The Moth - Lost and Found: The Moth Radio Hour

Episode Date: October 28, 2025

This episode originally aired on February 1, 2022. In this hour, stories of disappearance and reappearance. Losing and finding home, family, and sacred objects -- or making space for something new. This episode is hosted by Moth Executive Producer, Sarah Austin Jenness. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by The Moth and Jay Allison of Atlantic Public Media. Storytellers: Ross Jessop searches Montana's Lolo National Forest for a missing baby.Christine Gentry hides a secret from significant others.Gregory Pereira finds family in an unexpected place.New Yorker Aaron Wolfe's wife gets a job in Boston.Joseph Gallo receives a gift from a dying friend.  Podcast # 750 If you've been moved by a story this year, text 'GIVE25' to 78679 to make a donation to The Moth today. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Business. So join the more than 400,000 Canadian entrepreneurs who already count on us. And contact Desjardin today. We'd love to talk, business. This is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Sarah Austin-Geness. In this episode, lost and found stories. Airlooms lost, old ways of life, gone, and what is found in their stead.

Our curatorial producer, Suzanne Rust, found out about our first storyteller, Ross Jessup, threw an article in a local Missoula, Montana newspaper, and she reached out. Ross later told us, I thought it was a scam, and so did my lieutenant. I told my wife about it, and she said, The Moth? It's not a scam? Call them. I listen all the time. So we begin this episode, Lost in the Woods of Lolo National Forest in Missoula, Montana, with Ross Jessup, a cop 10 years into the police force. He came to New York to tell his story outside in Greenwood Cemetery,

so you may hear the occasional airplane. We partner with the Greenwood Historic Fund. And just to note, this story involves a crime and there is some intensity. Here's Ross Jessup, live at the moth. It's July 7th. Scorching hot 95 degrees. I'm in a Dodge Durango driving on a dusty road.

I'm a cop. I responded to a call where there was a man acting disorderly who was last seen running through a forest. This man had possibly crashed a blue car and he was caring for a baby. I'm at the end of the road. I'm depressed. I'm struggling.

My marriage is falling apart. And in front of me, there's nothing but large bushes and pine trees that had overgrown the road that I was on. on another dead end I turned my patrol car around to continue the search the area that I'm searching is Lolo National Forest it's 2.1 million square miles that's a little bit larger than Delaware folks I continue searching for At approximately 10.30, my patrol radio breaks silence since my partner. He says to me, Ross, we know who the suspect is.

He's a man, felon, wanted out of Oregon. He's a known drug user and he's violent. He has guns and he's made threats towards law enforcement. enforcement. I'm 20 miles away, so I go. I meet other officers, knowing that we have about a half a mile walk into the campsite that where he's staying at. I put on my night vision. I take out my long rifle, strap it over my chest. My heart's pounding. I'm nervous. I'm focused and I'm full of adrenaline. I'm ready for combat.

Silently walking in to the pitch black forest is about 40 degrees now. And I see his tent, but it's empty. My partner finds a stash of guns that had been set out to ambush the cops when we got there. There's no people in the campsite. I open up the tent and I look around. And I see diapers and dirty clothes and dirty dishes and baby toys. My heart sinks and I'm crushed. It wasn't until that time we were just speculating, but now I knew that we're looking

for a five-month-old baby boy named Gras. Nobody knows where he's at. As I'm scrambling my brain, to try to figure out what I'm going to do next, my portable radio breaks squelch, and it's my dispatch center. and it's a broken transmission. The suspect has been arrested. So I run back to my patrol car. And I drive as fast as I can to where he's at.

I see a man that is dirty, his hair is a mess. He doesn't have any pants on. He's screaming wildly at everybody and just making no sense. He's more concerned about his telephone than anything else. All that pent-up adrenaline that I just had kind of went to the wayside and I just became pissed. I tried interrogating him to know of L. I wanted to just strangle the truth out of this guy

but I didn't I yelled at him begging and pleading him to tell us where we could find and he says to me Christen's dead I buried him alive I crashed off of a cliff

you won't find him I don't know where he's at enraged I'm asking him for more information and he tells me about he tells me about a bush that he had drove over and started to ramble on and on and on and the bush in my head just kept echoing and echoing

I knew where I had to go I got the help from the Forest Service with their four-wheeler and I went up with a Forest Service officer back up to the same road that I had already been up earlier that night. And when we get to the bush, we drive around it and we continue driving for less than a quarter mile before what was left of that road. completely disappears now we're just on a mountain slope about 30 degree slopes no trails overgrown with bushes and trees I'm devastated because there was supposed to be a car up here but there wasn't I want to scream and I'm walking down slope and I see an overturned boulder the sides of a basketball and I look where that boulder was and there was tread marks in the dirt I continue to look and soon find a dome light very dim dome light of a car

that had been crashed into a grove of pine trees I rushed to the car and I find debris scattered all around it a chainsaw that had been stuck in the middle of the tree because our suspect had tried to cut himself out of the being stuck and I frantically get into the car but there's no baby I start to look around the crash site and I start following a trail of debris playing cards some diapers here and there and slowly and slowly we walked down down slope of the crash and about a hundred yards here and a hundred yards there i'm still picking up traces of of human until i come to

the bottom of the ravine where it's just completely muddy all signs stop my partner had to go back to the crash site to meet the search and rescue people that had were on their way up. And here I was alone in the forest and somewhere in Montana. Not knowing what differences I make, not knowing why. But I do know one thing. I'm looking for the body of a baby. And it breaks my heart. I'm a father of three. I have three beautiful little girls. I kneel down and I just pray to God, God, please help me find this baby tonight. Help me find this baby so that nobody else has to. So that nobody else has to deal with the things that I'm about to see. I continue my search. A short time later I find the suspect's pants

in an easterly downslope direction from the crash and then I find a car seat and the car seat's empty. my portable radio had died I didn't have any way to communicate with my dispatch center I'm now in charge of all of the volunteers who are looking for this baby and everything's pointing keep searching down slope

that makes the most sense I tell my partner Can I borrow your radio? I'm going to take a walk straight up this mountain He says no But I'll go with you So together We start walking straight up this mountain

30 degree slopes We're hot We're sweaty We're tired And we're upset I'm upset maybe more upset than I've ever been in my life and I'm exhausted

and I'm breathing hard about 20 minutes straight uphill I'm panting trying to catch my breath and in between pants there's a moment of silence in a black forest and in that moment I hear this small precious little baby whimper at first I couldn't believe it

and I heard it again and if I was to describe this sound it would be the sound of a baby that has cried and cried and cried and cried until he couldn't cry anymore I've never heard anything like it, and I hope I never have to hear anything again like it. I rush towards the sound, and it's pitch black, and my headlights on, and my flashlights are on, and I can barely see anything. I'm about to step over this pile of debris, and, uh, There's grain buried underneath sticks and twigs face down.

He's wearing a onesie. He's soiled and he's wet. I remove all the sticks. And I wrap Grasin up in a down coat. And I kiss his forehead and I cry. And I hold grain. And I walk him down the mountain. And the whole time he's coughing up sticks and twigs out of his mouth.

I get to the ambulance and turn drinking over to their care. In less than a minute and a half, Grasin drinks two bottles of infamil, he was that dehydrated. However, Grayson's a strong kid and he's alive today and healthy. I go back to my patrol car. I think I'd forgot to mention this at the beginning of the story. But July 7th is my anniversary. And when I left that house that night, I left my wife angry because I chose not to take the time off,

even though I could have. So when I got home at 7.30 in the morning, way into overtime, I walk into my kitchen where my beautiful wife was drinking coffee, and she asked me, how was your night? I smiled at her. I said I made a difference last night. That was Ross Jessup. Ross is still a cop in Missoula, Montana, and a canine handler for Missoula County,

and he's recently received the Department of Justice Attorney General's Award and the Charles Bud Meeks Award for Deputy Sheriff of the Year. Ross and the baby were both lost and found, and I asked Ross if all these years later he's still questioning everything or if this memory pulls him through the tough days. He said, some days are hard and I still have PTSD. This particular experience has changed me. Sometimes it haunts me, revealing the evil we face from time to time, and other times it shows me that we can all make a difference by acting together.

To see a photo of Ross with his family and his medals, visit our website, the moth.org. After our break, a woman comes out of hiding and a Beatles fan falls in love. When the Moth Radio Hour continues. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. You know what's better than the one big thing?

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This is an hour all about what you may find after loss. Our next story is from Christine Gentry. She told us at a Moth Grand Slam in Boston where we partner with WBUR and PRX. Here's Christine, live at the month. So it's one of those first days where you catch yourself getting way too excited because things are going way too well.

It's supposed to be just drinks that turned into dinner, more drinks. And then we were back at his place in Inwood in New York City and we're just talking, talking, talking. And as it often does on first dates, the conversation sneaked around to our previous experiences on the app

that we had met on. And he starts laughing and says, oh, man, the last girl that I met on there, she seemed great. But then when we went back to her house and get this, she was bald. Like, something about her immune system, she had a wig, and she took it off in front of me.

Like, how crazy is that? I was so weirded out. And what this man did not know is that he was sitting across from, someone who had the exact same condition, the odds of which I cannot even begin to imagine. My immune system attacked every hair follicle on my body when I was three years old, and then again when I was eight, and then again when I was 14. And I'd been wearing wigs since high school, but it was something very few people knew

because I kept it locked, quarantined, you know, by in this thick door inside of me. and at that moment it felt like I was floating above us looking down at this conversation and I thought about telling him I thought about the bravery of the woman before me and I thought about how fucking stupid he was going to feel if I did it but I'm embarrassed to tell you I chickened out

I said you know what it's late I have to work tomorrow grab my stuff and left and I just sobbed that whole subway right home because not six months before I had finally escaped this horribly abusive relationship and I had gone into therapy to figure out how did I get into this relationship

how is it that I stayed for so long and we'd figured out that it was because I had let that man in that space right and I had let him see me at my most exposed, my most vulnerable and what I thought was my most ugly and he had loved me anyway

and he had turned that love against me me, he would do things like snatch my hair off during fights, because he knew that it would just break me. And I left that relationship with these two very deep fears, right? The first was that if anyone ever got into that space again, they would hurt me. And the second was that no one would ever love me for who I really am anyway. And that night on the train, I was like, this is proof. What just happened to me is proof that I'm right.

And I resolved to make this my deepest, darkest secret. And when he emailed me the next day and asked to see me again, I said no. And I went on to date several people. I would date people for months and they would never know because I got really good at redirecting hands. And I got really good at sneaking out of beds to fix my eyebrows and my eyelashes while they were asleep. And I would ruin $3,000 wigs by sleeping in them night after night after night because I felt so ugly without them. And if anyone ever found out, I would just bounce before they got a chance to leave me. And then last month, you guys, last month I yanna Presley.

The Congresswoman whose district were in right now, she did something so incredible. She posted a video where she revealed that she'd been wearing wigs because of the same. condition and it was so brave and it was so beautiful and the next night I sat across from this man I had been dating less than a month and the street lamp was coming through the blinds and the room glowed this beautiful bluish purple and I took everything off and I asked him to see me like all of me the real me and I knew that it was for me, and that it was something I needed to do no matter how he responded. And he kissed my head, and he told me I was beautiful, and this time I believed it. Thank you. That was Christine Gentry.

Christine taught English, creative writing, and storytelling in the public schools of Boston and New York City for 13 years. And she's now a professor at New York University, preparing secondary public school teachers. Christine and Henry, the man at the end of her story, decided to split when she moved back to New York from California a few years ago. She says, we knew better than to try a long-distance relationship. So we made the heartbreaking, but right decision to break up when I left. But we've stayed in touch, and he's happy that this story is airing. Sometimes you have to clear out or lose your old way of life in order to find the next chapter.

We met Gregory Pereira, our next storyteller, in a moth workshop with the College and Community Fellowship here in New York. He told this story with us in a mott. showcase that explored the justice system. Here's Gregory Pereira, live at the moth. My mother was a big Beatles fan. She loved the Beatles.

And I ended up loving the Beatles because my mother loved the Beatles. And she would buy all these different beautiful records, and we would have posters on the wall, Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, all you need is love. and I felt that kind of sensation of happiness. And I remember my mother and I just dancing and dancing to these Beatles songs

and I felt filled with love. And for me, that was a great sense of family. Within a few years, shortly thereafter, it seemed like my community in the South Bronx was hit with a tidal wave of heroin. And in that devastation, people were caught up and my mother was one of the ones caught up in this typhoon, tidal wave of heroin,

and she lost her ability to parent. My father there had moved to the West Coast. And in my search for family, because I was kind of left to my own devices, 10 years old, 11 years old, kind of pain attracts pain. And I gravitated to that street life And at that time, they were indoctrinating young kids into the gangs.

And I remember my father talking about being in the gang when he was younger. My mother started dating somebody who was in the hell's angels. So that life was kind of there for me to embrace. And I remember wearing cut off sleeves, jeans, MC boots, chains, patches, colors, and people would die for these colors. I found a brotherhood. I looked for older men to kind of mentor me, to be my brothers. And I found guys like Apache, wild child, crazy Mike, crazy Phil. These guys became my protectors and my brothers, and they showed me the ropes.

I remember us just hanging out, wearing bandanas, putting up. him on standing in the park and you had to look like a warrior you had a look like the Terminator no feeling till we got drunk that lasted for quite a number of years well my mother my grandfather they didn't want me in this lifestyle any longer and they sent me to live in the West Coast with my father. In California, I went to East Los Angeles. It was like the frying pans of the fire.

Because gangs were generational over there. There was great-grandfathers, grandfathers, fathers, brothers, sisters, mother's cousins. And I had to be accepted and I had to do what they did. They used to wear these shiny

shoes called Imperials. Iron your khakis. Iron your t-shirt. Or put your t-shirt over your arm and another bandana. And you always kept it low, and you kept your eyes sharp. You were both predator and prey. And you looked fierce.

You had to. Otherwise you were a victim. My father said, no. Back to New York, you go. So, back to New York, I went. I went, my mother and my stepfather, both intoxicated, forgot which airport I was going to land at. And I had to find my way back into the city and back into pain, because pain attracts pain. The gang life one more time, back with the cut off sleeves, the long t-shirt and the headband.

And I did that for some time. I felt a brotherhood, but then I felt it. betrayal like I've never known before they left me for dead you know there was a Beatles song when I was growing up that reminded me a family and was a line inside that Beatles song that magic feeling and I had that with my mother and I had that with the gang life the the culture I had that for a little while but that magic feeling was no longer there and nowhere to go alcohol and drugs became my new friends and that lasted for quite some time but what happened was I ended up

finally I guess through the big guy upstairs changed my life I hit bottom and it turned some stuff around for me and I ended up I ended up even going back to school I ended up with two different degrees and with that I taught gang awareness and prevention, substance abuse prevention, HIV prevention. And I was transformed, but didn't have that sense of family. I had some stuff, but not family. But in my office one day, there was this girl who came in, and she was smiling, she was beaming, she lit up a room. When she came, that smile was there. When she was leaving, my head bob left and right with her. She used to come into my office to borrow a stapler and tape and folders.

And I would see her walk out and I could look at her desk and she had a stapler, tape, and folders. So from our talking, we got to walk and she was very athletic. And she used to love to walk. So I used to walk her home, or close to home. So we started walking for about two, three weeks. walking and she would always tell me after about two miles, okay, I'm going to leave you here, and I was like, maybe she's doing me the favor. You know, she has a lot more to go. But after two more times like this, I got very curious, you know, like, why isn't she allowing me to walk

her home? Well, the following day, we must have this psychic connection. It was the heart of February was freezing out, and it was sun glaring on the snow that was still on the floor, and I was breathing smoke out of my nose, and I had these sunglasses on, and she stops, and she says, listen, I've got to tell you something, I've got to show you something. And she whips out these two pictures, and these two pictures, and I'm cold, I'm trembling, and I'm counting heads, two, four, five, five, seven, seven, seven, seven. Seven. Seven heads. And she says, these are my children.

I said, man, she couldn't put them on one picture? And she said, are you okay with that? Now, I had a son of my own, and, like, I wasn't a good parent. I don't know. I'm not going to do this. You know, I'm still finding my way. Anyway, we left, and I figured out why she didn't allow me to walk her home. she was really trying to protect her children from whom they meet.

Well, we talked the next day at work, and I was contemplating, and I asked my friend Ronald, what do you think? And he says, well, she's very pretty. And do you think you can handle it? Check yourself. And I said, okay. And I get this phone call from her, and I'm home ironing clothes. You know, I got used to ironing my stuff.

And I'm thinking about, I guess. can't do this. It was nice knowing her. But when we talked in the background, there was such laughter. Laughter I've never heard before. I remember

dancing with my mother. And that was the last time we ever danced in 1967. We never danced again. And that magic feeling was dead. I heard all that beautiful laughter in the background. I said, wow, maybe there's something there for me too.

And she says, you know, are we still going out on a date? And I was very thrilled because of the laughter in the background. Anyway, she says, on the date, we go on the date. And she says, I'm going to set up a time for you to meet my children. Okay, well, we'll work that out. Okay. So the kids had another way of meeting me. Because at my job, one of my coworkers came,

ghost face and scared and said listen there's some thugs outside waiting for you and I said who I confront stuff so I went outside and there was these two young men crossed the street in the park one with his hat cock to the side he was about 18 years old

the other one had a headband down low with a pit bull stair and the older one called me over and when he called me over so I said you know like what's up and he says what's your intention for our mother I said your mother who's your mother? I didn't

I didn't recognize them from the picture and they said that they wanted to check me out after a small conversation the older one he was a seasoned veteran for being 17 he was a season

and I knew that life and he called the younger one over and the younger one did that bob towards him but eyeballing me and the older one told the younger one something

and the younger one as they were walking away the younger one glared back at me and he smiled he winked his eye like everything's all right. And that magic feeling started to emerge because they became my angels with dirty faces.

That's how I felt growing up. And that was my modern family. So we've been together now 19 years. Gregory Pereira is now an entrepreneur and community educator. He says, this once lonely man found a new start and now has 18 grandchildren. He says he wants his life's journey to help listeners understand that hope is possible for all. To see photos of Greg and his large modern family, go to the moth.org.

After our break, a man gives his favorite book away, and the name. tries desperately to find it again and a lifelong New Yorker has to pick up and move when the Moth Radio Hour continues. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

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quality of price. On link on C4.A or in magazine. Truth or dare. How about both?

This fall, the moth is challenging what it means to be daring. We're not just talking about jumping out of

airplanes or quitting your job. We're talking about the quiet carriage to be vulnerable. The bold decisions to reveal the secret that changed everything. This fall, the Moth Main Stage season brings our most powerful stories to live audiences in 16 cities across the globe.

Every one of those evenings will explore the singular theme of daring, but the stories and their tellers will never be the same. So here's our dare to you. Experience the Moth Main Stage live. Find a city near you at the moth.org. Derry. Come on, we dare you. You're listening to the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Sarah Austin Janice. In this hour, all stories of the lost and found. I've always wanted to start a website where people can post single lost gloves they've found, like a national lost and found, but just to reunite gloves. a glove give back.

I just have to get around to it. Joseph Gallo told this next story at Housing Works Bookstore in New York, where WNYC is a media partner of the mall. Here's Joseph. When I was in college, I had a friend, his name was AJ, and the first time that we ever hung out,

we went to see the movie Field of Dreams. And at the conclusion of the movie, we ended up on the roof deck, of this parking garage in a mall in South Jersey and the two of us are crying our eyes out. We barely knew each other and we were doing circles around my car, refusing to look at each other. We're going, are you okay? I'm okay. Can you drive? I can drive. And that's how the two of us became friends. We bonded over baseball. And after we graduated from college, we moved to Hoboken and we became neighbors. And I had a TV and AJ didn't have a TV. And he used to like to come over my house

and watch games. He liked the Yankees. I like the Mets. But the one thing, the one thing that we both love together was the Yankee announcer Phil Rizzuto. Now, Phil Rizzuto had a Hall of Fame career as a shortstop, and when he retired, he became the voice of the Yankees or the Yankee broadcaster for 40 years. And he was known for his catchphrases. Holy cow, did you see that unbelievable? And he became immortalized in the Meatloaf Song, Paradise by the Dashboard Lights. He calls the game that takes place in the backseat of the car. And the thing, though, that Aegee and I love the most about Phil Rizzuto was his stream of consciousness storytelling. Stories used to spring from him out of seemingly nowhere.

You never knew where they were going to go. You never knew where they were going to end. In fact, they were so epic that Rizuto himself, in his own scorecard, over a particular inning, would write the initials, WW, which stood for, wasn't watching. Anyway, one day, AJ invites me over to his house, and he presents me with a gift. a book. And the book is called, Oh Holy Cow. And what these two writers have done, they've taken Rizzuto's broadcast, and they transcribed them, and they culled and edited them down to the stories that we both loved. And he said, he got the book because he saw it, he thought of me,

he wanted me to have it. And he knew I collected books and loved books, and I'd appreciate it. And then he sat me down. And he said, I have something to tell you. I've been to the doctors, and I have been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. And a month later, A.J. dies. So now, fast forward 25 years. And my mother, who is a widow who lives alone in the house that I grew up in, she suffers a massive stroke. And she survives, but she ends up in a nursing home.

And I am taxed with the job of breaking down my childhood home. Now, anyone who's ever had to do this, it's a sad, emotionally exhausting, horrible experience. And one of the jobs that I have to do is I have to do something with boxes and boxes of books that I have accumulated over 25 years. I live in an apartment, I have no room for books, and I stored them in my mother's basement. And now I have to do something with them. And so one day I'm driving out to my mother's nursing home and I passed this used bookstore

and I think, I'm going to donate them there. And so I drive back to my mother's house, I pack up the car, and I'm I take the books to the store, and the woman who owns the store looks exactly like Angela Merkel, the German chancellor. And she is completely 100% delighted, and she's going through the boxes, she's opening them all up,

and I look down, and I see the copy of, oh, holy cow. And I am so emotionally exhausted that I do nothing. And I let the book go. And the book, I watched the boxes go to the back of the store, and they disappear. and a ritual begins. I go to visit my mother in the nursing home, I pass the bookstore, and I think AJ's books in there.

I go to the nursing home, I pass the bookstore, I think AJ's books in there. And I realize that the book is starting to take on this amazing power, certainly far more than it ever had when it was in a box in my mother's basement, and I thought of it only once in a great while. And I realize that the power stems from the fact that my mother is still alive. And as long as my mother's alive, the book is alive. And if the book is alive, then in some abstract way, AJ is alive. And I want them to be alive.

I want them alive. And so one day I'm driving to the bookstore, excuse me, to the nursing home, I see the bookstore and I can't take it anymore, I pull into the bookstore. Angela Merkel recognizes me right away. I say, listen, you know, I gave you a book and I need it back. And she says, well, if we still have it. And so we searched the bookstore and we can't find it. And so she brings me into the basement. And the basement looks like a mini version of the warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. It's just aisles and aisles and aisles of books stacked from floor to ceiling.

And Angela Merkel is checking the shelves for the book. And I tell her everything that I've just told you here tonight. And finally, she finds the book, and she takes it off the shelf, and she looks down at the cover, Oh, Holy Cow, and she smiles, and she opens it up, and she reads the inscription inside aloud. To Joseph, instant stories from the field of dreams. I thought you would enjoy this. Love AJ. And she closes the book, and she hands it to me, and she says, you should tell that story and so I just did thank you for listening

Thank you for listening Joseph Gallo has written and performed several solo plays including My Italy Story and Long Gone Daddy which was nominated by Broadway World as Best New Play Our final story in this hour

is also from our Boston StorySlam series Here's Aaron Wolfe Live at the Moth So my wife Naomi calls And she says Aaron I got the job Can you believe it? I got the job. My dream job I got it, they offered it to me right in the middle of the interview I got it and we just have to move to Boston

And isn't that amazing? And on the inside, I'm like, no. But on the outside, I'm like, no. Because this isn't a job offer. This is an existential crisis. I have been a New Yorker for 38 years. Like, even when I lived in New Jersey, I totally told people I was a New Yorker. My parents are New Yorkers.

My grandparents are New Yorkers. My great grandparents, Max and Minnie Goldfinger, they were New Yorkers. And my kids are going to be. New Yorkers, too. Also, we had a great apartment, and you just don't give up a great apartment in New York at all. And then Naomi says, we have to let them know tomorrow afternoon, I love you, bye, and she hangs up. In the next 24 hours, we go through the first four stages of grief in, like, every conversation. Just like, I'm not going, I'm not going, I'm absolutely not going.

How could you make me move? Maybe we should, like, try long distance? What am I going to do in Boston? Like, over and over again. And then finally, at like 7.30 the next morning, I reach acceptance. I call her up at work and I say, look, we've been treading water for so long in this city. My job's not going anywhere. I'm not happy at work.

You've worked so hard at your Ph.D. This is finally, this finally could be the moment where we become adults. Let's do this. And it's not just acceptance. It's relief. It feels good. It feels good to say it. and then two days before we're leaving

I'm sitting packing up our kitchen I'm holding in the silverware and I'm sobbing because it's my grandpa Bernie's silverware and I look around the kitchen and everything in my apartment is my grandpa Bernie's the art on the walls from his house and Bayside the furniture

his record collection my dishes my love of food my love of music my first cup of coffee my first hot dog my anger, my affection, my New York sensibility, it's his. And now I have to leave it. And I don't know how to say goodbye to it or to him. And then I see this clock on the wall in my living room.

It's his clock from his store in the Lower East Side. It says, Forsyth Monuments established 1911. And now I know what I want to do for my last day in New York. The next day, Naomi and I pack our two-year-old son in the stroller, and we head out for a really long walk, and it's August in New York. Like, everyone in their right mind is inside in air conditioning, but we're walking across the Brooklyn Bridge through Chinatown, up East Broadway, then Delancey Orchard, and then we stop at Stanton Street.

In front of silver monuments, the last Jewish monument store on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. my cousin Murray's shop and when my grandpa Bernie retired he sold the business to Murray so there in the window of silver monuments is this little sign it says Forsyth Monuments

established 1911 it's the last shred of my grandpa Bernie on the Lower East side and I don't want to go in but I have to go in because Naomi's like you have to go in we walked all the way here you're going in this is ridiculous

And I'm like, you know, I also have to go in. I have to. And Murray's not there, but his assistant is there. And I can't remember his name, but he knows me because the last time he saw me, he was selling me and my mom, a gravestone from my grandpa Bernie. And he kind of squintes up his face, and he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, Beth David's Cemetery, right?

Yeah, yeah, buried near the Arbiter Ring. Yeah, yeah, how is your mother anyway? And I look at this guy, he could be 50 or like 200 in him. 50. Like, he's never touched an iPad, you know? And he looks like he's from, he's of this place. Like, he's stepped out of the fabric of this store, which is dusty and claustrophobic and there's yellowing paper everywhere. And I reach out, I touch, I like sort of stabilize myself on a gravestone. And the granite is cold and smooth. And it feels exactly like it felt when I was eight years old in my grandpa Bernie's shop. And I think I can't. I can't do it. I can't.

leave this place. Who am I going to be if I leave this place? This is my New York. This guy is my New York. And then he says, yeah, it's funny you should come in today of all days. It's really funny because Murray just sold the building. We're moving to Long Island tomorrow. It's funny. Of all days you're coming in today. And I sort of like rocked back on my heels in stunned silence. And all I could see is him and the gravestones and a clock that looks just like the one it's in a box in my house waiting to come up to Boston. And I look at him and I just say, well, I guess this is goodbye. And he says, yeah, I guess.

And I leave. That clock, my grandpa Bernie's clock, it never worked. One night after like hours of Googling, I found these like rare clock fuses and I replaced the fuses in the clock. And I plugged it in and the fluorescent light turned on and then it ran backwards. like a freaking time machine. But also like a time machine. My New York, my grandpa Bernie's New York, it's gone.

It doesn't exist anymore. But I still see it here, of all places. I see it in the Lebanese market in Watertown. I see it in me when I'm walking across Cambridge Common and I'm amazed by the history. I see it in my son's love of Chinese. food and smoked fish and in my daughter's laugh and her scream. But most of all, I see it in the stories we tell each other around the dinner table at home, my home, underneath the

clock that says Forsyth Monuments established 1911. Thanks. That was Aaron Wolfe. Aaron is a screenwriter and the chief creative director at a storytelling agency called Faculty, New York. To see a photo of Cousin Murray's Monument Store and Grandpa Bernie's clock, which is now proudly displayed in Aaron's Boston home, go to the moth.org. If you've lost something, take a breath. It may come back, or the loss may just make space for a new chapter, and you can tell a story about it.

That's it for this episode of The Moth Radio Hour. We hope you'll join us next time. This episode of The Moth Radio Hour was produced by me, Jay Allison, Catherine Burns and Sarah Austin Janice, who also hosted and directed the stories in the hour along with Janelle Pfe. Co-producer is Vicki Merrick, associate producer Emily Couch. Additional Grand Slam coaching by Chloe Salmon. The rest of the Maw's leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Jennifer Hicks, and Meg Bowles, Kate Tellers, Jennifer Birmingham, Marina Clucce, Suzanne Rust, Brandon Grant, Inga Gladowski, Sarah Jane Johnson, and Aldi Casa. Moss Stories are True is remembered and affirmed by the storytellers.

Our theme music is by The Drift, Other Music in this hour from Stellwagen Symphonyette, The Beatles, Julian Lodge, and Anot Cohen. We receive funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Special thanks to our friends at Odyssey, including executive producer Leah Reese Dennis. For more about our podcast, for information on pitching us, your own story, and everything else, go to our website, the moth.org.