'm thinking Battery Tunnel to the west side Highway. And he says, well, I don't know. It's 5:00 in the morning. I'm thinking, like, Flatbush Avenue to. To the Brooklyn Bridge. I'm like, okay, whatever, Just go, go, go. So he peels out, and I have another contraction. And by the time he's gone around the corner, I feel this incredible intense rush of warm pressure. And I put my hands down just in time to feel the head of My baby pop out like a cork. I said, oh, my God, the head is out. Go to Methodist, which is our local hospital. And as he speeds the last eight or nine blocks to our local hospital, the body of my baby just slips out into my hands. And I pull her to my chest, and she's going, me, me, me. And my husband is saying, are you okay? Is everything okay? Are you guys fine? Is everything all right? Hold on, hold on. And it's like, there's no. I'm not shrieking. I wasn't thrashing. There was no pain. I'm not suffering. There's no doctors. There's no nurses. There's no experts. There's no machines. There's just me and the baby and her cry and the whoosh of the engine and the shh of the heater. And all I could say was, we're fine, we're fine, we're fine. We were fine. I mean, I don't recommend this. Don't have a baby in the backseat of your car. And while I'm at it, do not use an iPhone app to time your contractions. Like the slide, the code, the start, the stop. Just don't do that. That being said, in retrospect, even though it was harrowing and intense, totally unplanned, it was the most spectacular thing that has ever happened to me because it gave me this, like, incredible faith in the power of my body. And it gave me a look at a version of myself that I did not know very well, which was someone who could be in the moment and go with the flow and just let things happen and come out, like, better than fine. Come out just. Almost perfect. Thank you.

Meg Bowles (39:25)

That was Amy Grill. Amy is a writer and producer. Her debut novel is entitled the Movement of Stars. Amy shared a few pictures of her family, including the first picture of her daughter Alma, after she was born. You can see those photos and find out more about all of our storytellers@themost.org In a moment, we'll hear a story about what happens when a marriage faces a difficult challenge.

Mark Lukac (40:02)

The Moth Radio Hour is produced by by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by the Public Radio Exchange.

Dan Kennedy (40:11)

PRX.org okay, it's wintertime. A perfect time to talk about GoToMeeting for a second here. Winter weather can severely impact your ability to meet with your team. Roads are closed, flights get canceled. People stay home sick. So be prepared. Sign up for GoToMeeting with HD Faces by Citrix. The powerfully simple way to meet and collaborate online, no matter what the weather is like you can sign up for GoToMeeting from your computer or mobile device and launch your first meeting in seconds. Then, no matter where you are, you'll be instantly connected to your team. Share your screen to collaborate on projects in real time and turn on your webcams to see each other face to face. It's just like being in the same room. So when you can't make it to the office, you can still meet in person and be productive. Start working smarter today by signing up for your free 30 day trial of GoToMeeting. To get started, you just visit GoToMeeting.com, click the Try it Free button and use the promo code moth. That's GoToMeeting.com and use the promo code moth.

Meg Bowles (41:10)

This is the Moth Radio Hour from prx. I'm Meg Bowles. Our last story is from Mark Lukac. I first heard Mark's story when he called the Moth pitch line. We talked on the phone a few times and a few months later Mark flew to New York to share his story in front of a live audience.

Unnamed Apple Representative (41:32)

I came home from work one day and I found my wife sitting on the floor in the guest room. And she wouldn't look up at me. And I had learned to read her body language well enough to know that when she wouldn't look up at me, she had something she was really lost in. And finally after a little while, I coaxed it out of her. What's wrong? And she said, I've been thinking about what I'm going to do with the Vespa key. I didn't know what she was talking about. We have a Vespa.

Unnamed Apple Representative (41:59)

But.

Unnamed Apple Representative (42:01)

And so she said, when I go to the Golden Gate Bridge, I need to take the scooter to get there. And when I jump off the bridge, I don't know what I'm going to do with the Vespa key. I could leave it on the scooter, but then someone might steal it and I could bring the key with me, but they might not find my body. And then you lose the scooter too. So I've been thinking about what to do with the Vespa key. Now. I had been terrified that my wife might act on her suicidal impulses. I had hid her medication. I changed the hiding place every few days, but I didn't know exactly how I was supposed to hide the Golden Gate Bridge. I met and fell in love with my wife Julia when I was 18. When you're 18, you don't think about the future very much. And when I thought about it, I thought it was going to be bright and shiny. I didn't think that someday this person that I love so much was going to get really sick and that she was going to experience so much pain and that I was going to spend so much time afraid and worried about whether she would live or die. We married young and we had these incredibly charmed lives. And everything started to change when she took on a new job. And the stress she had to the work quickly became something much bigger than just normal work stress. It first manifested itself in not being able to sleep at night. And I would try to stay up with her and I'd try to talk.

Julia Lukac (43:37)

To her and give her massages and tell her, just relax, it's okay.

Unnamed Apple Representative (43:43)

And then I'd fall asleep and I'd.

Julia Lukac (43:45)

Wake up and she'd still be sitting on the bed staring at me. And all I wanted to do was help, and I couldn't do anything. And then one morning when I woke up, she said, God spoke to me.

Unnamed Apple Representative (43:58)

Last night and he said, everything's going.

Julia Lukac (44:00)

To be okay and I'm going to be fine. Which was unsettling to hear, but it was also at least comforting.

Unnamed Apple Representative (44:09)

And then a few days later, I.

Julia Lukac (44:10)

Woke up and she wasn't sitting on the bed. She was frantically pacing around the room. And when I finally cornered her, she said, I spoke to the devil last night. He said, it's not going to be okay. He said, I'm not getting better. He said, I'm not worth getting better. And I didn't know what to do. I was completely over my head. And so I took her to the.

Unnamed Apple Representative (44:31)

Hospital and I had to literally grab her.

Julia Lukac (44:33)

But she was kicking and screaming and trying to grab onto doorknobs in order to get her into the car to take her to the hospital.

Unnamed Apple Representative (44:42)

And once we got there, they admitted her to the psych ward. And let me just tell you, the psych ward is just as horrifying as it looks in the movies with the blank white walls and the bars on the windows and the little cups with medicine. And I visited her every day from 7 to 8:30 during visiting hours. Sometimes she didn't want me to visit.

Julia Lukac (45:05)

She was scared that if I came close to her, this thing that was inside her might get me too. And so in this perverse way, she was trying to protect me while I was trying to protect her. And. And I didn't know what to do. So I did everything because I thought somehow maybe I could love this thing out of her. Maybe I could say the right thing to her, or I could hold her close enough, or I could ask the.

Unnamed Apple Representative (45:33)

Right questions to the doctors, and I.

Julia Lukac (45:35)

Could somehow make this go away.

Unnamed Apple Representative (45:37)

But the days added up to weeks, and I had realized I couldn't. And the doctors were perplexed. She had no previous hint of a mental illness, and here she was. And as they described her, she was acutely psychotic. So one afternoon before the hospital visit, I went out surfing. And I didn't even really feel like surfing. I just needed to be in the ocean. And I paddled out way past the waves, and I was just kind of sitting in the middle of the open ocean, and I just sat there and I cried for a really long time. And I asked myself, is Julia gonna get better? Or is this it for us?

Julia Lukac (46:17)

Because I didn't really sign up for this when I was 18. I don't know if I can do this, and this is gonna sound like a cliche, but you have to believe me, this actually happened. Two dolphins swam right at me. And I heard. And they were right there on my right. They swam right under, and they were on my left. I looked at these dolphins, and I thought of how vast and terrifying the ocean is. And I saw them swimming together. And I knew then that if they could do it, so could I. And I was going to stand by my wife no matter what. No matter what. It turned out to be 23 days in the psych ward.

Unnamed Apple Representative (47:00)

And when she came home, she was very heavily medicated. And the medication changed her. It slowed her down. I'd ask her a question, and she'd often have to repeat the question to make sure she understood it. And then her answer was often just yes or no. Some of it actually changed her physically. Made her stiff, like arms frozen at her side. And some of the medication led to really rapid weight gain. And the worst thing it did was to her eyes.

Julia Lukac (47:31)

These beautiful brown eyes that I looked in and fell in love with when I looked in them. Now, there was nothing. It was just looking in the eyes.

Unnamed Apple Representative (47:38)

Of a non person. But, you know, we did what we could. We took one day at a time. We trotted along, we tried to tackle the problems we could actually solve. Like, for example, the weight gain. Julia hated the weight gain. And I thought, this is something I can do. I can do something about this. So I found a nearby gym and I called him. And they were only 10 bucks a month. So I signed us up, and they did group classes. And she loved group classes before she got sick. So we went to our first class. And this gym was 10 bucks a month. It was pretty horrible. It had bright red wall to wall carpeting and rusted machines and a tanning booth. And it was just. But we went to the class and I don't even remember what the class was called, but it was basically an aerobics class and it was all old Chinese women and us. And the teacher was an old Chinese woman and she didn't speak English very well. And I think she mostly made up what she was doing as she did it. So we had no idea what. We're just kind of trying to keep up and follow along. And I gotta be honest, it was awesome. It was so much fun because it was just the right amount of obstacles, absurdity and bizarreness that it could get me out of my life. But the thing was, in aerobics class, I had to do my best to not watch Julia, because in that class her slowness and the physical manifestations of her illness were most obviously on display. Now, when she was discharged, I took three months off work in order to stay home and take care of her. And I thought, three months is going to be plenty of time. She'll be fine. And after three months, I had to go back to work to keep up my insurance. And she wasn't fine at all. She was, you could say worse because she was openly suicidal at that point. And so I go to work and basically panic all day. And then I'd come home and pretend everything was fine and dance around the house and be goofy and just try to keep life light for her and for me. And this was our life for months. You know, for months I was her cheerleader and I was her watchman, but I was also terrified.

Julia Lukac (49:49)

And I was slowly falling apart inside.

Unnamed Apple Representative (49:53)

And for months, the doctors, they experimented.

Julia Lukac (49:56)

With so many combinations of drugs and different.

Unnamed Apple Representative (49:58)

Tweak this and change that and get rid of this. And nothing was working. Finally, after nine months, they sat me down. They said, we think it's time we consider ect. ECT stands for electroconvulsive therapy.

Julia Lukac (50:18)

And I know that a lot has changed since the 60s and One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, but when they said to me they wanted to give my wife shock treatment, that's when I really. I knew I was at the edge. And I once again feared, is Julia ever going to get better?

Unnamed Apple Representative (50:35)

But they said, we're going to give it one last try. We're going to give one last drug combination, another shot before we go that route and hope for the best. Two weeks later, we're in that aerobics class and I look in one of the mirrors and I see Julia and she's smiling.

Julia Lukac (50:59)

You have to understand how rarely she smiled. I smiled back and I stopped and I watched her for a little bit. And she was less slow. She was more in control of her body. She was coming back. And I turned and I faced her and I looked in her eyes. For the first time in nine months, I saw life again. I saw this spark of health that we all take for granted so much. And I knew she was going to make it. And I turned back to that aerobics teacher and I kept going so hard.

Unnamed Apple Representative (51:37)

I thought my arms were going to fall out of their socket.

Julia Lukac (51:39)

I was so victorious.

Unnamed Apple Representative (51:44)

I met and I fell in love with my wife when I was 18.

Julia Lukac (51:48)

And I had no idea how demanding.

Unnamed Apple Representative (51:50)

And scary love is, how much it asks of us.

Julia Lukac (51:56)

You know, I had no idea she would get sick. And she has bipolar disorder, which is a lifelong illness.

Unnamed Apple Representative (52:01)

It's going to always be part of her. It's going to always be part of me. You know, I didn't think about that. This person is going to someday die. You don't think about that when you're a kid. And I knew that would happen, but I didn't process it. And I now I clearly have a preference for what that looks like. I want us to make it into old age, but ultimately I don't have that much of a say. My wife's mental illness has added tremendous layers of sadness and uncertainty and fear into our lives. But it's also shown me that there truly is no greater reward than to.

Julia Lukac (52:40)

Love someone and to be loved in return. To lose someone into the deepest depths of depression and then to find yourself at aerobics class surrounded by old Chinese women in a room with bright red.

Unnamed Apple Representative (52:58)

Carpeting and to look into her eyes and to see that she was going to be okay. Thank you.

Meg Bowles (53:15)

That was Mark Lukac. Mark is a teacher and a writer. When Mark came to New York to tell his story, his wife Julia was in the midst of her second bout with suicidal depression. Her relapse occurred six months after the birth of their first child, Jonas. Mark said it wasn't as terrifying. It was still scary, but less so because they had been through it once before, so he knew they could make it out again. As I mentioned, we first heard Mark's story on our moth pitch line where you can call and leave a two minute pitch of a story you'd like us to consider. Just go to our website, click on Tell a story and you'll find a step by step how to so you can leave us your pitch. People ask what we look for in a good pitch and first and foremost, foremost we're looking for a good story. So my biggest piece of advice is just tell us the story. Obviously you only have two minutes, so try to summarize your story, including the details you think are the most compelling. Don't try to write it up in perfect language. That isn't how we talk to each other. Just call and share the story you'd like to tell. You can find all the stories you've heard in this hour at the iTunes store or on our website themoth.org, where you can also find out more about our storytellers. Thanks so much for listening and I hope you'll join us next time for the Moth Radio Hour.

Mark Lukac (54:52)

Your host this hour was Meg Bowles. Meg also directed the stories in the show. The rest of the Moss directorial staff includes Kathryn Burns, Sarah Haberman, Sarah Austin, Janess, and Jennifer Hickson. With production support from Jenna Weiss Berman and Brandon Echter. Moth stories are true as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Moth events are recorded by Argo Studios in New York City, supervised by Paul Ruest. Our theme music is by the Drift. Other music in this hour from Roy Buchanan, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Blue Cranes. You can find links to all the music we use in the Radio Hour at our website. The Moth is produced for radio by me, Jay Allison at Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, with help from Vicki Merrick. This hour was produced with funds from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the John D. And Catherine T. McCarthy foundation, committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world, the Moth Radio Hour is presented by the public radio exchange prx.org for more about our podcast. For information on pitching your own story and everything else, go to our website.

Dan Kennedy (56:06)

Themoth.Org okay, that's all for this week. Another full hour of stories from the Moth Radio Hour and hope you guys enjoyed it. This podcast is brought to you by Audible.com, the Internet's leading provider of audiobooks with more than 150,000 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 hey, if you are in New England, around maybe New Hampshire, let's say the Moth main stage is coming to Portsmouth, New Hampshire. That'll be Saturday, March 8th and for tickets or a list of all of our upcoming tour stops, just visit themoth.org.

Meg Bowles (56:55)

Our podcast host, Dan Kennedy is a.

Amy Brill (56:58)

Writer and performer living in New York.

Meg Bowles (57:00)

And author of the new novel American Spirit. Available now.

Dan Kennedy (57:05)

Thanks to all of you for listening and we hope you have a story worthy week. Podcast audio production by Paul Ruest at the Argo Studios in New York. The Moth Podcast and the Radio Hour are presented by prx, the Public Radio Exchange, helping make public radio more public@prx.org.