The Moth - The Moth Radio Hour: Fathers

Episode Date: June 23, 2021

A special Father’s Day edition of The Moth Radio Hour: A man who faints at the sight of blood prepares to become a father, a Russian immigrant takes a trip home and tries to fulfill a promise to his mother, a child goes to great lengths to hide brussels sprouts from her stepfather, and a family fights to stay in the country they call home. This episode is hosted by the producer of The Moth Radio Hour, Jay Allison. The Moth Radio hour is produced by The Moth and Jay Allison of Atlantic Public Media. Storytellers: Andrew Postman, Boris Timanovsky, Annalise Raziq, and Dori Samadzai Bonner.

Attention Houston! You have listened to our podcast and our radio hour, but did you know the Moth has live storytelling events at Wearhouse Live? The Moth has opened Mike's storytelling competitions called Story Slams that are open to anyone with a five-minute story to share on the night's theme. Upcoming themes include love hurts, stakes, clean, and pride. GoodLamoth.org forward slash Houston to experience a live show near you. That's the moth.org forward slash Houston. From PRX, this is the Malthar radio hour. I'm Jay Ellison, producer of this radio show, and I'll be your host for this episode

about our fathers, grandfather, stepfathers, and our first story about becoming a dad yourself, a moment that's transformative for most men. It's the moment you join the generational flow when you play an actual role in the continuity of the species. And you discover the wild love that as it turns out, was lying dormant, waiting for that moment of birth to flame into being. Before you get there though, there's the actual process of birth to go through.

Admittedly, quite a bit easier for men than for women. But for some, like our next storyteller, still a challenge. Here's Andrew Postman from a Mothshow with the theme Gutz Stories from the Razor's Edge. I was 18 the first time I fainted my cousin's bris. He was eight days old, and he was to be circumcised. It was summer, very hot, an overcrowded room,

and someone pushed a movie camera into my hands and told me to film it. For some reason, I listened, and I put my finger on the zoom button. And as the oil was about to do his business, I remember hearing my mother call out to my father and say, Neil, catch him. And I wondered who she was talking about. The next thing someone was loosening my belt, someone else was loosening my tie. And as I realized

what had happened in the commotion I must have made by fainting. I looked up and I was panicked that what I had done might have made the loyal miss. But he looked down at me and he assured me that almost every time he did this, he lost at least one man. So I was in good company. A little less than a year later I was in college. I fainted for the second time. This time it was in a movie and I wish I could tell you it was a hyper-violent film like the Salvador Dali movie where someone apparently takes a razor blade and slices open an eyeball. But I believe I am the only person ever to faint at an Ingmar Bergman movie. It was cries in whispers and the woman who not surprisingly was in a tragically unhappy marriage is in her nightgown sitting in front of her vanity and I won't go into

detail except to say that lots of little bits of glass and blood were involved. I felt my head getting snowy and I whispered to my friend that I had to get out, and because it was a school classroom, it was those chairs with the desk tables, and it was very hard to sidestep. The next thing I remember I was looking up at Blackness, and I heard the crackling of a walkie talkie that the campus policemen carry around. I remember hearing, man down, film society. The next time I fainted was also in a movie.

Only this time it was not from something I saw, but something I heard. Again, I wish I could tell you it was a Sam Peckin-Paul film, but in fact, the movie was all that jazz. The story of choreographer Bob Fossy. I am pecking Paul Film, but in fact the movie was all that jazz. The story of choreographer Bob Fossy. In the movie, in the movie Roy Scheider, who plays Bob Fossy, is about to have open heart surgery, and at this point I knew myself well enough to cover my eyes, but I didn't cover

my ears. And the sound of the rib stretcher with its twisting, cranking, almost metallic sound of pulling the ribs apart was too much for me to bear. I expanded my fainting repertoire the next time when I was fitted for contact lenses. My eye doctor said he'd never had a patient, he couldn't get the lens in, and he kept coming at me,

and I kept pulling away. And he said, you know, women are usually better at this than men, because from the time they're little girls, they're putting on makeup, so they're used to touching around their eyes, but I'll get it. And he kept trying,

and I pulled away like a fish on a hook, and he said, you are one of the tough ones, but I'll get it. And he kept trying, and I pulled away like a fish on a hook. And he said, you are one of the tough ones, but I'll get it. And I remember the last time he came at me, I could see the lens, and I thought we're going to do it this time. I remember looking up at him from the floor of his office. And he looked over, and he said, you really are one of the worst patients I've had.

And I proceeded to throw up all over his office. I got to my feet, he helped me down the corridor, we got to the reception area, and I threw up all over the reception area. And in disgust, he waved me away, told me to go home for a week and practice in front of the mirror, touching my own eye. I thanked him, I apologized, and I threw up all over the entrance to the office.

There are about a half-dozen other episodes. I won't go into detail. But my friends and family laughed at the idea of my being a surgeon or even a soldier. family laughed at the idea of my being a surgeon or even a soldier. A friend of mine said, I'm just going to tell you the plot to reservoir dogs because you're never going to see it. And when my wife got pregnant, everyone just sort of assumed that there would be no way that I could be in the delivery room. In fact, I'd probably be bored from the delivery room. But I wanted to prove that they were wrong and I wanted to be there, so I went into training and I rented Godfather too

and with the remote control in my left hand and my finger on the step frame super slow-mo button, I watched the scene where Robert De Niro plunges his dagger into the belly of the Sicilian crime lord who had killed his mother years before and framed by frame I watched him gut the man as the knife wrote up his chest. I rented reservoir dogs and watched the notorious scene over and over where Michael Mattson slices off the ear of the policeman. And when my wife's water broke, I felt that I was about as ready or unready as any other

expectant father. We drove to the hospital, we got into the delivery room, everything was going well. She asked me if I was okay and I said I was and I thought I was. And everything was going fine and then suddenly everything was not going fine. And lots of mcconium was coming out of her and the obstetrician went over and felt her belly and I could see something was wrong. And he said that as the baby was coming down the shoot,

he had folded back and was breech. And he was going to have to do an emergency c-section. The phrase emergency c-section is not something anyone wants to hear, but someone who's fainted at the movie, all that jazz. Really doesn't want to hear it. And as my wife was wheeled into the operating room, and I was given hospital scrubs, I went in,

I sat next to her. She couldn't see anything. There was a sheet between herself and her belly. I couldn't see anything either, but I could see the flash of the sharp instruments the doctor was going to use. She asked me if I was okay and I said yes, and I was holding her hands, but I did keep an especially wide base in case anything happened.

And the thing that I had not expected is how quickly everything would happen. And before I knew it, I saw the baby lifted up above the sheet, kind of like Simba at the beginning of Lion King. And I looked over and it was this pink, slimy, very bloody thing and it wasn't moving. And it felt like a year passed and I was looking at it. And as soon as the baby started to squirm, I felt myself stand up from the stool, rise up, and I felt as strong and solid and certain on my legs as I'd ever felt before.

I think more than any biped had ever felt before. And besides the thrill of being a new father, I remember telling myself and others later that I had vanquished the fainting bug because I had now seen blood in its most elemental way. I was seeing it doing what it's supposed to do, which is give life, rather than seeing it spurred out of stumps and parts of bodies and be the result of mutilation and violence. And I think telling myself this made me feel somehow morally pure as if it was something that it was good that I had gone through.

And I wish I could tell you that was the end of the story. Two years later, my wife was pregnant again. And I told her I was going in with her to the amniere. I would help her get through it, even though she had a stomach of steel and we all knew my history. And we went in and I was standing next to her and holding her hand and I said, just focus on me, I'll help you get through this. I said, I'm going to give you state and you give me a capital and before you know it, it will be over.

And the doctor plunged the big horse needle into her abdomen to bring out the amniotic fluid. And I said to Alex, my wife, I said California, and she said Sacramento, and I said good, good. And out of the corner of my eye, I could see the beginning of the pinkish fluid starting to fill up the syringe. And I said Kentucky, and she said Lexington, and I said actually it's Frankfurt, but a lot of people think it's Lexington. And I couldn't help out of the corner of my eye, I saw the fluid, a sort of grapefruit juice color starting to fill up. And I said to her, Nebraska, and she said Lincoln.

I said, that's good. And I looked over, and now I saw that the needle was almost completely filled. And I said, Nebraska, and she said, you just said Nebraska. I said, no, I didn't. And I knew that I wanted to say Nebraska again, but suddenly it felt as if there were marbles in my mouth. I passed out, and the entire dead weight of my body

was now heading toward her pregnant belly with the giant needle stuck in it, the end of which was maybe an inch from our unborn child's body. To this day, I do not know how she did it, but from her back, my wife reached out her arm, half traficop, half superhero, and put it on my chest and stopped my momentum, this dead weight of her husband falling on and possibly killing her child. She held me up and she pushed me away and I crumbled unconscious on the floor. About an hour later, as I was sitting on the curb on the upper

east side in the sunlight, trying to get my wits about me, dazed and woozy, I was repulsed by what I had just almost done. I was inconsolable, and I just kept shaking my head thinking, this cannot happen anymore. How can I do this? Alex tried to make me feel better, but I thought this is unacceptable for a grown human being for a father.

It can't happen. And it forced me to think about what fainting really is to me. And what I thought is fainting is really about skipping time. It's really an end-around on the most intense, raw moments in life, real or imagined, a way not to confront them, not to meet them, to get around them. And if it means going unconscious, fine. And I said, this can never happen again.

And when those moments come, I will face them. And I will face them even longer than they need to be faced. As a man and as a father. Six months later, our second son was born. Everything went fine. And the doctor gave me the forcips to hold the umbilicus while he was going to cut it. Normally, I would want to look away. I would want not even to feel the umbilicus while he was going to cut it. Normally, I would want to look away,

I would want not even to feel the tension, but I remember forcing myself to hold onto it, to feel that kind of elish, ropey, uneven, curling, pink, bloody tension. And even after he cut it, and I could have let go, I made myself look at it. It was almost like something that had been skinned alive, and yet it was life, and even after he cut it,

I held on just for one moment longer. Thank you. That was Andrew Postman. Andrew is written more than a dozen books, including the novel, Now I Know Everything. He lives in Brooklyn. Sam, the C-section son, lifted up like Symba, is now a strapping 16-year-old. Charlie, the son Andrew nearly killed by fainting on the giant amnion needle, stuck in his mother's belly, the scene I probably don't need to remind you about, is now 14 years old. And in the decade and a half since that moment, Andrew has not fainted again, not even when his now nine-year-old daughter

Nell came into this world. ["Pomp and Circumstance"] Coming up, more stories of fathers, grandfathers, and stepfathers. ["Pomp and Circumstance"] The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by PRX. I'm Jay Allison. In this hour, stories about all kinds of fathers. As a parent, you wonder, what stories will your children tell about you? We're thinking about, so maybe you can give them a few good ones. I hope they stick. Our next two stories are about a grandfather

and a stepfather. First up, Boris Timinovsky, whose dedication to the memory of his ancestors is subject to debate. But he tells a good story about it. Here's Boris at a Malth Show in New York City. Thank you. Thank you. Last summer, after 16 years of absence, I went to the city in Russia where I grew up.

I went there and company business. And I was bringing with me a suitcase filled with second-hand clothes that my mom asked me to distribute among her relatives there. I was really the first in my family to go back there after all those years. And she also gave me a hand-drawn map showing the location of my grandfather's grave at the local cemetery and she asked me to go there. And when I was leaving, she asked me again, are you going to go there? Yes.

Promise? Promise. It was really important for her that I go there. My grandfather died when I was little and She wanted me to remember him. She would tell me stories about him. I Guess it was all a part of dealing with the loss. He was still very much alive in her mind and She wanted him to continue to live in my mind too, But I was just too little when it all happened, so I didn't remember much. So I thought maybe this visit to his grave

at the cemetery for her would make things up, would make up for what she thought was her loss, her failure in keeping his memory alive. So I promised that the first thing I do when I get there would be go to the cemetery. Well, the first thing I do when I get there would be go to the cemetery. Well, the first thing I did when I got there was locate my high school girlfriend and I got caught up in work and I had a lot of catching up to do with my childhood friends. So it wasn't until a day before I was leaving that I actually found time to go to the cemetery

and it was late in the afternoon, and right by the entrance, it was a woman who was selling flowers. And by then, she only had seven carnations left in her bucket. And I bought them all. But when I reached for my wallet, I realized I didn't have the map with me. I had no idea what happened to that map. And I had no idea where my grandfather's grave was located.

I could call my mom and ask her there was a payphone right there and I still had 10 or 15 minutes left on my calling card and it was already morning in New York but the problem was I had already told her that I went to the cemetery and really, you know, what was I gonna say that I decided to go again but lost the map. She knows who she's dealing with. She should see right through it. So I thought I'd find some help and I went to look for the main office. And I found the main office and it was actually in the middle of the cemetery and it occupied an actual family muscleeum.

So I figured some effluent family must have commissioned it for themselves, but then maybe immigrated to the United States, so the management took advantage of the opportunity and moved right in. And fortunately for me, it was open. And inside was a small office filled with file cabinets. It kind of looked like a financial aid office at some community college. And behind the counter was an old woman she was reading.

And she said, yes, she'd help me locate my grandfather's records. And she started looking in those file cabinets. And she was doing everything so slowly. I knew it was going to take forever. And then the back room door opened and the little boy walked in, an eight-year-old, I think. And he said, Grandma, I don't want to play anymore, let's go home. And I could see it through the door that there was a computer in the back room with Pac-Man or something like that on the screen. And she says, do grandma a favor? Go do a grave identification search.

The name is Abraham Pekarski. And the boy says, yeah, should I look in the mass graves too? And she turns to me and she says, did you say he died in the war? No, he died in the early 70s. So the boy went back inside and a couple of minutes later, he comes back with a printout. And I was going to reach for it, but the boy's grandmother says, no, no, no, let me see it first. It's five dollars per grave. And I say, well, is there more than one? She says, yes, there is always more than one. So it turned out there were 17 Abraham Pekarski's on the list. And I paid for two.

in Abraham Pekarski's on the list. And I paid for two, the two who died in early 70s and whose age I believe closely matched my grandfather's. And I went to look for them. I was hoping that at least one of them would have a portrait on the tombstone. At least it is the custom with the Russian immigrants here in New York to put portraits on tombstones. So I thought, this way, I'll know which grave is mine.

And I was walking through the cemetery and lots of tombstones had portraits on them. And I was looking at the faces. And I was thinking that the faces I saw there didn't look quite as happy as the faces, and I was thinking that the faces I saw there didn't look quite as happy as the faces that I see on our Russian tombstones here in Brooklyn. So I thought that maybe to have immigrated wasn't such a bad thing, after all. Maybe all those immigrants did find that happen as the day that they went after.

So I found the first grave and it said Abraham Picarsky on it, but there was no portrait. It was an inscription from the loving wife and children. I had no idea whether this was the right one or not. So I went to look for the other one. I found it too and that one was virtually indistinguishable from the first one. Even the granite was of the same color. It said Abraham Pekarski, no portrait. The inscription was slightly different.

It said from the grieving family. So I had really no idea what to do. Was my family the loving one or the grieving one? I was standing there and I was waiting. I was thinking maybe some sort of a special feeling would come to me. I thought maybe I'd feel some sort of a kinship with a person who was laying there. But I just kept wondering whether this was in a total stranger who was buried there. I tried to remember all I knew about my grandfather. He was a locksmith, he was a father of three,

one of them died in a war. He was a soccer fan, he died from a heart attack. Who was this Abraham Pekarski, a dentist, another excellent victim? I really did know, I put three carnations under grave and I went back to the to the first one. I stood there two for a while and again I was hoping that I'd feel something special but it was getting late and and I remember that I had yet to pack for the for the trip back to New York so I put three more carnations. Well I put three carnations

under grave and I stood there with the last flower in my hands and I didn't in New York, so I put three more carnations, well I put three carnations on this grave, and I stood there with the last flower in my hands, and I didn't really know what to do with that one. Which Abraham Pekarski should it go to? Should it just get rid of it? Should it take a flower from another grave maybe and make sure that each Abraham Pekarski gets the equal number of flowers?

I couldn't leave, I had to come up with some sort of a formula, I make sure that each Abraham Pekarski gets the equal number of flowers. I couldn't leave. I had to come up with some sort of formula. And then suddenly I knew what to do. I put that flower on that same grave where I was standing. I thought, if this is really my grandfather who's laying there, then all is well and good. And he got the most.

But if not, then let this be a consolation to the stranger, because it wasn't his, but somebody else's grandson who came all the way from America to pay his respect. And I left, I went to the hotel, and I never found that map again. I flew back to New York the next day. Mom and Dad picked me up at the airport. They have this thing dad picked me up at the airport. They have this thing about picking me up at airports. Really, I would have been home at least an hour sooner if it wasn't for them.

First they couldn't find the parking. Then they went to look for me at the wrong terminal. Then they lost each other. Finally, I found them. I found them. And on the way home from the airport, in a car, my mom started crying. And I asked, Mom, why are you crying? It's only been a week. And she says, I'm just so happy that you took the time to visit your grandfather's grave.

It really means so much to me. I appreciate it. You know, when you called and told me you went there, I thought you were just saying it to make me feel good. But this morning, when I was still in the air, her second cousin, who still lives in Russia, called her and told her that she had just come from the cemetery and that she saw my flowers there.

So my mom really knew that I went there. And she stopped crying and she was sitting there and she was wiping her eyes. And I was thinking, should I ask her how many flowers, her second cousin saw, three or four, but then decided that maybe I just not say anything at all. Thank you. That was Boris Timonovsky. Boris is a software developer and a playwright living in New York. His latest play, Adam and Eve's date, number five,

was recently staged at the Manhattan Reptory Theater. Boris has been telling stories of the moth since 2005 and is a moth story slam winner. Our next story is about the often unsung member of the paternal I was saved by a large black man with a booming voice and snow white hair. When Bill first saw my brother and I, people were saying there was something wrong with us. But he took one look at us and he said they're just depressed. I was seven years old. My Palestinian father had been diagnosed with a mental illness

and there was a lot of insanity going on in our house. And finally, when he started saying that my brother and I were not his real children, my mom decided that she had to move out. And it was sad and horrible. We went to go live with my grandparents who tried the best they could to instill some order and some calm, but I still felt lost until Bill came along.

When I was in fourth grade, Bill moved in with my mom and my brother and I and everything changed. My mom worked, so he was a stay-at-home dad, he was the cook, he was a writer, he was a great cook, of course as a kid I could have cared less about that. He had raised all of his siblings because his mom worked and we now had rules in our house. And Bill and I had a very fiery relationship from the beginning. Frequently our conversations would end with me screaming,

I hate you, I hate you. And he would say, that's OK, baby, because I love you. Which was infuriating, by the way. And then he would say, stick that lower lip out further, I can't quite see it. So I was always pushing the boundaries, I was always grounded. And one of our biggest battles was dinner time.

And he wanted me to eat stuff that I did not want to eat, especially vegetables, and especially Brussels sprouts. And so I became really good at slide of hand at the dinner table. I know a lot of kids do this, like you could scoop it off the plate into your napkin, and then throw it away at the end of the meal. He caught on to that fast, he's smart.

So we started having napkin check before we could leave a table. If I had something with pockets on, I'd like put it in my pocket, which could be disastrous, if it had a lot of sauce on it. Then I devolved into, I would chew it up, but I would like pack it into the back of my mouth and then like spit it out when I got up in the table. I was like genius. So, so this one night we're sitting at dinner and I've got three Brussels sprouts sitting on my plate

and I'm like, I'm not eating them. And my brother starts arguing with Bill and my mom about something and I said, can I go to the bathroom? And I got the nod because they were distracted. I scooped him in and my nap kind of ran into the bathroom and I was like, this is brilliant. Why didn't I think like throw him out during the meal? Don't wait till the meals over.

He said close the bathroom door, run, raise the litter of the toilet, plop him in, and I'm just getting ready to flush the toilet. When I hear bam, bam, bam, don't flush that toilet. I think like, could this guy see through doors? I mean, I was like, grattable. And I was like, but I just went to the bathroom. I don't care.

Don't flush that toilet. You're going to be grounded for a month. Open this door. OK, OK, I'm coming. So I stick my hand in the toilet and take them out. I'm like, crap, what am I going to do with these? I mean, the bathroom is like the size of a postage stamp. I'm thinking I could jam them down like the tub drain,

but then maybe I couldn't get them out. If I put them in the towels in the closet, he's gonna look through all of them. I was like, what am I gonna do? Bam, bam, bam, open the door! And I turned around and I was like, the window. And there's stuff on the window still, so I move it. I open the window, I knock out the bottom of the screen.

And when I knocked it out and dropped the Brussels sprouts on to our neighbor's driveway, two floors down, And when I knocked it out and dropped the Brussels sprouts on to our neighbor's driveway, two floors down, I also knocked out this glass jar of blue rosebud bath soap, so it had a big plastic flower on top of it. It was dusty, I don't know how long it had been there. And I heard a crash on the driveway, but I thought he didn't hear it because he's banging on the door, so I closed the window, put everything back, open the door, and he comes stalking in. He's like, he knows.

He looks in the toilet tank. That is good, by the way. You know? I mean, I'm glad I didn't think of it because Ridey would have found it, but looks at the toilet tank, looks in the closet, and he's just getting ready to leave, and he turns and he looks at the window.

And I can see like the wheels turning like he knows something's off, and I'm going, go, go, go, please go. And he goes over and boops the stuff, opens the window and sticks his head out. And he's hanging out the window. I'm not kidding for the longest minutes of my life. Just hanging there. And then slowly he straightens up, he doesn't turn around and he goes, go to your room. So later on, years later, when we talked about it,

what he told me was that the reason he was hanging out the window so long is that he was trying to contain his laughter. Because when he looked down at the driveway, what he saw was like a sea of broken glass, a big plastic flower, millions of little blue balls, and then three Brussels sprouts, right, in the middle. So Bill, he has Alzheimer's, and he is in a nursing home right now. And I don't know how much he understands when I go to visit him, but recently when I was there,

I said, hey, Bill, guess what I had for dinner last night? Brussels sprouts, and he laughed. Thank you. That was Annalise Rosic. She's a Chicago-based performer, writer, peace activist, and grateful mother. Her creative endeavors have ranged from leading theater workshops with incarcerated women

to singing in bands and playing the back end of a dragon. In a moment, our final story about a father tested by extreme circumstances while his daughter bears witness. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media and Woods Hole Massachusetts and presented by PRX. You're listening to the Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Jay Allison, producer of this radio show. Our last paternaly themed story comes from Dory Samadzai Bonner, a storyteller who came

to us through our pitch line, which I'll tell you about afterward. Here's Dory, live at the mall. I grew up in Afghanistan during the Russian occupation, and as a child I remember my dad being gone a lot. The subject of my dad's whereabouts was somewhat taboo in my household because my mom told us we were to never ask about him, so we never did. And sometimes I wondered if he cared about me. Growing up during the war was very difficult because we had bomb explosions and missile attacks on a daily basis

in the background of our lives. And by the time I was 10, these explosions were getting closer and closer to the city of Kabul where we used to live. In fact, sometimes the explosions would be so close that there's a distinct whistling sound that the missile makes right before hitting its target. And you could hear that.

And the meantime, there was a rumor about a regime change, which was devastating news for my dad, who was a high-ranking officer working for the current regime. And historically, the new regime takes over by violently dismantling the old regime. My parents were desperate to try to get out of the country, but they couldn't because the government put a lockdown on everybody's visas. They needed everyone to stay and fight the war for them. The only way to get out of the country was unforged papers. In the early 1990s, after a daring escape in the middle of the night, my parents and my brother and I migrated to the US

on forged papers and asked for political asylum. This meant that we could stay here temporarily while they reviewed our case. They gave us a work permit and driver's license, social security card, those type of things. So we started, all of us started working and our family in California helped us get settled. And five years fast forwarding, our lives were so normal

that the worst thing in my mind at that time was how I could get my mom to let me stay out late, like extending my curfew. And I am at my first job at the menswear house and my dad calls me and I could hear by the certain excitement in his voice that there was something going on at home and he tells me you need to come home right away because there is a letter from the immigration, and I speak the best English in my household, so he wanted me to come home and translate. And for those of you who've been lucky

and I've not to be familiar with the immigration system, they don't send you regular updates like, hey, still thinking about you all, having forgotten about you. So we were kind of puzzled by this letter. And ultimately decided it was a good letter because they inquired, you know, they sent us this letter without us inquiring about it. I rush home and I find my dad in his security uniform which he often wore. And my mom comes home too and my brother comes home because my dad called

all of them and I'm sitting on a dining table and all three of them are kind of hovered over me and they're like kind of rushing me. Come on, come on, read it. What does it say? What does it say? And so I read, just highlights really quickly and it says our appointment has been moved up to next week and it says that we need to bring all of our legal documents and our family photos and things that are important.

We start jumping up and down and we're thinking, this is it. This is the appointment that we've been waiting for. And the day of our appointment, we drive by 45 minutes to downtown Los Angeles, and we go into a big government building, you walk in, and there's metal detectors. We go past that and check in with security guards. We go upstairs, and there's an immigration officer waiting for us, and he guides us into this room. And the moment that the doors open up, it was like all of us looked at each other.

We felt like we were in the wrong place. The people that were sitting there, they looked like they were visibly upset. Some of them were still crying. But we still went ahead and we sat down. And they told us that, just sit down until you hear your last name. And after a while, my dad asked me to go and ask the security guard

how long the appointment was gonna take and what were we here for because he was dressed in his uniform he needed to get back to work. So I go up and I ask this immigration officer, hey, can you tell me how long the appointment might take because my dad needs to get back to work. And he says, your dad will get back to work all right, just not in this country. And it was like my heart just dropped.

Going back is not an option because we're now considered traders. And I sit down and hesitantly I told my dad this. And it was like the moment that I told him what the security guard said. But this immigration officer said, it was like my dad just lost all the color in his face. He just looked pale.

After a while, I'm looking over at my dad. He's hunched over. And he's holding his chest. And he's visibly in some kind of pain. And this pain continues on, so I get up and I go up to the same officer and I ask him, if I can use the phone, he says no. And then I ask him if I could use the bathroom and he lets me. I just open up these doors and I start rushing.

There's a long hallway. I'm looking to the left. I'm looking to the right. I'm just looking for a telephone. And finally, I spotted at the end of the hall. And I grabbed the phone and I dial our attorneys number. Now, I was extremely upset with our attorney because we couldn't afford even our own meals. Yet the only thing that we wanted to be sure that we could have was an attorney.

And so for her not to be here was really upsetting to me. And this girl answers the phone. She sounds like she's about 18 years old, like my age at that time. And I have to convince her to put our attorney on the phone and she keeps refusing. And finally, I tell her it's an emergency. Please put Jody on the phone. And as soon as I hear her voice on the other end of the phone, I just completely break down. And I explain to her that something is wrong with my dad and they won't let us

get help for him. She tells me to just sit tied and that she was going to see what she could do. And so we're sitting there and my dad continues to be in pain. After 30 to 45 minutes later, a man walks in and says our last name and all four of us get up and we're following him, we're not sure where, but we're following him and we end up going into this small office which was so small that only my dad and I could barely fit in it. And there's a man in there who's working on his desk. He didn't even acknowledge that we were standing there.

He didn't speak to us one word, he just hands over this paper and the paper said that our visa had been extended for three months. So that we could go get my dad some medical help, which we did right away. And afterwards, the next three months is the worst time of my life by far, because we're afraid of we're fearing deportation every single day. And whenever we would see the mailman show up and put mail in our mailbox,

it was like a dreaded task. We none of us wanted to go and check our mailbox. And my dad's behavior was so completely over the top. He moves out of my mom's bedroom and moves into the living room. And our blinds are closed whether it's day or nighttime. And he sleeps with a pair of clothes right next to him. And whenever he would hear footsteps, he would jump out of the couch

and look through the blinds and see who was. We finally go to our final appointment at the end of the three months. And we walk in with our attorney. And I noticed that it was a different judge who was sitting there, it was an older gentleman. And he looks really intense. And I remember the first time that I saw him

in my mind, I was so intimidated by him because he wouldn't smile, he wouldn't talk, or anything like that. And I was pretty intimidated because I had to translate whatever conversation was going to happen because I was our family's translator. So the judge carries on without attorney for a little bit and then turns his attention to my dad.

And after some basic questions, he gets right into it and starts asking my dad if he has a translator, and my dad says, my daughter will translate for us. And he tells me what he says, young lady, whatever I say to you, you say you translate exactly what I say, nothing more, nothing less. And whatever your dad says, you tell me exactly what he says, nothing more, nothing less. And I agree. He asks my dad questions, really demeaning questions, like, do I understand correctly that you came here on Forge Papers? And my dad

starts to say, well, yes, but, and then he goes on this long explanation, and then he cuts my dad off and says, I just want to hear, yes or no, I don't care about the explanation, I don't need the explanation. And so they kind of, this conversation goes on like this back and forth and it's not going well at all. And finally, he tells my dad, you know, we here in the United States do not give citizenship to people that break the law. We can't and I won't. And as soon as I translate this

to my dad, I just put my head down and I just start praying. And when I open up my eyes, I see my dad rising out of his seat. And he starts unbuckling his belt at which point I'm thinking he's completely losing his mind because I'm not sure what he's getting ready to do. But he lifts up his shirt on the right side. And in his native language, looks at the judge and says, this is what the commuters did to me. He's pointing at a 45-inch knife scar. And then he puts his down his pants in the back and turns around a little bit. And again, says, this is what the commuters did to me.

Pointing at a three gunshot wounds. And then he takes off his shoes and takes off his socks and points at his toes and says, this is what the communists did to me. He's pointing at his toenails, which they had tried to pull with pliers. And I remember thinking, I know I'm hearing when I am hearing, but somehow everything was in registering. Because as I am translating these horrible things, I am also learning for the first time about my dad's whereabouts. about. And all of those times that I didn't know where he was, he was in prison being tortured.

And in that moment, I have never felt more sorrow. He continues to tell the judge, it's easy for you to judge me. You sit in that seat and you wear this robe. But if you came on this side and you looked at me one man to another, you will see that everything I did, I did to save my children, I had no other choice. And you might deny it right now, but had it been you. I know you would do the same thing. And if you have to show the American public that you didn't take it easy on us,

I understand, send me back, I volunteer. But please let my children stay. Please give my children a new home. And then he just puts his head down and starts just crying like a baby. And a judge leaves, we're on a break. And he comes back after an hour. And as soon as he enters the room,

I noticed that he doesn't have his rope on, and we thought we're still on break. But he goes up to his chamber and grabs something and starts walking back down and towards us. We're pretty nervous because we're not sure why he's walking towards us. And the entire time his both eyes were on my dad. He goes past me behind me and stops right next to my dad. My dad turns his chair and looks at him up and he says, Mr. Samadzai, let me see your hand. My dad shows him his hand and he puts a stamp on my dad's hand and says, Mr. Samadzai, I would like you to be the one to stamp your children's papers.

Together they stamp our papers and when they move their hands it reads, Asylum Granted. He then flips the page to my parents' papers and stamps it with the same stamp and then looks on to my dad and still puts his hand on his shoulder and says, welcome to America. It took us 18 years from the day that we arrived here, for me to be granted an American citizenship. On January 29, 2009, as I stood there and I was sworn in as an American citizen, I pledged allegiance to my new homeland. And it is through my children, my two-year-old son,

and my unborn child in my womb, that I will make sure that the gratitude that overflows in my heart every single day will continue to live on long after I am gone. Thank you. Thank you. of all their stories and stages around the country and has gotten a standing ovation every time. You can listen to her first mall story about her journey out of Afghanistan at themoth.org. Maybe you'd like to do a story

and leave a short message telling us about your story. You can record it right on our site, themoth.org. We're called 877-799Moth. That's 877-799-6684. We're also on Facebook and Twitter at TheMawF. That's it for this episode of The MawF Radio Hour. We hope you'll join us next time and that's the story from the mall. Stories in this show were directed by Catherine Burns and Maggie Sino. The rest of the most directorial staff include Sarah Haberman, Sarah Austin Janess, Jennifer Hickson, and Meg Boles, production support from Whitney Jones. Most stories are true, is remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Malthe Vence are recorded by Argo Studios in New

York City, supervised by Paul Ruest. Our theme music is by the Drift, other music in this hour from Chandler Travus and his various bands. You can find links to all the music we use at our website. The Malthus Produce for Radio by me, Jay Allison, father of five children, and I work on the show with Ficky 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 the building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. The Malthor radio hour is presented by PRX.

For more about our podcast, for information on pitching, your own story, and everything else, go to our website, thumoth.org. your own story and everything else. Go to our website, thumoth.org.