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The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Doctors, Prom, and Ellen
00:56:10
A high schooler encounters racism when he tries to go to prom, a young woman is afraid to tell her grandmother that she is gay, an English woman has to answer a tough question on her US citizenship test, and a doctor must make a life and death decision...
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- [00:00]
Sarah Austin Janess
As we approach the end of the year, I'm thinking about the next. Next year is the year I finally make my Spanish better than my 9 year olds. Rosetta Stone is the most trusted language learning program available on desktop or as an app, and it truly immerses you in the language that you want to learn. I can't wait to use Rosetta Stone and finally speak better than my 9 year old who's been learning Spanish in his own way. Rosetta Stone is the trusted expert for 30 years with millions of users and 25 languages offered. Spanish, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Korean, I could go on fast language acquisition. Rosetta Stone immerses you in many ways. There are no English translations, so you can really learn to speak, listen and think in that language. Start the new year off with a resolution you can reach today. The Moth listeners can take advantage of this Rosetta Stones lifetime membership for 50% off visit rosettastone.com moth that's 50% off. Unlimited access to 25 language courses for the rest of your Life. Redeem your 50% off at rosettastone.com moth today. This is a message from sponsor Intuit TurboTax Taxes was waiting and wondering and worrying if you were going to get any money back and then waiting, wondering and worrying some more. Now Taxes is matching with a TurboTax expert who can do your taxes as soon as today. An expert who gives your taxes their undivided attention as they work on your return while you get real time updates on their progress so you can focus on your day. An expert who will find you every deduction possible and file every form, every investment, Every everything with 100% accuracy all so you can get the most money back guaranteed. No waiting, no wondering, no worries. Now this is Taxes. Get an Expert now on TurboTax.com only available with TurboTax Live full service real time updates only in iOS mobile app. See guarantee details@turbotax.com guarantees the Moth is supported by Trunk Club where guys can discover the perfect clothes without having to go shopping. As a member, you'll work directly with your own dedicated style expert who who will pack a selection of higher end men's clothing specifically for you and ship the trunk to your door. You'll have 10 days to try everything on. Send back whatever you don't love. Trunk Club pays for shipping both ways so you only pay for the clothes you keep. Trunk Club is not a monthly subscription service. They send a trunk only when you request one. Get started today by visiting trunkclub.com moth that's trunkclub.com moth the Moft Podcast is brought to you by Squarespace, the all in one website platform that makes building your own website simple and easy. Squarespace recently launched Squarespace 7 with a completely redesigned interface offering beautiful templates, integration with Google Apps, and an incredible feature called Cover Pages. All Squarespace sites feature responsive design, so your site looks great on any device. Squarespace also offers 24. 7 live chat and email support. Go to squarespace.com themoth for a free trial with no credit card required and start building your website today. Get 10% off your first purchase at squarespace.com themoth Squarespace start here, go anywhere.
- [03:30]
Dan Kennedy
Welcome to the Moth Podcast. I'm Dan Kennedy. This week, once again, it's a new episode of the Moth Radio Hour. Bunch of great stories starting with Hassan Minaj. We had a great show that he was on in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, a main stage show that was a great night. He tells just a really moving story that only Hassan can make it funny.
- [03:52]
Sarah Austin Janess
He recently actually became a correspondent for.
- [03:54]
Dan Kennedy
The Daily show as well. Kathryn Smaika from our Seattle Slam series is going to tell a story. Mel Dockery, whom I think you'll love.
- [04:03]
Sarah Austin Janess
Jeremy Orvik is going to tell a story.
- [04:05]
Dan Kennedy
And to guide you through all of this is the Moth's producing director, Sarah Austin Janess. Here it is, the Moth Radio Hour, right here on the Moth Podcast.
- [04:24]
Hasan Minhaj
From.
- [04:24]
Sarah Austin Janess
Prx, this is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Sarah Austin Janess from the Moth and I'll be your host this time at the Moth, everyday people tell true personal stories for audiences all over the world. This episode has four stories, too long and too short, a physician's dilemma when his mother is his patient, A young woman's confession to her grandma, the shocking official questions on the road to US Citizenship and this first story from Hasan Minhaj about his prom night trauma. We met Hassan at one of our open mic nights in Los Angeles, and later he joined us to tell this story at a Moth MainStage in Portsmouth, New Hampshire with the theme Coming Home. Here's Hasan Minhaj live at the mall.
- [05:15]
Jeremy Orvik
When I was in the first grade, I fell in love with a girl named Nicole. And I remember I ran up to her in the sandbox and I said, nicole, I love you. And she said, you're the color of Po. I grew up in a small town called Davis in Northern California, and I was one of the few brown kids at my school. An aerial shot of our playground was just like a sea of white and just a few specks of brown. Here and there kind of like a modern day hip hop concert. And I just wanted to fit in, you know. And in the third grade, I remember Ms. Anderson had this assignment where she asked us to write down what we want to be when we grow up. And some kids were like, I want to be an astronaut. I want to be an NBA player. And I wrote, I want to be white. And Ms. Anderson was like, what do you mean? And I was like, I want this part of my skin to be all of my skin. And that's really what I wanted. I just wanted to fit in with everyone else. Now, my dad had immigrated from a small town in India called Uligarh in the early 80s, and he immigrated to Davis. And he was the only son in his entire family that made it to the States. And I was his only son. And that meant that we had very strict rules in our house. He was going to forsake our fun in order to secure our American dream. I mean, even the simplest tasks were such a headache with my dad. I couldn't even go to like a matinee movie on a Saturday. It was just like, dad, can I go to Lethal Weapon 4? I'm Aligar Sinai. Lethal Weapon 4. Hassan, are you crazy? We didn't come from Aligar for Lethal Weapon 4. That was like my life. And by the time my senior year had rolled around, I had been cut from the basketball team for a third year in a row. I had just gotten off vacutane, so my skin and face were peeling and I had yet to go to a football game or school dance. So I was just killing it, you know, just like really murdering the Davis High social scene. But there was one bright spot. And her name was Bethany Reed, and her family had just moved from Ohio, and she had curly red hair and she was just like, really pretty. And she smelt like big red cinnamon gun, even after pe. I don't know how she did it, but she just, like, was amazing. And we had AP Calc together. And she didn't know about the Davis High social hierarchy, so she thought my jokes were funny and she thought I was smart. And she really liked my AOL instant message game. Like whatever I lacked in real life game. My digital game was tight. Like, if you guys had added me on AM back then, ladies, it would have been game over. And we hit it off. We would just like, we had AP Cal together every day. And I remember she would invite me over to her house for study group. And I remember going to her house for the first time, and her family, they Were very well off. They had just moved from Ohio, and her father was this well to do cardiologist. And they had this beautiful white picket fence and this really nice Ford expedition and this dog. They looked like they were out of a j. Crew catalog, you know? And I remember sitting there and we were doing homework, and then we had dinner, and her dad was like, would you like some more mashed potatoes? Plop. And I was like, wow, white people tied. And she was like, hey, when can I come over to your house? And I was like, yeah, I don't know. I kind of had this cardinal rule. I didn't invite school friends over to my house. That's the last thing you want to do, Invite high school friends over to your house. Open yourself up to public ridicule. What language are your parents speaking? What are they saying right now? What's that smell? Nah, I'm not gonna do that. But Bethany was cool. Like, I felt like she got it. So on a whim, I just invited her over to my place to study. And I remember running home. I ran through the door, and I was like, look, mom, dad, school friend is coming over. Everyone be normal. And my dad's like, we're normal. He puts a samosa in his mouth. I'm like, jesus. Like, oh, man. I remember she came over, and we're on my dining room table doing integrals, right? And you can hear the hiss of pakoras frying in the kitchen. And my parents are arguing in Hindi and Gubbi kushi gubbi gum is playing on ztv. I was like, oh, man. And I'm looking up at Bethany, and I was just like, oh, please don't say anything. Please don't say anything. Please, please don't say anything. And she just looks up from her calc book and is like, man, that seems nice. And I was like, I love you. Can I marry you? You're my white princess. Can we do this? I didn't say that last part, but in my mind, I was like, oh, she accepts me, you know? And she kept coming over, and we kept doing integrals on the dining room table. And I remember one night, I was walking her back to her car, and we walked to the end of the driveway, and just right before she hops into her car, she leans over and just kisses me. Bam. Right there on the lips. No tongue. But fireworks went off in my head. It was the whole nine, son. It was bananas. And that was it. She just got back in the car and she drove off. She didn't ask me for anything else, she. She knew the rules. She didn't ask, could we be boyfriend, girlfriend? Can we hold hands? She knew my dad's rules. No fun, no friends. Especially no girlfriends. And that was awesome. Now, my AP Calc class was a tight knit group of overachievers. And our AP calc teacher, Mr. G, had a mission. He wanted us to have amazing lives outside of our calc textbooks. So I remember one day during spring quarter, he stands up in front of the class and he's like, all right, you guys are killing it academically. You're gonna go to the nation's best universities. But I want you guys to have lives, which is why I am making prom mandatory. And one of the kids in the back of the class was like, do we get extra credit, Mr. G? And he's like, no, you get life credit. You're going to prom. And I'm like, I'm sitting there in the back of the class, and I'm like, yeah, right, Mr. G. Are you serious? Have you seen this group? You think the Jehovah's Witness girl is gonna go to prom? Her parents aren't gonna let her go to prom. We had a Korean exchange student. You gotta speak English to go, hey, will you go to prom with me? That's not happening. They used to sell cup of noodles at my high school, right? And there was this kid in my class named Milan. People would eat their cup of noodles, then leave their broth on the lunch tables, and Milan would go up to the lunch tables and drink people's lukewarm broth. And I was like, there's no way broth breath is getting a date to prom. But Mr. G was focused. So he pulls down a whiteboard, and all our names are on a bracket leading up to the big dance. It was like March Madness for nerds. He's like, everyone is going to prom. And as the weeks went on, everyone got a date to prom. And then three days before prom, Mr. G pulled down the bracket in front of the entire class. And the last two names on the board were Hasan Minhaj and Bethany Reed. And the whole class erupted. They were like, oh. Oh, yeah. And I just looked down at my textbook, and I was like, there is no way dad is going to let me go to prom. Bethany was cool. She didn't say anything. She let the bell ring. And then I was walking to my locker, and Bethany chased me down to my locker and just stopped me. And she said, hey, look, I don't want to embarrass you in front of the class. But you've been my best friend ever since my family's moved here from Ohio. So I was just wondering, would you go to prom with me? And I said, yes. Yes, I will go to prom with you, my white princess. I didn't say the last part, but I said yes. You know, now I had to ask dad. Now, I'm a good kid. I love my parents. And I had seen a lot of sitcoms growing up. I watched tgif. I figured, all right, I'm gonna go home, we're gonna have a Danny Tanner moment. I'm gonna pour my heart out. He's gonna give me a hug. Cue emotional music, Roll credits. I'm going to prom. So I was like, dad, can I go to prom? And he was like, hasan mehtu mara mur tordunga. Which means, hasan, I will break your face. Duly noted, father. All right. Okay. So I went with option B. And I call up Beth, and I was like, look, Beth, here's the deal. I'm gonna have to sneak out of the house, all right? We're gonna take your dad's car, we're gonna go to prom, and hopefully you drop me off early. I'm gonna sneak back into the house, and if my dad catches me and kills me, well, yolo. You know what I mean? You live once. What an amazing way to go out, right? And she's like, deal. Let's do this. Night of prom rolls around, and I put on my JCPenney suit, and I climb out my window, and I have my trusty Huffy on the side of the house, and I hop on my Huffy, and I'm biking over to her house down Montgomery Avenue, and I'm balancing the corsage, and I'm making sure I'm biking extra wide with my knees out. That way my slacks don't get caught up in my bike chains. And the sun is setting, and it's this beautiful Davis evening, you know? And I get to her house, and I hop off my bike, and I'm walking up her driveway, and I get to her door, and I'm like, wow, I'm doing it. I'm going to prom with Bethany Reed. This is the American dream. And I ring the doorbell, and her mom opens the door. And then I look over Mrs. Reid's shoulder because she has this look of concern on her face. I glance over, and I see Patrick putting a corsage on Bethany's wrist. Patrick's the captain of the water polo team. And I look back at Bethany's mom. And she's like, oh, my God, honey, I'm so sorry. Did Bethany not tell you? You see, we have a lot of family back in Ohio, and we're going to be taking a lot of pictures tonight, and they're going to see them, and we don't know if it'd be a good fit for us. Do you need a ride home? Mr. Reed can give you a ride home. And I said, no, I'm okay. I have my bike. And I biked home, and I snuck back into my room, and I just played Mario Kart for the rest of the night. And that's the best I've ever been dressed playing Mario Kart. I remember the next day at school, before first period, Bethany found me at my locker. She was like, hey, look, in Mr. G's class, everyone's going to ask what happened. Please don't say anything. My parents are good people, and just people here at school wouldn't understand. Please don't say anything. I just stayed quiet. Seventh period rolled around, and Mr. G got up in front of the class and he said, so, lovebirds, what's the deal? What happened? And I remember looking up from my calc textbook, and Bethany was looking down at hers. I said, yeah, you know, I decided not to go. I wasn't really feeling it, you know. And everybody in the class turned and looked at me and was like, you jerk. You stood up the new girl. What a dick. And that was it. We never spoke to each other again. A few years later, my dad suffered a quintuple bypass. He suffered a really bad heart attack. And my sister called me and told me he was in the hospital. So I drove up from LA to visit him. And that was the most vulnerable he had been, physically and emotionally. And I remember sitting there next to him in his hospital bed, and I decided to share this prom story with him. And I remember at the end of the story, he was like, hassan, I'm mad at you. And I was like, why? Because I lied. Because I snuck out of the house and I didn't tell you guys. And he said, no, it's because you didn't forgive Bethany. You see, when I first immigrated to America from Aligarh, I was scared. I was scared of everything America represented. I was scared that, you know, you'd get into a gang or you'd start doing drugs. So I tried to protect you from everything bad that could happen to you. And Bethany's parents, they were scared of us. They were scared of some sort of thing that they had seen on tv. So they were protecting her from us. And you were scared of us, and she was scared of them. And everybody was scared of everybody but Hassan or Darna Mat or Tomara Himmat. Darna sesiyadohoniche. Hasan, you gotta be brave, man. And your courage to do what's right has to be greater than your fear of getting hurt. And there's some days where I feel like I can forgive Bethany, and there's some days where I feel like I can't. But I'm going to try to be brave. I'm going to try to be brave for me and dad. Thank you.
- [19:36]
Sarah Austin Janess
That was Hasan Minhaj. Hasan is a comedian and writer living in Los Angeles. He's developing a solo show of stories called Sakoon. I talked to Hasan the day after the moth show.
- [19:48]
Jeremy Orvik
A lot of times people wonder when I was standing there at that doorstep, why I didn't say anything in that moment. And, you know, in that moment, as I stood there on their doorstep, I felt that they were right, that I wasn't a good fit. Because, you know, Bethany's father was a very successful cardiologist. And they weren't just some toothless yokels yelling camel jockey from the back of a pickup truck. They were this well to do family that had had me over for dinner, and I believed what they had to say. They would smile at me from across the dinner table and were prejudiced through their teeth. And so as a 17 year old, I just felt that who was I to ruin this special day for them, you know, like, I really do and did feel that, you know, they were like this like J. Crew catalog of a family and maybe prom and this type of celebration wasn't for people who looked like me.
- [20:51]
Sarah Austin Janess
Has that feeling changed?
- [20:54]
Jeremy Orvik
Yeah, I think it's changed because of the fact that I've gotten the courage to share the story for a really, really long time. I was just like, too ashamed to share it. And now that I've been sharing the story and hearing from people that, hey, like, it's okay, you weren't in the wrong, I've experienced something similar to that, that I realized that there really are just, you know, different types of people in this world. And there are people that are, like, accepting, and then there are people that maybe aren't. I think the scariest thing about that lesson that I learned is that, and I wish I could tell 17 year old me was that it is this world is tough to navigate because there are a lot of people that may smile on your face but hold prejudices against Certain types of people, whether it's their race, sexuality, creed, or class in their heart. And sometimes it's very tough for you to determine that. But I guess we just have to have faith that there is a group of people out there that is ultimately good and believe in equality for everybody.
- [21:56]
Sarah Austin Janess
You said you're closer to your father now than you've ever been.
- [22:00]
Jeremy Orvik
This. This might seem weird, but storytelling kind of got me to reverse engineer a positive relationship with my father and a deeper relationship with the rest of my family. A lot of my family is from Aligarh in India, and they live in Aligarh in Delhi, and they just didn't know a lot of these stories about my life and me getting to do the Moth and have a recorded medium of these, like, key stories from these kind of pivotal moments in my life, and me sharing it with them has made us a lot closer. And at the Moth, when we do rehearsals, it's like it's five disparate people sharing, like, the deepest, darkest secret of their life. And then we all go have dinner afterwards, and it's like, if only more things in life are like that, you know, like first day at your job or the first day at school. I think the world would probably be a better place and everyone would be a lot more empathetic to one another rather than being like, hey, this is my name and this is what I do. If there are any young kids listening that are struggling with identity and are struggling with being proud of who they are, it's okay to be proud of who you are and don't worry about what people will think.
- [23:19]
Sarah Austin Janess
So since Hassan told this story, he did meet Bethany and he did forgive her. And he said their conversation was one of the best experiences he's had. Hassan and Bethany are both engaged and both to people of Indian descent. To see a photo of Hasan in high school, go to themoth.org Coming up next, two stories from our open mic slam series, one from New York City and one from Seattle. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
- [24:06]
Dan Kennedy
And presented by PRX.
- [24:08]
Sarah Austin Janess
This podcast is brought to you by Stamps.com getting your mailing and shipping done can seem like a trade off. The post office takes too much time, and a postage meter is too expensive. There's a better way with stamps dot com. Get official US Postage for any letter or package using your own computer and printer. Save up to 80% compared to a postage meter, and avoid trips to the post office. Right now, listeners of the Moth podcast get a special offer, including free postage. Go to stamps.com, click on the microphone and type in moth. This is the moth radio hour from PRX. I'm Sarah Austin. Janess. Ellen DeGeneres is beloved by many, but Katherine Smaika, our next storyteller, has a special place for Ellen in her heart. Kathryn told this story at one of our slams in Seattle. We partner with public radio station KUOW to produce this open mic series. And the theme this night was nerve.
- [25:06]
Kathryn Smaika
Short people.
- [25:08]
Hasan Minhaj
So for a long time in my family, there was a spoken understanding that my grandmother refused to watch the Ellen DeGeneres show because the host was a lesbian. And she used to say, the nerve of that woman being all gay in public like that. And my relatives used to joke about it at family dinners. And there was an unspoken understanding not to tell my grandmother that I was a lesbian. My uncle had said, you know, she's pretty old already, so you should just, you know, wait it out until she just walks away. So it became like another kind of family joke, like, don't tell grandma that Katherine's gay. And in college, I had this rainbow bracelet that I used to take off when I went into her house, even though I knew she wouldn't know what that meant. And sometimes she'd walk into the kitchen and I'd be telling a story about a girl I was dating and all of a sudden, like, tone of town to very G rated and be like, she's such a nice friend. And then it was just exhausting though and like the coming out process did it feel very freeing if I was keeping secrets. And so anyway, so I, you know, the challenge with my grandmother was nerve wracking, but she and I had that in common because she was no stranger to challenges. She had moved all the way across the country to be with her husband, who ended up dying really early. And she raised 12 kids mostly by herself. She never finished school. And she. I just, like, I didn't want to be one of those challenges because I thought that'd be really lame, like having a queer granddaughter, like, what are you going to do with that? So she. So anyway, so whenever we hung out, I was a total nervous wreck. And so it was late summer, about two years after coming out, and a bunch of people were at grandma's house. And the summer had been like, long and wonderful and full of this woman that I loved so much. And I was just sitting on the back porch smiling and thinking about her. And grandma came outside and I think we were talking about how my younger sister was about to get her driver's license, which is already, like, a terrifying thing. And then I asked her about how she and my grandfather met. It's a story I've heard a billion times, but I love hearing it again. She got this smile, and she was talking about what Grandpa was like in his early 20s and about their slightly sneaky courtship, because I learned a couple years back that she basically conned a priest into setting her up on a dinner date with my grandfather, which I thought was adorable and hilarious. And so she was. She was telling me about him. And she has great stories, but mostly, I love watching her talk about him. And I can tell that she still remembers exactly how his hand used to fit in hers and the intensity of his scent. He smelled like pipe tobacco and mint. And. And it's been over two decades, actually, since he passed away. And I know that she's thought of him every day. And she's telling me about him on the back porch that day. And she said, he was the best man I know. So you need to find yourself someone like that. Someone who will love you and respect you and tell you you're beautiful and someone to bring home to meet the family for family dinner. And without thinking, I said, well, I think I already have, Grandma. And then I was like, oh, my God. I said that out loud. So I was like, I don't know what to do. And I was like, she's going to kill me. And, like, what's going to happen? Oh, my God, I'm a lesbian. She's going to kill me. And so she said, is he a nice boy? And I said, yes, she is a very nice lady. And the two of us looked at each other for a long time, and I have no idea what was running through her head, but mine was going something like, why are you still sitting here?
- [29:07]
Jeremy Orvik
Like, run.
- [29:07]
Hasan Minhaj
She's, like, actually going to kill you. And she reached over and patted my hand and said, well, you tell her to come around anytime, all right? And I was like, what? And she. I looked over, and she had this smile on her face that meant she was thinking of my grandpa. And she said, you're my granddaughter, and. And I love you so much. And you should know that there will always be a place at my dinner table for you and whoever you love. And I, like, wanted to cry, and I wanted to hug her and also wanted to make sure that she knew I was telling her I was gay, to be clear. But she said she just kept looking at me and patting my hand. And so I was like, thank you. And since then, Grandma is the first to reprimand anyone who tells a gay joke. And my uncles are actually the worst offenders. And when someone says, like, okay, so a queer walks into a bar, she is the first to slap him upside the head and tell him to cut it out. And every once in a while, I will even see the Ellen DeGeneres show playing in the living room. As it turns out, Ellen DeGeneres is not the only woman around that house with a lot of nerve.
- [30:44]
Sarah Austin Janess
That was Catherine Smaika in Seattle. Catherine spends her days working at the newspaper the Stranger and her nights with lowercase, her literary magazine. Next, another story from the Slam series, this time in New York, where we partner with public radio station wnyc. The storyteller is Mel Dockery. Her son brought her to the slam, encouraged her to put her name in the hat, and she won. Here's Mel.
- [31:27]
Kathryn Smaika
In 1997, I decided to become an American citizen after 30 years, 33 years, actually, in this country. And the reason that I did it, I thought, was for a really basic and intrinsic American value, financial greed. Now, there are a lot of rules that you had to comply with, obviously, if you're going to become a citizen, fingerprinting eligibility, who you're married to, endless things. Have you ever been arrested of a serious crime? And I managed to crawl through all of those. And the final two things that I had to pass was the. The civics test and the interview to see if I was an eligible huddled mass to come into America. So I have to explain about the civics test in those days. I think they have lessened the number of questions. Now, there were a possible 300 questions that you had to be able to answer, and they were going to ask you 10 of them. So I was a little disappointed at the interview when he said, who is the current American president Clinton? What color is the flag? Red, white, and blue. Name two states other than New York and New Jersey. I picked Oklahoma and Arkansas, trying to make it a little bit harder. And then he said, who discovered America? Now, I know that another intrinsic value of America, because it was the founding father that said it is thou shalt not tell a lie. So here I was stuck. Who discovered America? I wanted to say, well, the first person that stood erect out of the primordial slime, I suppose, but I thought that wouldn't be a good way of phrasing it. So I said, the first people who were here, I could tell he didn't like it. And I said, well, I know, I know you want me to say Christopher Columbus, but that is politically incorrect. Somehow I managed to drag myself through the civics test and we came to the interview and it started off really well. You know, we had some pleasant conversation and I thought, I think this guy likes me. And then he said, will you be prepared to bear arms for the United States of America? And I said, well, again, can't tell lie. I couldn't kill anyone. And he said, why not? I mean, to be an American citizen, I have to say I'm going to kill somebody. But anyway, I said, I don't know, I just couldn't. And he thought a bit, and I thought a bit. And he said, do you belong to a religious organization that forbids killing? And I said, no. Then he leant across his desk and sotto voce, he said, how old are you? And even Softer, I said, 55. So he leant back and then he leant forward again and even softer he said, it's highly unlikely that you'll have to fight. Hey, presto. I said, fine. And he put a big check mark next to bear arms. So just know that if there's a war that breaks out and I'm carrying a gun or carrying the landmine, that's all I do. And somehow, miraculously, I became a citizen of the United States of America. And about a week later, yes, yay. About a week later, I had to fly up to Boston on the Boston shuttle. And of course, Boston, you have to fly around because you get stuck in traffic. And I look down and I see Boston harbor sparkling in the sunshine and I start to cry. My harbor, My tea party. And I realized that I became an American citizen for more than just financial greed. Thank you.
- [36:28]
Sarah Austin Janess
That was Mel Dockery. Mel is a retired corporate trainer in the financial field and she's been telling stories most of her life. After our break, an emergency physician must make a life and death decision for his ailing mother.
- [36:54]
Dan Kennedy
The Moth Radio Hour is produced by.
- [36:57]
Sarah Austin Janess
Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
- [37:00]
Dan Kennedy
And presented by the Public Radio Exchange.
- [37:03]
Sarah Austin Janess
Prx.Org the MOTH podcast is supported by Citrix GoToMeeting. Good communication is crucial for any business, especially when the people you work with aren't in the same office. That's why millions of small businesses rely on Citrix GoToMeeting. It's the proven solution for meeting and collaborating online. With GoToMeeting, you can share the same screen to review documents and presentations in real time. And with built in HD videoconferencing, you just need a webcam to see each other face to face. Try GoToMeeting free for 30 days. Visit GoToMeeting.com and click the Try It Free button. That's GoToMeeting.com I'm Sarah Austin Janess, and you're listening to the Moth Radio Hour. Some of the stories you hear on our stage started out as a pitch. People call our hotline or tell us their story through our website, and we develop these pitches for our live events. The next story from Jeremy Orvik began with this message.
- [37:58]
Dan Kennedy
The story I'd like to tell you has to do with my mother. I'm an emergency physician, and she about six months ago got diagnosed with lung cancer. Incredibly difficult to do this in about the 40 seconds I have remaining. But the real short version, she had a port placed in her chest, which in front of me. I don't cause her lung to collapse. And in the series of having a couple of anxiety attacks and other things that she had gone through that day, she began to go into cardiovascular collapse right in front of my face. And my story involves basically getting her into the ER real quickly. And as she's going under with sedation, anesthesia, going through the process of deciding whether or not we should even try to bring her back from this. There's a whole other aspect to my life this relates to, and no way I can do it justice here, but I do think it's a compelling story about, for me at least, being incredibly powerful, being incredibly powerless and standing by somebody who stood by me their whole life. Anyway, she's still alive and doing fine. Love to tell you guys more about it. Thank you.
- [38:54]
Sarah Austin Janess
We reached out to Jeremy. Maggie Sino, our senior producer, directed his story and he told the version you're about to hear four years after the original pitch, when the story had grown. The event was produced in partnership with Iowa Public Radio, and the theme was Heart of Darkness. Here's Jeremy Orvik at the Moth in Iowa City.
- [39:19]
Dan Kennedy
Thank you. The first thing that I remember in this life is actually a tornado. My mother had me on her left shoulder and my twin brother was on her right. My older brother was following us down the stairs into the basement here in our home in Iowa. I remember I could see the sky through a window over her shoulder. I could see the sky through it, and it was violent. I was a year and a half old. There were so many examples like that of my mother protecting us when we were children. She used to go after the neighborhood creeps armed with only her car keys. Yeah. Mind you, my mother was five foot one. She drank instant coffee. She had and she wore Fuzzy cat sweatshirts. She used to put her arm across me if she had to slow down the car very quickly, I think in the idea that she could protect me more than, say, seat belts or airbags could. I pointed out to her once that that required taking her hand off the steering wheel thingy. She loved me like that. Undoubtedly, my mother's tendency to shelter and protect everything that came her way contributed to my eventual desire to go to medical school and become an emergency physician. When I was 36, into my second year of practice, my mother started developing this pain in the right side of her chest. At first, I treated it as if it was maybe a pleurisy or a muscle pull. But as time wore on, we got some tests, and that eventually landed us with a diagnosis of metastatic small cell lung cancer. And this after she'd already had both breast cancer and melanoma. And I have to be honest with you, for the first time in my life, I was so completely defeated, humbled by this. I mean, so much had already happened to her. She had lost her parents and her brother, and my father, her husband had died when my twin and I were 16. And now this. And I suppose it was grief that I was experiencing, but the unusual grief of someone forced to wait for it. And perhaps particularly so because as a physician, I would see these patients with cancer come into my emergency department. These jaundiced, hollow, broken people, their families just wrecked. And perhaps more acutely so, as an emergency physician whose function it is to treat, to intervene, to do something, I knew that ultimately I would be rendered powerless to do anything to help this person who I loved so much. However, my mother decided to treat her cancer. And for my part, I made her a promise that I would keep her out of pain and that when her end came, it would be a dignified one. And we moved forward with treatment. When you treat a widespread cancer like that, it's generally done via chemotherapy. Chemotherapy is really just a group of caustic chemicals, theoretically more toxic to the cancer than to the rest of you. It has to get into the body in order to be effective. And over time, most patients elect to have a port or a portacath placed into their bodies to aid in the administration. It's less painful than multiple peripheral IVs. There's various styles of port, a cath, but at the end of the day, it's really just a tube within a tube, the second tube being one of your veins. My mother had her port placed here on the right side of her chest, under her clavicle on a spring morning. After the procedure, we waited for a couple of hours for her to rest, and then we went to the oncology center for her first round of chemo. The chemo was preceded by a few liters of fluid to hydrate the body and prepare the kidneys for what's coming. I was actually out of the room when they started the third liter of fluid. That's when the nurse came to find me and told me I had to come back, that my mother wasn't doing well. Sure enough, when I got back to her bedside, her heart rate was up and she was breathing very quickly. She was very sweaty, and the veins in her. Her neck were bulging, and her trachea was tugged over to the left. All of these are signs of shock, But a particular type of shock that can happen when the lung collapses. You see, the human lung works much like a bellows within our chests. And much like a bellows, if exposed to external pressure, it can collapse. As it so happens, when the surgeon had placed the catheter tip earlier that morning, he had accidentally gone through the rear wall of the vein up here in her chest. So the catheter tip was sitting inside her chest wall, and all the fluid we had been giving her all morning was pouring into there. This was collapsing her lung, pushing it over onto her heart, and very rapidly killing her. I don't know what the odds are against that complication I don't know what the odds are against that complication happening. When you have a son who happens to be an emergency physician, who happens to be at the bedside there to make the diagnosis. I don't know why my mother had to survive breast cancer and melanoma and a thousand heartbreaks in between to be diagnosed with lung cancer 20 years after she quit smoking. And I can't tell you why. My first memory is of a tornado. So there we were in the oncology center, really no emergency equipment available for me. I did the only thing I could. I picked her up, I threw her in the back of the car, and we drove to the closest emergency department a few minutes away. When I got her into the trauma bay, there she was, barely conscious, barely breathing. And I had about a minute before anyone came in the room to really think about it. You see, the way I saw it, this cancer was going to kill her. There was no question about it. No amount of hope, no amount of prayer, no amount of livestrong wristbands were going to change that. It was going to get her, and it was going to be awful. And Painful and drawn out. And the way I saw it is that perhaps the best way to keep my promise to her, to care for her, was to have this be it. Because there she was, barely conscious, barely breathing, but no longer in pain, no longer afraid. Dignified. And all I had to do to let that process happen, to make that process happen. I mean, no matter how good a doctor, how good a nurse came through those doors, it was going to take them a couple of minutes to figure out what was happening here. A couple more minutes to do anything about it. All I had to do was delay them. Withhold information, lie if needs be. And this would be it. Well, truth be told, I only had about a minute. And truth be told, I wasn't ready to lose her. So the ER doc came in and I gave him the 10 second version. He said, well, we need to open up her chest. I said, I agree. He said, do you want to do it? I said, no, man, that's all you. So he sliced open her chest. Fluid shot across the room, her lung re inflated her, her heart started beating properly, she pinked up. And literally within a few minutes, my mother was giving us the double thumbs. Yeah, my mother. It's a crazy story. I know. I can prove it. I have pictures on my iPhone. The decision of that day brought us another couple years with my mother. It bought us a trip to Costa Rica. It bought us a stupid cruise. I'm sorry, I'll just say it. It was just fat people walking around on a boat for a week. Sorry. Honest. Don't go on cruises. It bought us the best birthday of my life. Playing cranium on the living room floor of my home in Santa Cruz. My mother cracking up watching my twin try to pantomime out a bachelor party. It's tempting with a captive audience, but I'll spare you the reenactment. Don't beg. The cancer was what it was. And fast forwarding a couple of years from that day in the emergency department, my mother was having some confusion and some difficulty walking. So I took her back to the oncologist and we got some tests that we already knew the answer to. The cancer was everywhere. We had lost, and it was time. And when I asked my mother what she wanted to do, she said, you take me home to die. When I got her into her room, I had what would really amount to be the final conversation I would ever really have with her. Please understand. She was covered in her own urine. She couldn't walk. We weren't on hospice yet. Things weren't looking Good. And I hadn't slept in a few days. And I was growing increasingly more desperate as the things that made my mother. Her name was Sue. As the things that made sue sue were being taken from me. And despite my training, despite my background, with these hands, I was powerless to stop it. Hopeless, as helpless as the next person. So I offered what I could. I took her hands and I said, ma, I can end all this for you right now. I've had years to prepare for this day. I am ready for this. I can take you out and you'll never know what hit you. I did that. I looked my mother in the eyes and I offered to end her life. I knew that the offer could end my career. I knew it could land me in jail.
- [50:06]
Jeremy Orvik
I knew.
- [50:06]
Dan Kennedy
And I also knew that my mother, who had sued three life insurance companies when my father died, my mother, she did. My mother, who had remortgaged her house to help me pay for medical school. Sue, who chased the neighborhood creeps armed with only her car keys, could not be allowed to suffer. She heard my offer. She just stared at me for the longest time. She said nothing. And after a little while, she smiled just the tiniest bit. And two days later, and without me having to make good on that offer, sue died. Yet it wasn't really clear to me at the time if she had understood what it was I was offering, that I was trying to keep good on this promise and trying to care for her. But as time has gone on, as I remember that look in her eyes after I offered what I did, as I remember, that vast gulf of silence has become increasingly more clear to me. And I'm sure of it now, that in my mother's quiet acceptance of what lay before her and in not accepting the offer that I made, my mother while dying was saving me.
- [51:54]
Sarah Austin Janess
That was Jeremy Orvik. Jeremy is an emergency physician and surfer living in Santa Cruz, California. To see a photo of him and his mom, sue, go to themoth.org while you're there. You can picture your story like Jeremy did by recording it right on our site. Or call 877-799-MOTH. That's 877-799-6684. The best pitches are developed for moth shows all around the world. Here's a pitch we liked.
- [52:30]
Kathryn Smaika
Hello, this is Cynthia Riggs. I live on Martha's Vineyard. Last February, I received a package from someone I hadn't thought about for more than 60 years. And in the package, there were brown paper towels with pencil cryptograms on them. And I didn't have any idea what this was all about, but gradually the mystery unraveled. Sixty years ago, in 1950, I was a college student and I had a job in a laboratory in San Diego sorting plankton. I'd never been west before and this was thrilling to me. However, my co workers were no longer thrilled with the job. Here was this naive college kid who was a way to lessen the boredom, and I didn't have any idea what their pranks meant or their coded conversations. And finally it dawned on me that I was a joke among the veterans and I turned to Howie, this quiet guy, for help. I wrote him a cryptogram on a paper towel. Howie worked it out and it's all there on the paper towels he kept for six plus decades. Also in the packet was a coded message from the Howie of today which says, I have never stopped loving you. Howie didn't make it easy for me to track him down, but I did. June 15th was my 81st birthday. Howie is 90. He's got a book titled Living to 120. So I figure if I can make it to 110, we have a 30 year relationship ahead of us, which is more than most marriages.
- [54:22]
Sarah Austin Janess
Remember. You can pitch us your story@themost.org you can share these stories or others from the Moth Archive through our website or by using the Moth app, which is now available for iOS or Android. We're also on Facebook and Twitter hemoth. That's it for this episode of the Moth Radio Hour. We hope you'll join us next time. Our host this hour was Sarah Austin Janess Sarah also directed the stories in the show along with Maggie Sino. The rest of the Moth directorial staff.
- [55:06]
Dan Kennedy
Includes Sarah Haberman, Katherine Burns, Jennifer Hickson, and Meg Bowles. Production support from Whitney Jones. Moth Stories are True is remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Moth events are recorded by Argo Studios in New York City supervised by Paul Rueak.
- [55:23]
Sarah Austin Janess
Our theme music is by the Drift. Other music in this hour from Rudresh.
- [55:27]
Dan Kennedy
Mahantaba, Ry Cooter, Brian Bromberg and the Bad Plus.
- [55:32]
Sarah Austin Janess
You can find links to all the.
- [55:33]
Dan Kennedy
Music we use at our website.
- [55:35]
Sarah Austin Janess
The Moth is produced for radio by.
- [55:37]
Dan Kennedy
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.
- [55:50]
Sarah Austin Janess
D. And Catherine T. MacArthur foundation, committed.
- [55:53]
Dan Kennedy
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.
- [56:03]
Sarah Austin Janess
For information on pitching your own story and everything else, go to our website.
- [56:07]
Dan Kennedy
Themoth.Org There you go. Another episode of the Moth Radio Hour right here on the Moth Podcast. We doing this. We're getting through winter by bringing you more stories on the podcast. We'll be back soon enough, but as long as winter is, you know, pouring on the extra darkness, we're going to pour on the extra stories.
- [56:29]
Sarah Austin Janess
Our podcast host, Dan Kennedy, is a writer and performer living in New York and author of the new novel American Spirit, available now.
- [56:38]
Dan Kennedy
Thanks to all of you for listening and we hope you have a story worthy week. Podcast Audio production by Paul Ruest at.
- [56:45]
Jeremy Orvik
The Argo Studios in New York.
- [56:47]
Dan Kennedy
The Moth Podcast and the Radio Hour are presented by prx, the Public Radio Exchange helping make public radio more public@prx.org.