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- [00:03]
Jennifer Hickson
We're celebrating 250 years of the American dream. Two and a half centuries of being tantalized by the possibility of possibility. We all have a version of it. The notion that where you begin has nothing to do with where you end up. That anything is possible. Run for office. Live. Off the grid. Hit a homer. Build robots. Teach goat yoga. Anything. This spring, the Moth Main Stage is traveling to cities around the country with stories of the American Dream. Does it even exist anymore?
- [00:34]
Ad Host / Sponsor Voice
For who?
- [00:35]
Jennifer Hickson
What happens when that dream is dashed or deferred? And what happens when the dream is fulfilled? Let's come together and listen to people telling true personal stories of their very own. American Dreams. Experience the Moth Main Stage live. Find a city near you@themost.org MainStage.
- [00:56]
Brad Ewell
Foreign.
- [01:02]
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- [02:01]
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My 2026 resolutions aren't about doing the.
- [02:04]
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Most, they're about finding joy in my everyday.
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- [02:19]
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- [02:28]
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- [02:48]
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- [02:57]
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- [03:14]
Jennifer Hickson
This is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm your host Jennifer Hickson. In this hour, variations on the question does the truth set you free?
- [03:22]
Narrator / Producer Voice
Does it?
- [03:23]
Jennifer Hickson
Coming up, stories of confessions, culpability, and sometimes redemption. And occasionally the truth shows up when you aren't even searching for it. We're going to start with a story that we first heard at the Moth's pop up porch, which is a tiny house on wheels that we've carted around various cities in the United States searching for new tellers and stories. When we parked in Dallas, Texas, Brad Yule showed up to share a story around a bit of information that had shook up his world. We were intrigued. Later, we developed it for a mainstage show at the Moody Performance hall where we partnered with AT&T performing arts Center. From Texas, here's Brad Ewell.
- [04:04]
Narrator / Producer Voice
So it was 2019. I was 48 years old, had been in my career for 25 years, had been married to my wonderful wife for 27 years. We had three great kids who were growing up too fast. And my parents were still alive, lived close by together and still in our lives. My life changed in March of that year with a text message. My wife and I had done ancestry DNA several years before this just to kind of find out where we came from. And through that, a woman had reached out to her trying to figure out how the two of us were related. My wife gave her a ton of answers. All of those got shot down after we sent them back to her. And we were kind of at a dead end until this text message came through. And when this text message came, everything was different because she had an answer herself. She said that her sister had a baby boy born in 1970 in Dallas on my birthday and she thought it was me and that my parents just never told me they adopted me. That sounds like a shock. And it was initially, and it really turned into kind of blowing it off and thinking this poor lady is out in left field and we got to help her. So we agreed we're going to do some research, get her back on the right track. I'll look at my birth certificate, we'll figure some things out, and we'll help her out. In less than 24 hours, all I had was more questions than answers. I suddenly realized that my mom had never talked about being pregnant with me. I had never had the mom guilt trip of I was in labor for you for this many hours and this is what you've done or how you treated me. And I had never seen a picture of her pregnant. So I came to the hard conclusion that at 48 years old, I was going to have to ask my parents if I was adopted. I came up with a brilliant plan to call my dad's cell phone because he never answers his cell phone, leave a message and plan a lunch date where we can get together, talk. And eventually I'm going to weave into the conversation. Hey, funny story. This lady says I'm adopted. That's not right, right? For the first time. And as long as I can remember, instead he answered the phone. So after a little small talk, I went to hey, let's go have lunch together. And he's like, oh, yeah, sure. Why Will? Nothing important. I went through all the reasons why you might need to talk to your parents at that age. Everything was fine. And the more I deflected, the more he'd come back to, I want to meet you for lunch. I just want to know what we're going to talk about. So I finally gave up and realized that I'm going to ask my 79 year old dad over the phone if I'm adopted. And that's why I said, dad, this lady's reached out to us saying that her sister had a boy and it's me and the child adopted me, didn't tell me, is that true? And there was nothing but silence on the other end of the phone. I could hear his fingers drumming on what later I learned was his dashboard. He had run an errand that day and that's why he answered his cell phone. And after a long pause, I got, yeah, Bradley, you're adopted. And we've been trying to figure out how to tell you. If that initial 48 year old secret wasn't a big enough shock, it came with two more. My birth mother had died 19 years before I ever found out I was adopted. I was never going to close that part of my story up. The flip side of that was my biological father is very much alive, but he had been in Angola State Penitentiary in Louisiana for the last 50 years for murder. So that sent me on a mad research dash to find out everything I could about this man, why he was in prison, who he was, anything I could learn about him. Back in Louisiana in the 70s, they didn't keep a whole lot of court records. Everything I found ended up being through the newspaper. I was able to piece together his crime, his eventual conviction. I actually found a picture of the man he killed wrapped in a sheet laying on the side of the road while I did all this research. I was really okay with the story. It was a weird story to have, but as long as I didn't personalize it for myself, that was fine. It was just a funny story to tell. People, people. All that changed when newscaster Lester Holt decided to do a 48 hour special on Angola State Penitentiary. He spent three nights there, recorded everything, met a bunch of people, recorded everywhere in the prison. And when I watched that, everything suddenly became personal. Where I had made my dad a very or my biological father a concept in my life, all of a sudden he was a real person in a real place that I had now seen and I couldn't stop thinking about it. That led to therapy, and therapy led to a pretty quick conclusion of I have to meet my biological father once to put that part of my story to bed just so I can have it done. Going to Angola gave me a lot of time to think about what it was going to be like to meet him. It's an eight hour drive out there and this is probably a good time to tell you all that successful 25 year career I talked about at the first of the story has been as a police officer. So I already had a vision of who I was going to meet. I'm not saying everybody in prison and jail is like this, but I am saying the majority of the people I've dealt with are not responsible for anything that happened in their lives. If the world was more fair, they wouldn't be there. And at the end of the day, none of this was their fault. Before I became a police officer, I worked in the jail. I learned in the jail that I couldn't ask anybody what they had done. I had to say, what did they say you did? And then you would tell me why you were in jail. Because nobody in jail had done anything. So this was the man I was expecting to find just based on my past experience and after a 48 year cover up, I was not interested in having somebody else that was just going to BS me and tell me more stories. Getting to Angola is different than anywhere else I've ever been before. It's a beautiful tree lined blacktop road. You're in rural Louisiana. It's not a bad drive. Suddenly you round a bend of trees and you find yourself staring at a prison gate that says Louisiana State Penitentiary and a crossbar across the whole road. And you can either turn around and go back where you came from, or you go to prison. There's no other place to go. So I got checked into the prison, ferried back to the camp he was in, and found myself sitting in a visitation room. That visitation room didn't really look like the visitation rooms you see in movies. There wasn't a glass between everybody. It looked more like an old church meeting room. It was white cinder block walls, tan tiles. There's a mural painted on one wall with these white plastic tables and the same plastic chairs I sat in in high school. So I sat down and started wondering if I was going to recognize him when he came in, because I had seen some pictures of him, but none that were super recent. When he walked in the room, I knew immediately who he was. It just clicked. I looked at him, I was like, oh, that's what I look like when I'm 70. Okay, got it. Cool, huh? I stood up, held onto the table to keep myself standing, and watched as he walked towards me and ran through. All the things you do when you meet your father for the first time. Do you hug him? Do you kiss him? Do you shake his hand? Do you just say hello? He didn't know about me until I knew about him. My mom kept her pregnancy secret from him, and my parents kept my biological family secret from me. He walked up, we did the dude handshake and hug thing and both sat down and he started off. Our conversation with, son, it's good to meet you. And I want to start out by being honest. Well, all the alarm bells went off in my head because all these years of work, when you say, I want to be honest with you, that's usually the last thing that's going to happen the rest of the conversation. So all my defenses went up and I thought, okay, here we go. Let's see what this is. And he said, I could tell you that I'm in prison because of drugs and alcohol, because I was doing both of those when I committed my crime. But the truth is, I did a horrible thing that I can never take back or fix, and that's why I'm here today. From the moment he said that, I was hooked because he was suddenly an adult, even though I'm an adult now, being honest with me. And after that, instead of dropping that subject, he continued on about his life prior to prison and his life in prison. That didn't paint him in a better picture. The more he talked, the more I kept thinking, man, you should stop. I would never know this about you, and that's cool. It's good, you should stop telling things. But he kept going and he kept going, and when he finally got done, we tried to catch up. As you can imagine, a man in his 70s and a man in their 40s getting to know each other for the first time as father and son. We talked about my life as a kid, his life as a kid and as an adult before he ended up in prison, and weirdly enough, circled all the way back to my job as a copy in his life of crime before he went to prison, and how cops and criminals had changed from the 60s and 70s to the now 2000s. And we're all very different. At the end of the visit, I left and got out to the prison gate, still a little confused, because this was my planned one and done visit. I didn't intend to do more than one of these. First person I've called, of course, was my wife. She was excited and probably a little bit nervous because I had told her I'd be in there an hour or two. They let me stay for eight hours. So she picked up the phone, she's like, how'd it go? And I was like, I don't know what to tell you, but I genuinely like this man. I don't know what to do with that. So I drove back, settled into the idea that I'm going to go visit him again soon. We'll get to know each other more. I didn't know prison. I knew by then, but I didn't know initially prison had email. You can email people in prison. So we were emailing, calling, and I was already thinking, okay, it's going to be another visit pretty soon. Instead, less than a month later, the dad that had raised me my whole life died. Three weeks after my dad died, that little COVID pandemic started, and there was no prison visitation anymore. The upside to Covid was they suddenly instituted video visitation. So instead of just talking to him on the phone and writing emails, I could see him once a week for 10 minutes at a time as we got to know each other, which kept him a real person in my head because I could see him all the time. The more we got to know each other, the more I found myself liking him more and thinking I couldn't really understand why he was still in prison. I knew he took another man's life. I knew what his sentence was, but it didn't seem to be serving anybody any more purpose. He had rehabilitated. I felt like he was nowhere near the man that he was in 1972 when he walked in. And I started wondering about what would be the possibility of ever getting him out. While I was going through that, the Louisiana state legislator was also working on some bills that would help men like him have the eligibility for parole that they had never had before. While we were getting to know each other, one of the things that happened was he and I kept talking back and forth. I called him Jim. Jim was his name that was safe. That still kept him at a little bit distance, and that made me feel safe. But then I started realizing I liked him and I was lying to myself. Yes, his name was Jim, but he was also my father. But I couldn't call him dad because I had an awesome dad and I wasn't cool with letting anybody else share that title. So we bounced back and forth in conversation. He suggested father one time that reminded me of Star Wars. Like, that's too formal. I'm not doing that. So we settled on Pop. And Pop and I kept getting to know each other, kept talking. Luigi and the legislator kept doing what they were doing. And finally they proposed a bill that would make him ultimately eligible for parole for the first time in his life in 50 years. While we were waiting for that bill to become law and finally happen, Covid visitation restrictions finally lifted and I could go see him. During that visit, we really talked more about what it would be like if he actually got out. There was no guarantee. Only thing that he was guaranteed was a parole hearing at some point, but no guarantee of actually getting out. But we were daydreaming. At the end of that visit, he got up to be escorted out of the visitation room and go be searched and taken back to his dorm. And he stopped at the doorway and with this big vandal's grin, says, hey, I love you, son. And I stood there dumb looking, like I didn't know what to say because I'd been thinking I loved him for a while. I didn't know how to tell him that, didn't know if he wanted to hear that from me. And I finally mumbled like, I love you too, Pop. And just. And then he was gone. So I found myself in November of last year back in Angola State Penitentiary, sitting in a room with him for his first parole hearing in 50 years. The terrifying part about a parole hearing was it was a unanimous vote to be released. If one person didn't like you, out of the three person panel, you were staying in prison for the remainder of your life. The first two votes came pretty quickly. One lady looked like a Kindergarten teacher. She was cool with anything anybody said, nodded the whole time. She was thrilled to be there. And as soon as she could vote, she's like, oh, I think he should have parole. Okay, cool. The second guy had a longer speech, but pretty quickly voted for parole. The third person that was the final vote had looked mad during the entire hearing. Frowned, brow furrowed, arms crossed. It was like we had interrupted his kid's birthday party and made him come to a parole hearing, and it wasn't cool with him. And he started off on a speech about punishment, the need for people that commit horrible crimes to be in prison, why it's important to keep people in prison for an appropriate amount of time. And the more he talked, the more I thought, oh, we're screwed. This is done. I thought we had a shot, but it's going to crush me to watch him not be able to walk out. I should also mention, during this hearing, the family of the victim testified against my father's release. That was a gut punch to me and for my father, too, because we got to hear what the effect of his crime had been long term on a family that he had never known anything about. So as we watched this last man process all of that, he finally paused in the middle of his speech and said, but and but. Came with a conversation about redemption and change and the good things that can happen to people in prison to make them worthy for a second chance. At the end of the speech, he voted yes for parole. And. I jumped up. I hugged my dad, my pop, and just kept telling him, it's over, we're done, you're coming home. And after that hearing, I found myself the next day sitting outside Angola waiting for him to come out instead of me going in. When he walked out, it was probably the third best day in my life. Short of marrying my wife and watching my kids be born, there was nothing cooler I'd ever seen. Since that day, we've gotten to get to know each other in a normal way. If any of y' all are old enough, if you're young, Google it when you get home. Bedknobs and Broomsticks won as the best special effects movie the year he went to prison. Great movie. I got to take him to see Avatar 2. I can't tell you anything that happened in Avatar 2, but I can tell you that watching him was fun because it was nothing he had ever seen before on a big screen like that. On top of all that, he gets to support me in some of my fun endeavors like this one here tonight, because he's here celebrating about six months of release. And to that, I just want to say that I'm proud that you're here with me, and I love you, and I'm glad you're in my life. Thank y'. All.
- [19:38]
Jennifer Hickson
That was Brad Ewell. Brad says that pop lives about 45 minutes away, and they see each other regularly. Since retiring from the police force in 2024, Brad is now focused on art and photography, tapping into an artistic side he always felt but rarely acted upon. He's also a board member for an organization that helps people who've had DNA surprises. It's called Right to Know. I called Brad to talk to him about life since the story and how things are going at the nonprofit.
- [20:09]
Brad Ewell
It is going great. We're, you know, we're always looking to help more and more people. You know, the longer that consumer DNA tests are out there, the more people that are getting surprises, and that's just the trend that will continue. I don't think you'll ever see a stop in the surprises. So we work constantly for reform on birth certificates so people don't have to try to fight to get their original birth certificate and find out where they came from genetically. And outside of that, we're working hard to provide support for all the people that are having this happen like I did. I know that you learned about your.
- [20:47]
Jennifer Hickson
Origin story really late in life, so.
- [20:48]
Brad Ewell
I'm sorry you never got to meet your mom.
- [20:51]
Jennifer Hickson
Do you ever wonder about how you.
- [20:52]
Brad Ewell
Would have responded to the news that.
- [20:55]
Jennifer Hickson
Your father was in prison when you were a younger man?
- [20:59]
Brad Ewell
You know, I really have. I think. I think that was one of the parts where I was very fortunate in my life. What I've told people, what other people have always said, is that people who could be very good criminals are usually the ones that become good cops. And I could say, looking at myself in the mirror and just being honest with myself, had I grown up in a completely different environment than I did, I very likely may have ended up exactly where my father was at some point. I think that could have gone either way for me. And it was just who ended up raising me at the time I was raised. Yeah.
- [21:37]
Ad Host / Sponsor Voice
How about. How about what is Pop up to these days?
- [21:41]
Brad Ewell
You know, he has been really living his best life. He is back together with the woman that he was married to when he went to prison. What. What Pop tells me all the time is every day out here is a much better day than any day he had in there. So he's just soaking up every day. You can get, you know, when you, when you spend that long, I think in prison, just going to the grocery store is a pretty cool thing, right? It, it takes very little to be a big deal when most of your life has been so confined.
- [22:16]
Jennifer Hickson
And it was 50 years he was in there.
- [22:18]
Brad Ewell
Yep. What's something loving you could say to adoptive parents who feel nervous about telling their kids? Even though I've built a great relationship with my biological father, my dad will always remain the person that was my dad and that's the one that raised me because that, that was who was in my life. So when you look at it, it's the best way I try to describe it to people is it's no different than grandparents. Nobody looks around and says, oh my gosh, this kid can only like one set of grandparents because all of us get two or most of us do, unless, you know, something bad happens. But parents can be the exact same way if it's viewed much more like a bonus family than a threat to the current family. I think everybody works out in a better situation. And it doesn't, it in no way negates what the adoptive raising parents did for did for that kid. It doesn't negate what my parents did for me. You know, it, it made some complications because they didn't tell me for so long, but it never negated all the things they did for me as their child.
- [23:31]
Jennifer Hickson
I love how you put that.
- [23:32]
Sponsor Voice / Ad Reader
Beautiful.
- [23:44]
Jennifer Hickson
To see a picture of Brad Ewell with Pop and some of their artwork, visit themoth.org you can share these stories or others from the Moth Archive and buy tickets to the Moth storytelling events in your area through our website themoth.org there are moth events year round. Find a show near you and come out to tell a story. And you can find us on social media too. Just search for the Moth in a moment. As we talk about trees, truths and secrecy, an immigrant teenager fields an anonymous call. That's next on the Moth Radio Hour.
- [24:31]
The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
- [24:39]
Narrator / Producer Voice
Foreign.
- [24:43]
Gabby Fernandez Sanchez
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- [26:54]
Sponsor Voice / Ad Reader
Right?
- [26:54]
Ad Host / Sponsor Voice
And the best part?
- [26:55]
Jennifer Hickson
They accept Discover.
- [26:56]
Ad Host / Sponsor Voice
Except Discover in a little place like this? I don't think so. Jennifer.
- [27:01]
Jennifer Hickson
Oh yeah, huh?
- [27:02]
Discover is accepted where I like to shop. Come on baby, get with the times.
- [27:07]
Ad Host / Sponsor Voice
Right. So we shouldn't get the parachute Panther.
- [27:10]
Jennifer Hickson
These are making a comeback, I think.
- [27:14]
Narrator / Producer Voice
Discover is accepted at 99% of places that take credit cards nationwide, based on the February 2025 Nielsen report.
- [27:23]
Jennifer Hickson
This is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Jennifer Hickson. We're sharing stories about the impact of Truth. Our next story was told in Grand Rapids, where we partner with Michigan Public Radio. Here's Gabby Fernandez Sanchez.
- [27:43]
Ad Host / Sponsor Voice
When I was 15, our car got hijacked at gunpoint. It was my parents, my brother and I. We were on our way to a birthday party that my mom had baked and decorated the cake for. We stopped to put gas, and two men with guns came at us on either side and took everything, including the car itself. Once the shock wore off, we realized that we were all standing at a gas station and my mom was still holding the cake. That was the tipping point for my family. And my parents decided it was time to leave Venezuela to escape the dictatorship and the violence under the Chavez regime. So in 2001, we packed our bags and we came to America. The immigration process is a complicated process, and they don't give papers to just anybody. I know. Shocker. Luckily, my mom is an amazing teacher, and she was able to get her work visa sponsored by a school in Florida. Now, because my brother and I were minors, we were also protected under her visa. This means the only member of our family that was not protected under this visa umbrella was my father. My father is a photographer, and he is originally from Spain. Because Spain and the US Are allies, Spaniards can come into the country for three months without a visa. So during that move, we figured, we have three months to sort this out. We started to figure out his green card process, and we were very, very, very fortunate to be able to hire an immigration lawyer, a luxury that very few immigrants in this country can afford. The lawyer said to us that my dad would have to leave the country and come back in to get another stamp on his passport. No big deal. He left for a couple of weeks to Spain. The day that he was supposed to arrive. I came home from school, and the phone was ringing, so I ran to pick it up. They asked for my father. Now, we were very used to getting phone calls from his potential photography customers to the house. So I didn't think it was weird. I said, my father's not home right now, but I'll be more than happy to take a message. And then the person on the other side of the phone said, does your father take pictures for money? And it was just the way that they phrased the question, right? Does your father take pictures for money? I decided to ignore the red flag, and I said, yes. They asked a couple more questions and hung up. Suddenly, the second they hung up the phone, I had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. When my mom came home from work, she said, that dad's flight had arrived, but she hadn't heard from him still. So I told her about the phone call, and that's when we really started to freak out. The hours passed by and we hadn't heard from him. It was the next day and we finally heard from him. Turns out he had been detained at Miami International Airport almost overnight and got sent back to Europe the next day. We were not able to communicate with him at all until he got back to Spain. And when we did communicate, he told us that he was in the room where the call was made and I was on speakerphone. Essentially, he heard me say that he was working illegally in the country. He heard me betray him. At this point, we're still thinking this is just a legal process. You know, let's call the lawyer. And we quickly found out that immigration laws are not designed to keep families together. The lawyer explained to us that when this happens, the person cannot come back into the country for 10 years, a decade. This is when my mom sat me and my brother down and we had one of the most important conversations in our life. What do we do? You see, on one side, we had just moved here. I mean, the ink was barely dry on our visas. I was getting used to a new country, a new language, new friends, new school, and we loved it here. And on the other side, if we left the States, then we would lose our immigration status completely. So talk about an impossible choice. Or let's call it a Gabby's choice, right? He can't come in and we can't leave. We decided to stay and try to find ways to reunite. In the meantime, my relationship with my dad was over the phone. This was before the times of FaceTime and WhatsApp. My parents marriage had been through a lot with the move. And the strain of being in different countries was just too much for them. So they ended up getting a long distance divorce. And then my 18th birthday crept up. Remember when I said that when we were minors, we were covered under my mom's visa? But the lawyer explained that the second I turned 18, I would become illegal. So here comes the second Gabby's choice. Do I stay or do I go? The day before my 18th birthday, I landed in Spain. I reunited with my dad. I reconnected with my grandparents and all my family. I went to theater school, to one of the most amazing schools in the country. I had a fantastic time. But you see, when you're an immigrant, it's like you have this curse, right? That no matter where you are in the world, you're always going to miss someone and I miss my mom. So When I graduated in 08, I came back to America. But this time it was different. I was able to apply for papers and I became, long story short, an American citizen. And of course, I met the love of my life in Miami. And we took a Euro trip to go hang out with dad. He booked a cruise down the Danube river. And that's where he popped the question. It was the perfect proposal, the perfect ring, the perfect man. But then he said something that blew my mind. He said, babe, you know, I'm so happy that we were able to celebrate our engagement here because your dad won't be able to come to our wedding in America. At that point I realized it's been 17 years. 17 years my dad has missed of our American life. I'm talking graduations, driver licenses, plays, special moments. And I refused to let him miss another one. I can't. Now, I consider myself a feminist, but at that moment, all I wanted was for daddy to walk me down the aisle. So when I got back to Miami, I went straight to work. But see, this time it was different. I was bold, I was empowered. I voted for Hillary. So I marched right down to that immigration officer and I said, American knocking Here I have an inquiry.
- [34:23]
Gabby Fernandez Sanchez
Uh huh.
- [34:23]
Ad Host / Sponsor Voice
You know how in the movies when the main character walks in and they give this like all American speech and the crowd does a slow clapped into a crescendo and they get everything they ever wanted? It was just like that, except there wasn't a crowd, nobody clapped. And the agent said, no, we don't do that here. So I asked, isn't this the immigration office? And he said yes. Does your father want to migrate here? Oh, no, no, no, I'm not falling for that one again. No, no, no, no. He just wants to be here for my wedding. He said, well, we don't deal with visitors. Okay? So one thing led to another and I finally found a lawyer in Spain who specializes in tourist visas for Spaniards. And she said the US government is very forgiving if you're European and white. Of course. She said, as long as you admit your crime, do your time, you're fine. So she got him an interview at the US Embassy in Madrid. My dad goes there with all of his documents, including my wedding invitation. And they got back to him with a 10 year visa. The week before my wedding, mom took some time off of work to help me with the last details. And the day that I was going to the airport to pick up dad, she said, I'M coming with you. I was shocked. Remember, they haven't spoken for 17 years and they went through a tremendously long distance divorce. I was not expecting that. We're at the airport and his flight comes in and we start to wait. An hour goes by. 2, 3, 4. He had been detained in immigration again. But this time around, he was bold, he was empowered. He had a piece of paper in his hand from the US Embassy saying he was allowed to be a tourist in this country for 10 years. So they had no choice but to say, welcome to America, sir. Enjoy your stay. We finally, finally had that airport reunion we were waiting for. And when we saw him come out, we all just ran to him, the four of us, and we just hugged and cried and hugged and cried. And then my brother and I stood back and we saw my parents hugging and crying. And at that moment we realized that we were made out of love and we were finally allowed to love each other at the same time in the same place. That week, we went to a Marlins game. My dad met all of my American friends and family. He even saw one of my shows. And on July 27, 2019, at 6pm, he walked me down the aisle. I tell you, at my wedding, when I was sitting there having dinner with my new husband to the right, I could see my mom, my dad, my brother enjoying the party. And I thought to myself, wow, 17 years later and an ocean apart, what brought us back together was love. Gracias.
- [37:34]
Jennifer Hickson
That was Gabby Fernandez Sanchez. She is half Venezuelan, half Spanish and proudly calls Miami home. Gabby's the founder, director and producer of Front Yard Theatre collecting and teaches improv in both English and Spanish. Gabby and her husband Danny are both active in the arts community and she's a beloved host of the Miami Moth Story Slam. To see pictures of Gabby's wedding day with her family all together for the first time in 17 years, visit themoth.org where you can also download the story. Do you have a story to share with us? Perhaps a truth you let out of the bag by accident or a shocking revelation that changed how you saw the world or felt about Uncle Peter? Maybe a family mystery that was only revealed at the reading of the will? Oh, please pitch us that story. You can pitch it right on our site or call 877-799-MOTH. That's 877799, MOTH. The best pitches are developed for moth shows all around the world. In a moment, a final story about reckoning with the truth from the son of a Texas preacher. When the Moth Radio Hour continues.
- [38:58]
Narrator / Producer Voice
The Moth Radio Hour is produced by.
- [39:00]
Jennifer Hickson
Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, Massachusetts.
- [39:08]
Sponsor Voice / Ad Reader
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- [41:09]
Ad Host / Sponsor Voice
I'm Emma Greed, host of Aspire with Emma Greed, a podcast where I sit down with people who don't just dream big, they build big. From culture shaping voices like Mel Robbins, to leaders redefining success on their own terms, to game changing entrepreneurs like Mark Cuban. Aspire is about mindset, ambition and doing the work that actually moves the needle. If you're ready to raise your standards and take charge about the life and career you're Building Aspire is where you start. Follow and listen to Aspire with me, Emma Greed, an audacy podcast available wherever you get your podcasts.
- [41:41]
Jennifer Hickson
This is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Jennifer Hickson. We're hearing stories of shining a light in the corners in search of the facts. Our final story was told at the Somerville Theater in Boston, where we partner with public radio station wbur. Here's Harold Cox.
- [42:03]
I was a creative and imaginative child. I played a clarinet. I played the piano, and I also listened to Rachmaninoff's piano concerto and pretended like I was playing the piano two or three times a day. I was also a talker. My mother would tell me, harold, sugar, baby, darling, please just shut up. I wouldn't. My mother was a homemaker, and she was also the woman who made the cookies and other stuff, whatever you cook for our school. She made this for my. For my class as well as for my brother and sister's classes as well. And my father was a minister. He had lots of advice that he liked to give. He would often say, I would rather be two hours early than 30 seconds late. I heard this almost every day. And he also said, if you tell the truth, the truth will set you free.
- [43:18]
Narrator / Producer Voice
Free.
- [43:19]
Ad Host / Sponsor Voice
All right.
- [43:19]
Jennifer Hickson
Good words to live by. In addition to this, I was. Well, truth to be told, I was a dramatic kid. And I learned that if you got sick that there were certain things that you might not need to do. So what I did is I learned the fine art of passing out. I used to faint so that if I didn't want to go to school, I fainted. If I didn't want to take the test, I fainted. If I didn't want to go to church, I fainted. If I didn't want to go outside and play basketball and football, two things that I absolutely hated, I fainted. Feigning was my superpower. Now, the only other thing I should probably tell you is that I was then and I probably still am now, an Explorer. So one afternoon, I'm 12 years old, I'm home alone. There's nobody else at home. I go in and I get the key to my father's brand new metallic blue Buick LeSabre. I go outside into the garage and I look at this car, which I love. I ran my hand over the sleek design of the car and then I went and I stood in front of the driver's door and I just stood there and I said, it's time. I opened the door, I got in the car. I am now in the seat. I am in the driver's seat. And what's more is I am in the throne. I. I know exactly what to do here because I have seen my father do this many times and I know that I can do everything that he can do. So I put the key in the ignition, I turn the car on. The car purrs exactly the way that I knew it would. I put the car in gear, I tap the accelerator. The car began to glide out of the garage into the driveway. I tapped the brake. The car stopped. I can drive. I've always known this. I have always known that I knew how to drive. So I started thinking about where are the things that I can go at this moment I thought, well, my mother's down at the school. I could go down and I could just pick her up, or I could go to one of my friends houses and then we could go to another friend's house and we could just tool around the city. Or I know my mother needs these things from the store. I could just go to the store and I could pick them up and she will be so proud of me. And then I remember, you know, I have actually not been given permission to drive the car. And it would be a good idea if I put the car back into the garage. And now I know that you have to go straight into the garage. That means that the tires need to be straight. And so I need to check. So I get out of the car, I look at the tires, they seem to be pointing a little bit to the right. And I think I need to straighten the tires. So I go and I stand over in front of the tire on the left side. I got down on my knees, I wrap my arm around the tire and then I straighten it. Except it wouldn't turn. I just need a better grip. I got a better grip of the tire. I couldn't make a turn. And then I thought, you know, okay. Of course, I've actually never seen anybody straighten the tire by getting out and getting on their knees. They use the steering wheel. And I know how you use the steering wheel. What you do is you turn, you turn, you turn. And when the steering wheel stops turning, then the tires are straight. See, I know this because I've seen my father do this a thousand times. I get back in the car, I put my foot on the brake and I start turning. Turn, turn, turn, turn, turn. Okay, the steering wheel top. And now the tires are straight. I tap the accelerator. The car begins to go in this weird direction that it's not supposed to Be going in. Now. I know I'm supposed to stop the car. I also know something else. I have always been told. When you drive the car, always keep your eyes on the road. Always keep your eyes on the road. So I'm keeping my eyes on the road, and I know that my body will know what to do. So I tap something, the accelerator. And the car begins to go fast. And then what I hear is. And it stops. I got a problem. I try to open the door. I can't open the driver's side, so I have to climb out of the passenger side. And I look around the car. The car is kind of halfway in the garage. It's halfway out of the garage. It had slid up against the entry of the garage and then kind of along the inner wall and then kind of hit the front wall. I think maybe the thing that I should do right now is pack my bags and move. And then I also remember the thing I have been taught. If you tell the truth, the truth will set you free. Well, the only thing the truth is going to get me right now is some belt action. So I know that that's not the thing to do. So I need something special. I am a talker. So I come up with a story, a really good one. And then I need to punctuate that story, so I faint. So I lie down on the ground. I close my eyes, I wait, and I hope for the best. Shortly, as I know what would happen, I hear my mother's high heels as she's clacking up the driveway. And she's with someone. Our neighbor. She sees the car. She sees me. She kneels down on the ground.
- [49:37]
Narrator / Producer Voice
Harold. Harold.
- [49:39]
Jennifer Hickson
And the neighbor starts talking. He says, you know, I bet I know exactly what happened. Somebody actually wanted to come steal the car. Harold went outside to see what was going on. Harold got involved. And now look at poor here Spears Harold. And I think, that wasn't my story, but that's pretty good. So he continues, and he says, look, I think we should call the police and the ambulance. And I think, no, I don't want the police and the ambulance. So I start coming, too. Oh, my woozy head. Oh, my woozy head. By this time, my father is now also coming up the driveway. And he kneels down. He says, harold. And so now I'm awake. My parents are there. So I launch into my story. And my father says, no, no, no, no. Something seems to be wrong. You need to. Let's just figure out what's happening with you. We can hear about the Story later. And then dad said, look, what I want you to do is I want you to go to your bedroom. I want you to get in your bed. Bed. And then your mother and I will be in in a few moments. I do that. I go to my room, I get in my bed, and I wait. Now, one of the things you should know about my family is that my mother's name is Mary. My father's name is Joseph. I'm going to let that set in there for a moment. And my brother and sister and I have frequently tried to ask the question, so which one of us is Jesus today? Well, I know that given that my parents are strict disciplinarians, I need Jesus now. So I just wait to see what's going to happen. My dad comes in and he says, you seem to be okay right now. What I want you to do is I want you to get a good night's sleep, and tomorrow we'll talk about the car.
- [51:41]
Gabby Fernandez Sanchez
Hmm.
- [51:44]
Jennifer Hickson
Next day, I can hear the family down in the kitchen. I start getting up and start moving really slowly. And I know that this is going to be my last day on earth. So I go down to the kitchen and I wait. Nothing. Nothing is said. All that day, nothing is said. The next day, I know it's going to happen. Nothing is said. The third day, nothing is said. Am I actually going to be able to get away with this? You know, it may be that the fainting is actually working. So I double down and I decide I need to add a flare. And now I have actually never seen a person faint. I don't know what they really look like. I've only seen it on television, but it seems to me that when people faint that they get stiff. So with my routine, I added rigor mortis so that every time I faint, I get as stiff as a board. Now, my parents are upset about this, and they're concerned about what's going on. So I go to a lot of doctors and. And I have an ekg and I have an eeg, and I have blood tests, and I have urine tests. I sit in a lot of waiting rooms. I am committed to making this work because this is the thing that's saving my life. Well, over a long period of time, a really long period of time, the fainting continued, and then it slowed down, and then I guess it kind of stopped. And I must be cured. But I am still thinking about this issue, and I'm still thinking about the car. And I will do anything to keep from the conversation of going on with the car. And now when I'm 17 years old, I actually refuse to talk to my parents about getting a driver's license because I'm afraid that the car issue might come come up again. Now, I know that you got to be sitting out there wondering, why didn't his family talk about the car? Why didn't they? And to be honest with you, I have the slightest idea why they didn't talk about the car. But I do have a theory. See, my parents didn't have any problem at all in punishing me. They were disciplinarians. They knew exactly what to do. So for this instance, they were trying to find exactly the right thing. And they did. Silence. They refused to talk about it. And what does silence lead to?
- [54:27]
Sponsor Voice / Ad Reader
Guilt.
- [54:28]
Jennifer Hickson
And that's what I have been experiencing, is guilt. And now, 60 years later, I am 72 years old and we have not talked about this car. And I. I feel guilt. And while I feel this guilt, I also continue to remember the thing I have been taught. If you tell the truth, the truth will set you free. I am a talker and I've got to tell somebody. So I am here tonight to tell you I did it. I wrecked the car. I faked the illness. Now please set me free.
- [55:28]
That was Harold Cox. To see a picture of him and his siblings and his very patient parents, you can visit themoth.org where you can also download the story. Harold is a university professor in Boston and sometimes shares personal stories in the classroom. He's happy to report that he hasn't pretended to faint since childhood and is now an excellent driver. While working on the story, I kept wondering what his family thought about all this. Harold was not willing to question his siblings because he still hasn't come to clean to them. Perhaps they're listening now. The truth is out now, Harold. Really do hope it sets you free. That's it for this episode of the Moth Radio Hour. Thanks to all the storytellers for their truths. We hope you'll join us next time. And that's the story from the Moth.
- [56:31]
Narrator / Producer Voice
This episode of the Moth Radio Hour was produced by me, Jay Allison and.
- [56:35]
Jennifer Hickson
Jennifer Hickson, who also hosted and directed.
- [56:38]
Narrator / Producer Voice
The stories in the show.
- [56:40]
Jennifer Hickson
Co producer is Vicki Merrick, associate producer Emily Couch.
- [56:45]
Narrator / Producer Voice
The rest of the Moth's leadership team.
- [56:47]
Jennifer Hickson
Includes Sarah Haberman, Christina Norman, Marina Cluce, Sarah Austin Jeunesse, Jordan Cardinale, Kate Tellers, Suzanne Rust, Sarah Jane Johnson and Patricia Urania. Moth stories are true as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Our theme music is by the Drift.
- [57:05]
Narrator / Producer Voice
Other music in this hour from Kid.
- [57:07]
Jennifer Hickson
Reverie, Duke Levine and Catalyst. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
- [57:17]
Narrator / Producer Voice
Special thanks to our friends at Odyssey, including Executive Producer Leah Rees Dennis.
- [57:24]
Jennifer Hickson
For more about our podcast, for information on pitching us your own story and.
- [57:29]
Narrator / Producer Voice
To learn all about the Moth, go.
- [57:30]
Jennifer Hickson
To our website themoth.org. Ever listened to the Moth and thought I have a story to tell? We'd love to hear it. The Moth Pitch line is your chance to share a two minute pitch of your true personal story. Record it right on our site@the moth.org or call 877799 MOTH. That's 877-799-6684. Here's the thing, we listen to every single pitch. Your story could end up on our podcast, our stage or inspiring someone who needs to hear it. Share your story@themoth.org or call 877-799-MOTH. Everyone has a story worth telling. Tell us yours.