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- [00:01]
Apple Representative
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- [00:30]
Rosetta Stone Representative
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- [01:49]
Kathryn Burns
From PRX, this is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Kathryn Burns and I'll be your host this time. The Moth is all about true stories told live. And this week we're going to talk about mothers. Every year Hallmark makes her queen for the day, but we hear stories about mothers and the act of mothering all year long at the Moth. And in this hour we're going to play you some of our favorites. Our first story is from the actress and writer Molly Ringwald. She told it at a show we did at the Carolina Theatre in Durham, North Carolina. Here's Molly Rewald.
- [02:28]
Molly Ringwald
Hi. So a couple years ago my family, my husband ponio and my 7 year old daughter Matilda and our 1 year old twins move into a new house in Los Angeles which is in the best school district in Los Angeles. My daughter Matilda up until that point was going to school in a very progressive, Montessori ish kind of school that was very far away. She quite liked it, but everybody kept Saying, why don't you have your daughter go to this school? It's an amazing school. Everybody moves into this area just to go to this school. So we thought about it, and about after a year, we said to Matilda, you know, Matilda, what do you think about going to the neighborhood school? It's supposed to be really good. And she said, no. And so we thought about it, and about a week later, we asked her again. She said, no. We kept asking her. She kept saying, no, no, no, no. But her father and I decided, we're parents, and we're going to make an executive decision. And we said yes. Matilda kept saying no all the way up until she actually entered the second grade. But we figured, you know what? She's young, she's seven years old. She's going to get over it. She'll adjust. We all did right the first week. We knew that something was wrong when her teacher said to us at the first week conference, you know, in all my years of teaching, which was 16 years, I've never had a child like Matilda. You know, sometimes somebody can say this about your kid, and you think, wow, that's amazing. But in our case, we knew it wasn't very good. She said, you know, she amended it and said, you know, maybe boys, but not girls. And we said, oh, all right. Okay, what's up? Gender bias. But we had to listen to what she had to say. She presented us with an index card that was clearly in Matilda's handwriting that said, you're pretty short and little for a second grader, which I thought was sort of alarming, until I realized that it was actually written to a little boy. And I thought, she's flirting. I did that until I was well into my 30s. But then there were other things that we really couldn't ignore. She told one girl that she. She had a pretty awful name, but that she could change it when she turned 18. And then there were other incidences. When she would get mad if she thought somebody was laughing at her, she would throw a sharp pencil at them. Or sometimes she would go up to their desk and just tear up their work. So it was clearly a problem. And then they would give. In schools, in public schools, at least in Los Angeles, they do this thing called a reflection chart. And what it is, is they tell the child to explain what they did and why they did it and how they felt. And then the next part is how the other child might have felt. And that's to instill some kind of empathy. And what Matilda would write in the space was, blah Blah, blah. And translated, that's the eight year old version of fuck you. So Ponny and I, my husband started to talk to her and it verged on pleading, where we said, matilda, this is your first year at this school. If you keep doing this, you won't have any friends. And Matilda looked at us straight in the eye and she said, I don't need any friends. I don't want any friends. And this was very alarming to both of us. About, I would say maybe a week went by. It was probably about a week before Matilda and Ponyo and I both got hauled into the principal's office. And I can tell you that I never in my life had been inside of a principal's office, only in a movie. In fact, there was a scene in Pretty in Pink where I got called into the principal's office and that was my only experience, and the same with my husband. And we were both such goody two shoes as kids, you know, And Matilda's there with her feet up on the desk and the principal excuses her from the office and she talks with my husband and me and she says, you know, Matilda's a very bright child. She's very observant in my opinion. She's highly gifted, she's very funny. But if she continues this mode of behavior, I'm afraid that people are going to see her as a bully. And I can't tell you what that word meant to me because, you know, I basically made a career out of being the girl who stood up to bullies in movies. You know, all those movies, I think they really spoke to people because everybody has been bullied in one way in their life, but I was the girl who stood up to them. And it really meant a lot to me. And not only that, but I was actually bullied in my own life. In seventh grade, I had this bully, this eighth grader named Shirley Panini. That's not her real name, but it's really close. And I didn't even know who she was. She just showed up. I would walk down the hall and there she would be in her little Dutch boy haircut. And she would say, ringwald, I'm gonna kick your ass. After school, after school, I'm gonna kick your fucking ass. And I had no idea who this girl was. I just knew that she didn't like me for some reason. And she really scared me. And she scared me to the point where I told my parents that I wasn't going to go back to that school. They could drop me off at school and I would wait until they left and then I would leave. And I think my parents knew that I was serious because I left that school. So when I heard that word bully connected to my daughter, I thought, this is impossible. I know my daughter and I know what a huge and sensitive and compassionate heart she has. I mean, this is a girl that. When I put my father's teddy bear. I don't have very many things that belong to my father. So this was very precious to me. I put my father's teddy bear in the washing machine and. And all the stuffing came out, but I didn't realize it. I opened the machine and all I saw was stuffing. And I thought that I'd killed my father's bear. And I was devastated and I burst into tears. And Matilda saw me, came running out and offered to empty her piggy bank to get me another teddy bear because she could see how much it meant to me. I knew that. I knew Matilda and I knew that the school could not see into the heart of Matilda, but I could. And I needed to figure out what was wrong. So I went into this frenzy of self help books. I stayed up all night on Amazon getting books like your Defiant Child, your Edison Trait Child, your Trauma of the Gifted Child, and what to do when your child doesn't have all the Answers. I did everything I could. I went down this rabbit hole of child therapists and child psychiatrists and educational therapists. I even considered biofeedback. Anything to bring my lovely child back to us. One of the things that I decided to try was a social skills class because it was recommended to me, this class at a college, and it seemed like a good idea. And I presented it to Matilda and she said, no. And I said, too bad you're going. So we were in traffic for a long time, took us a long time to get there. And Matilda and I have this deal where she gets to listen to one K.E. song and I get to listen to one Ella Fitzgerald song. And then we have to listen to something that we both like. And in this case, it was a show called Radiolab. I don't know if many of you know Radiolab, but it's a fantastic show. I like to call it this American Life for Science. And it's a show that really speaks to both of us. And this particular episode was about zoos. And Matilda is a big animal lover. She really feels very comfortable in the company of animals and really cares about them. So I thought it would be a really good thing to listen to. And this particular part of the show had to do with gorillas. And before the 70s, gorillas didn't have. They were just in these concrete boxes in zoos and they were slowly going out of their minds. And this one man took it upon himself to change all that and to really give gorillas the habitats that they needed in zoos. And so Matilda and I are listening to this and they're describing this gorilla, the first time he sees sky in his life. And everybody, you know, the zookeepers and the specialists and the architects, everybody is standing on the other side of the glass watching this gorilla. The gorilla is just going to absolutely lose his mind. But he looks up at the sky and then he touches his hands to the grass, which he's never felt in his life. And he's closing his eyes and he's feeling the wind on his fur for the first time. And while I'm listening to this, I'm looking at my daughter in the backseat and she's mirroring everything that this gorilla is doing. She's looking up, she's closing her eyes, she's feeling her face, she's touching the seed as though it's grass. And I realize that my daughter is not in her habitat. And as her mother, I vowed that day that no matter what, I would find her habitat, I would find a way for her to thrive. And I can't tell you all the ways that I did it, but I pretty much made it my full time job this year. And a few weeks ago, I was on the playground watching Matilda hang upside down on the apparatus. They used to call it the jungle gym, but now they call it the apparatus. And she's hanging upside down with her legs locked with a girl. And this mother comes running up to me and she says, molly, Molly, you don't know me, but I need to talk to you about Matilda. And I thought, oh my God, you have to ruin this moment. I'm watching her. Really, you have to talk to me about Matilda. I said, what? What about Matilda? And she said, I just want to tell you that my daughter, Hannah loves your daughter. And I said, oh, really? Why? I love her, but why does she love her? And she said, hannah loves her because she said that she stood up for her on the playground and she wants to know if Matilda can come over for a play date. And so I told her that we would be happy to and we would be there with bells on. Thank you.
- [14:07]
Kathryn Burns
That was Molly Ringwald. Throughout her extensive career, she's worked with directors such as Paul Mazursky, John Hughes, Cindy Sherman, and Jean Luc Godard. She's the author of When It Happens to, a novel in stories. Molly lives with her husband and three children in Los Angeles. I recently sat down to talk with Molly. The first time you ever came to a Moth show, it occurs to me that you were actually pregnant with Matilda.
- [14:31]
Molly Ringwald
I was very pregnant at the time and somebody. And it was all sold out, but somebody gave me a seat, which when you're pregnant, you are so appreciative of that. So it made me love the moth forever.
- [14:44]
Kathryn Burns
So then I immediately wrote to you and asked you to tell a story and you basically said, no way. Discuss.
- [14:52]
Molly Ringwald
Yes. The idea of getting in front of an audience and not having a character, you know, it's not somebody else's lines, it just really terrified me. And I think the moth actually really did help me to a certain extent. I mean, I won't say that I have no fear about public speaking, but I think it really helps.
- [15:15]
Kathryn Burns
So give us an Update. How is Ms. Matilda doing?
- [15:18]
Molly Ringwald
Oh, she's doing incredibly well now. She's just getting ready to graduate from the fifth grade and she's part of the student council. She's Madam Secretary. I mean, that to me is a real testament to how everything turned around. She's still an iconoclast. She's always going to be an original, but I think she's learning to channel it. And she's also a really good friend. She has a group of friends and that to me is the most important thing. So, yeah, she's in a great place.
- [15:56]
Kathryn Burns
That was writer, actress and moth storyteller, Molly Ringwald. To hear more of my interview with Molly, go to themoth.org Coming up, a young boy obsessed with magic begs his mom to buy him a straitjacket for Christmas when the Moth Radio Hour continues.
- [16:14]
Production Team
The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts and presented by.
- [16:21]
LiveGood Representative
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- [17:50]
Rosetta Stone Representative
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- [18:53]
Kathryn Burns
This is the Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Kathryn Burns and we're talking about mothers. We've heard from a mom who was worried about her kid and now Anthony Griffith is going to talk about being raised by a real mama bear. This story was recorded at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago. Anthony has ms, so that's why his voice sounds a little shaky sometimes. Here's Anthony Griffith live from Chicago.
- [19:20]
Anthony Griffith
The earliest memory I have of my biological father is watching him at a Mexican standoff. He had grabbed pulled the knife on my mom and threatened to stab her to death. My mom, who had suffered physical abuse for years, took two bottles and broke them to hold them out as weapons. My mom's crying. My brother's crying. I'm crying. I don't even know why I'm crying. I'm only four, but I can sense the room was at best toxic. When my father went to sleep off his alcoholic rage, my mom grabbed my brother and myself and left the house. No extra clothes, no extra food, no extra money. She just bounced. It's amazing what a child remembers. From then on, I lived two different lives. One was that of being with a single parent, mom and all that entails, and my love for television. I love tv. I would watch magic shows and magicians, and I asked my mom for a magic set, which she got me. And I quickly found out to be a magician, you have to adhere to the instructions. If the instruction says, use a dove, use a dove. Don't use your best friend's parakeet for two reasons. Number one, doves are docile. They're quiet. They're not afraid of the dark. You can hide them on your person. Parakeets bite. And they're always talking. You can't shut them up. Another thing about doing magic is that if you're in the inner city and you perform for whites, whites are amazed. Oh, that's great. You're awesome. Brothers, not so much. In fact, if a brother can't figure out how you did the trick, they want to fight. They cannot. They cannot suspend their disbelief. Not so much for my mom. My mom was always there, always in my corner. And one Christmas, she asked what I wanted for Christmas. And I said with enthusiasm, I want a straitjacket. And sure enough, for Christmas, under the tree was a clean, never used straitjacket. And I asked my mom, years later, how did you get a straitjacket? And she said, well, I called an insane asylum. And I told them, my son wants to be a magician. How much does a straight jacket cost? But I was like my mom. She always went there and beyond to fulfill my dream. Another thing I liked about TV was I loved the show Good Times because it reminded me of my family because we're from the inner city, except their father. On Good Times, he didn't beat his wife. And even though they went through hard times, they were always there. And I felt my father could be like that because I received pictures around the house of times where my father, my mom, and the family would laugh. So I think if my father came back, that will be the same way again. And it seems like it was going that way because my father found where I was at. And he said, hey, you know, I love you. I want to see you. We're going to go play baseball. And so I got my baseball glove and my baseball hat and my. My cap and my mitt, and I waited by the window for my father. And in the meantime, my mom and I would play catch until my father showed up, which he never did. And this would happen over and over again. My father would call, said he was coming by. I would get my mitt and my hat and my ball, and I would wait for my dad by the window, and my mom and I would play catch, waiting for him. But he never showed up. As I got older, I stopped playing baseball. In fact, I think I hated baseball because it reminded me of my relationship and the lies that my father would always told and the disappointment in my life. Plus, I was getting older. I was a young teenager, and my life was changing because I was becoming a young, tall, black man from the inner city. People started to be afraid of me, and I didn't know why. Women would cover their. There are purses around me. Whenever I went to a department store, security would follow me. Police would stop me on the street, regardless of if I was walking or in a car. And I didn't know why. All of a sudden, I became the enemy of the state. And there was no man I could talk to to negotiate this part of my life. Even the father on Good Times, for some reason, had been written off and he was no longer on the show. And I missed my father. And as much as my mom wanted to help me, she knew it was best that she just kept her distance, because this was a weird way of a young man going through his rite of passage in the inner city. And I prayed that my father would come. And like God had answered my prayer, my father called one day and said he was in town and he wanted to come back and see how I was doing. And I was so happy because I was going to be with my father and I was going to tell him the man that I have become, and he's going to share with me what he was doing at that time. And so we went to see each other and we embraced, and it was tears of joy. And I told him that what I was doing, I was becoming a young man, and he was telling me everything he was doing and the new family that he had. And, you know, there's one skill as you get older that you don't have as a kid is how to detect bullshit, especially when it comes from your loving father. And as my father was talking, he started to blur. His voice started to blur into the Charlie Brown TV teacher voice. There's a part in the Bible, when I was a child, I thought like a child, I acted like a child, I reasoned like a child. But when I became a man, I put away childish things. One of the biggest things I had to put away that night was the fantasy that I was going to have with my father. He was going to come back into my life. We were going to do all the things that I wanted to do. He was going to show me how to negotiate and navigate through this world called life. I realized that wasn't going to happen. And that my father and my life was my mom. Because she protected me, she guided me, she taught me everything. And that the biggest magician in my life was my mom.
- [29:55]
Kate Tellers
Because.
- [30:07]
Anthony Griffith
Because she was the hero to create from chaos a world in which I could prosper. I could prosper and grow into the man that I was destined to become. And to her, I say thank you.
- [30:45]
Kathryn Burns
That was Anthony Griffith. Anthony is an actor who won an Emmy award for his performance in the television drama Our father. Anthony's first moth story, which chronicled his young daughter's illness and death over three appearances he made on the Tonight show, has been viewed more than 1.5 million times on the moth's YouTube channel. To get links to Anthony's work, go to themoth.org Our next story was recorded at one of our open mic story slam competitions. The theme was celebration. Here's Julian Goldhagen live at the Bell house in Brooklyn, New York.
- [31:49]
Apple Representative
When I was four years old, I lived across the street from my best friend in the entire world. His name was Colin. He was a year older than me, and we were completely opposite in every single way. I was a very girly little kid, which is what people told me back then. I grew up in suburban Florida in a two story house. Thank you, Florida, in a two story house with my mom and my grandma and my four sisters. So there was a lot of female energy floating around. And because of this, my favorite things to do were to paint my toenails and do fashion shows in my living room and choreograph dances to Janet Jackson songs. It was like euphoria. And across the street lived Colin. And Colin was kind of like a quintessential little boy, right? So he smells bad because all little boys smell bad. And he liked to beat up his little sister and play violent video games and fart and burp and drink pickle juice and do all this disgusting stuff that I had no interest in doing. But because it was more convenient for our moms, we were best friends. Now, this was not like a total loss for me because I could tell even at that young of an age that what I was doing on my side of the street with the Barbies and the nail polish and the pretty, pretty princess, that it was okay on my side of the street, but it wasn't really okay. And what Colin was doing on his side of the street was ok. So hanging out with him was kind of my alibi to cover up my true desires. Because I was so terrified of what would happen if somebody actually figured out what I was all about. Now I remember one year a column was having a birthday party coming up. And I was very excited because when you are a little kid and you get to be the best friend at a birthday party, it is beyond anything you've ever experienced. It is like being the maid of honor at a wedding. I'm thinking, like, great, I'm going to go, I'm gonna sit next to the birthday boy at the table. I'm going to hand him all the presents that all of his lesser friends gave to him. You know, like, maybe if I'm lucky, I'll get to stay late and help his mom clean up. He's like, only good things are awaiting me at this birthday party. So I'm waiting for the invitation to come in the mail, and finally it does. And so I give it to my mom to read to me because I can't read yet. And she sits me down at the kitchen table and she opens it up and she takes it and it says, please come to Collins Taco football birthday party. And I hear these words, tackle football birthday party. My heart stops beating and I'm thinking, fuck that. Fuck this birthday party. I don't want to go. I don't want to play with all these boys. I don't want to mess up my clothes or my hair. This is. That's not my idea of a good time. But of course I say none of this because I'm so terrified of what would happen if somebody found out. So I RCPs, you know, I buy him a present. I wait for the day of the party to roll around. Finally it does. I wake up and I'm terrified. And I get myself ready and I'm terrified. And my mom buckles me into my car seat and I'm terrified. And we drive the 10 miles to the park where this party is taking place. We get to the gates and my bones are shivering. I'm so terrified of what's going to happen. I know I'm not going to survive. But I can't say anything. So I'm not moving and I'm not speaking because I know if I let anything out, I'm just going to explode and give myself away, right? So we drive in and I can begin to see the football field. And there are all these boys there just like I knew it's all boys. It's a terrible thing to feel right about. And then we get closer still, and I can see that there are footballs flying in the air. It looks like some sort of weird medieval torture sequence. And we get closer, and there are balloons everywhere. And I'm like, what kind of birthday party is it that there are balloons? Like, who's in charge? You know? And so we're getting closer and closer, and I'm beginning to hyperventilate. And finally, the moment right before we get to the field, my mother, who is piloting this automobile, turns away, and she pulls into the farthest parking spot in the farthest parking lot away from the football field. And she turns off the car. I'm thinking, what's going on? You know, like, did I give myself away? How does she know what's gonna happen? Is she gonna leave me here? Is she gonna eat me? You know, like, what's going on? And so my mom, she turns around and she looks at me and she sees this terrified, quivering child. And she says, julian, if you don't want to go to this birthday party, you don't have to go to this birthday party. I hear her say this. I begin to cry, and I say, mom, I do not want to go to this birthday party. And so she turns the car on and we begin to drive away. And as we do, I can see that all the balloons and the footballs and the little boys get smaller and smaller in the rear view mirror until they completely disappear. We pull back onto the road, back to my safe, female empowered house. And nobody talks on the car ride home. Thank you.
- [37:10]
Kathryn Burns
That was Julian Goldhagen. Julian is a performance artist and arts educator. He's one of five children, all of whom, according to Julian, could talk your ear off with stories about their tirelessly devoted mother. Julian continues to abstain from any sort of organized tackling, particularly in birthday party settings. And his toenails are always painted. Coming up, when you know you're about to lose one of the people you love most in the world, is there any way to really prepare?
- [37:43]
Production Team
The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by the Public Radio Exchange.
- [37:51]
Kathryn Burns
Prx.Org this is the Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Kathryn Burns. Our final story is from Kate Tellers. I don't really think you can have a show about mothers without talking about one of the hardest things anyone ever has to face in life, and that's losing a mother. Kate told her story an evening we called Here There Be Dragons. She was seven months pregnant at the time. Here's Kate Tellers live at the mall.
- [38:21]
Kate Tellers
In our little house on the north side of Pittsburgh. We had one television. It was black and white. We kept it behind the couch and I was never allowed to watch it. Most nights it was my mother, my father, me, some wooden blocks. There was very little House on the Prairie, but in the 1980s, one day, though, when I was about 4 years old, I snuck across the street to my neighbor's house and she let me watch the Love Boat. And it blew my mind. When I think about it now, I can Just picture Gavin MacLeod dressed in a captain's uniform, making out with all of these beautiful women with perfect perms.
- [38:56]
Molly Ringwald
I loved it.
- [38:58]
Kate Tellers
When I came home, I asked my mother why they kissed in that crazy way. And that was like a really difficult thing for my mother to explain to me. But finally she was like, well, when people love each other, like a whole lot, that is the way that they kiss. So when she came in that night to put me to bed, I grabbed her head and I smashed it up against mine and I went like that and moved it back and forth. I loved my mother and my father so much. When our other friends, when people were getting pets and people would get like a guinea pig and name it Punky Brewster or like a Chihuahua and name it Sting, I got two goldfish and I named them Pumpkin, Paul and Lisa, after my parents because they were my rock stars. When my sister was born, they named her Alice. And we would go to parties and they would introduce us and people would laugh and they would say, oh, yeah, yeah, like Kate and Ally. And we would say, like, uh huh. We had no idea because we didn't watch TV that there was a television show called Kate and Allie on TV on everyone else's color TVs all around the country. It would be like naming your kids Will and Grace right now. But the rest of the world existed outside of our family. In fact, when it came time for me to write my college essay, I wrote my college essay on the power of my parents divorce because it changed my relationship, all of our relationships together, and took us on to our next adventure together. I did get into college, though, despite that. And about the day before or the day before I was to go to college, my mother and I were having lunch and she confessed to me that she had seen a doctor and she was sick and it wasn't a big deal, she was just going to have some chemo and she would be fine. And I really did honestly believe her But I couldn't unhear that. And I felt like I suddenly had to start considering a world with this big hole where my mom should be. And I would go for months and months and months, and I wouldn't think about it. And then I would be reminded of it. And we'd be spending time together, and it's like my brain would split. And part of me would be completely present, but the other part of me would be outside of us. And I'd be just taking notes and trying to sear them onto my brain in case I ever needed them. When she wasn't there. After college, I moved to New York. And I used to go. And sometimes on Friday afternoons, I would drive from New York City across the state of Pennsylvania to Pittsburgh to her apartment. And I'd get in really late, and she'd open the door and she'd say, would you like a glass of wine? And I would say yes. And we both knew that it wasn't a glass of wine, because it never was. And we'd go into the kitchen and she would have laid out all of these mismatched blue and white plates with homemade hummus and white cheeses and salty olives and these huge globes that she'd fill with red wine. And somehow, miraculously, we would sit at the table and talk and we would drink a lot of wine, but they would never be empty glasses of wine. And one night, we're sitting and we're talking, and she's laughing because she has just confessed to me that the hardest thing she ever had to do as a mother was to give me ipecac to induce vomiting. Because when I was little, I accidentally ate a bunch of her asthma medicine. There was these little red coated pills, and she could see the red in my mouth. And I had just confessed to her that I had actually eaten from this little container of Red Hot that we kept in our cupboard. It was the only candy in our house ever. And we used it once a year to put two eyeballs on a gingerbread man that we made. But I didn't want to tell her that at the time because I knew that what, whatever she was freaking out about was bigger than the fact that I had stolen sugar from the house. So she's laughing about this and she throws her head back and my brain splits. And I start to take notes. And I note the way that she laughs so big that I can see the cavities in the back of her mouth. And that when she brings her head down, she pulls her turtleneck up to her chin. And then rubs her hand over the ribs on her lavender sweater. And that her head is so small that she shops in the children's section at LensCrafters, which I can tell because the candlelight catches the brand on the arm of her glasses, which is Harry Potter. And we continue on like this until we're so tired and we go to bed. And for a while, things are very good. And then things are bad, and then things are good. And then one day, she's visiting me in New York City, and we're in midtown. We're about to get on the subway. We've just seen a show. And she stops me, and she says, you know what? Marian McPartlin, who hosts the show on Public Radio. Piano jazz that she loved. Marian McPartlin is having an 85th birthday party at Birdland, and we should crash it. And this is my mom. She is the most gracious woman in the world. She wouldn't go to a block party without forcing me and my sister to be in dresses and. And making homemade tabbouleh and bringing wine, the whole thing. But she wants to crash this party. So we're gonna go. And we walk up to Birdland, and we just charge right past the bouncers, and we go right up to the bar, and I squeeze us into some chairs, and I order the fanciest drinks that I can think of, which at the time were vodka gimlets. Cause I really liked those glasses. And we look around, and it's like an Al Hirschfeld dropped drawing of what's happening in jazz at that time. And I recognize, like, Tony Bennett and Nora Jones, and there's Ravi Coltrane. And the energy in the room is amazing. It's like we're seeing the show live. But in between all of these amazing performances, people are just loving up the birthday girl. And you can just feel that it's one of those nights that everyone in the room will remember that could never be recreated again. And Karen Allison, who my mother and I both love, takes the stage, and she starts to sing Twilight World. And I pick up my glass, and I look, and I turn to toast my mother, and she's glowing. And I take her in, and my brain splits. And I think, this is good. I can use this. Six Januarys later, I'm back in Pittsburgh. The doctors have told us that it's time to come home. And I'm in my mother's bathroom, and she's leaning on the sink. She's wearing these pink striped pajamas that my sister has given her for Christmas, the month before. And I see her look up and look at herself in the mirror, and I see a change come over her face. And she tells me to call a nurse, and she walks out of the bathroom, and she walks down the hallway, and she lays down in her bed, and she falls silent. And I know that this is the day that I have been afraid of for 10 years. My sister and I had made a calendar and scheduled my mother's friends and family to come visit her in these days so that she would never be overwhelmed by too many guests, but that people could see her. And now we're calling everyone and we're telling them, come over now for what will probably be one of the worst days of your life. But because I'm my mother's daughter, I'm doing this as I'm pulling her plates off of the shelf and saying, but also bring cheese. And they do. People start coming. Aunts and uncles, my father, my mother's boyfriend, my sister's boyfriend. We all pile into her living room. Someone puts in a Miles Davis cd. And we're milling around. I've put food out, and I'm filling people's glasses of wine. And people start to go in to visit my mother. And I hear her saying to them as she's laid out in her bed, can I get you anything? Can I get you a cup of tea? And I'm like, really? You're dying? Like, I am going to do this right now. So I start handing people saucers and empty cups, and I'm like, just carry this in so she knows that we're okay out here. And we do. And people go in with their cups, and I'm, you know, secretly refilling the wine and doing everything. And when hospice first came to visit us, they gave my sister and I this pamphlet. It's this little blue booklet, and it's called Gone From My Sight. And there's a line drawing of a ship on it. And it explains in somewhat poetic but somewhat technical terms, what happens to a body when a human being is starting to die. And I remember when they gave it to us, I kind of thought, like, I don't need your drawing of the Nina and the Pinta to sort of figure out this very personal moment for me. But in this moment, it's all that we have. We've never done this before. And my sister can tell from the way my mother is breathing that she doesn't have much time. So I go in to check on her, and she's gotten out of her bed and she's standing at her closet and she's reaching up for a sweater. And I ask her what she's doing. And she looks at me and says, I have to pack. And I don't know what to say to that. And so finally I say, mommy, where you're going, you don't need a suitcase. And she pauses and she scrunches up her face like she always does when she's thinking, and she nods and she lays back into her bed and she goes silent. And people continue to go in and they start to say their goodbyes. And finally it's my turn, and I go into her room and I sit down in her bed and I start rubbing her calves. And I know that I should say that I love her. And then I'll miss her. And then in 28 years, I can throw her the best 85th birthday party. And then after that, maybe sometime we'll explode in one big fireball so that neither of us would ever have to experience what it'd be like for one of us to live our lives without the other. But she knows all of that. So I just tell her that in the following November, I'm going to be a bridesmaid in my friend from high school, Jess's wedding, so that she knows that I have plans. And then I tell her that I'm really excited, that the dresses are green because they'll bring out. Out my eyes. And then that's it. And I leave. And I'm on the phone with Jess in the hallway when I hear my sister. My sister's a classically trained singer. And I hear this, like, Wagnerian wail hit all of these notes, and I know that my mother is gone. And we all gather in the living room, and we drink all of the wine and we eat all of the cheese. And I bring out this bottle of limoncello that my mother keeps for special occasions, because I figure that this one counts and I'm allowed. And so we drink all of that, and I go to bed. Everyone leaves. The next morning, I wake up, and it's the day. It's the day that I've been afraid of. And I go into the kitchen and I open up the front of the coffee machine and I empty out the grounds. And I realize that I still know how to make a pot of coffee. And I go into the living room and I sit in her big blue leather chair, and I open up my computer and I check my email, and there's an email from my friend Nick, who I went to college with. We email a couple of times a year and he's asking me how I am and, and telling me about his new job. And I just hit reply and I type, nick, my mom died and it's real. And I wait for that big gut punch to hit me, that emptiness. And instead I feel the strangest thing. I just feel sad and it envelops me and it feels white and it feels hot and I feel full. Thank you.
- [51:19]
Kathryn Burns
That was Kate Tellers. Kate is a performer, writer and teacher whose students range from fledgling 8 year old stand up comedians to Fortune 500 CEOs. She lives in Brooklyn with, as she puts it, her furry husband and dog. Full disclosure. Kate works with us at the Moth. Testing. One, two. Testing. Okay, so we have a little coda to our last story. And I'm sitting in the hospital with Kate, who has just given birth to her very first child, her son Fritz. So, Kate, you just told this beautiful story about your mom and now your mom. How you doing?
- [51:59]
Kate Tellers
I'm feeling really great. Not as exhausted as everyone told me I would be just yet.
- [52:04]
Kathryn Burns
That's good.
- [52:05]
Kate Tellers
You've only just begun.
- [52:10]
Kathryn Burns
So we often talk about how one of my favorite things about the Moth is how we get to know people who we've lost through the stories people tell about them. And you know, one of my favorite people I've gotten to know through the moth is your mom, Lisa. I love the idea that this little man can one day hear your story and get to know her a little bit that way too.
- [52:34]
Kate Tellers
You know, when I told my story the first time, I told it for an audience of 2700, do you remember, in Portland. And I had had all of these thoughts, having been a part of storytelling for so long, about what it would feel like. But the thing that I didn't realize until I did it was it was the closest thing to bringing her back because I felt like when I told it for those 12 minutes, all of us thought of her at the same time. And, you know, how often do you get to do that, to be in a room of people who are all thinking about the thing that is at that point most important to you.
- [53:09]
Kathryn Burns
To see pictures of Kate and her mom and Kate and fritz, go to themoth.org so that's it for this episode. We hope you'll join us next time for the Moth Radio Hour.
- [53:29]
Production Team
Your host this hour was the Moth's artistic director, Kathryn Burns. Kathryn also directed the stories in the show along with Maggie. The rest of the Moss directorial staff includes Sarah Haberman, Sarah Austin, Janess, Jennifer Hickson and Meg Bowles. Production support from Whitney Jones, Janelle Pifer, and Kirsty Bennett. 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 RU West. Our theme music is by the Drift. Other music in this hour from the Chandler Travis, Three Zero, Richard Thompson, Felix LeBond, and Marion McPartland. The Moth is produced for radio by me, Jay Allison with Vicki Merrick at Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. 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. MacArthur 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, themoth.org.