The Moth - The Moth Radio Hour: GrandSLAMS Coast to Coast

Episode Date: June 9, 2021

In this hour, Moth GrandSLAM stories from around the country. PTSD, a trans teen, college, eBay, prison, eye contact and the emergency room. Hosted by Jenifer Hixson, Senior Director at The Moth. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by The Moth and Jay Allison of Atlantic Public Media. Storytellers: Fred Johnson, Vivienne Andersen, Pam Burrell, Steve Zimmer, Tony Cyprien, Pam Colby, Bess Stillman

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 from PRX. This is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Jennifer Hickson. The BOTH is true stories shared with a live audience. In this hour, stories from our Grand Slams across the country, which

feature winners from our open-mic stories lands. Kentucky, Wisconsin, Colorado, New York, California, and Minnesota. A soldier, a doctor, prisons and battlefields, and eBay. Our first story is from Louisville, where we partner with Public Radio Station WFPL. This is Fred Johnson. When I walked out of the Jeffersonville City jail, I knew one thing for certain. And that's my wife was going to be pissed.

The night before I had performed a ritual that I had done on the anniversary of 9-11, ever since I got back from Iraq in 2007. And that was a shot of bourbon for each of my three most dearest fallen comrades. The first shot of bourbon was Makers Mark and it was for Bill Wood who loved Makers Mark. Bill died in Dora, Iraq in 2005. The second shot of bourbon was Woodford, which is my favorite bourbon, because Joe Fenty didn't like to drink bourbon. He died on a mountain top in Afghanistan in 2006.

Joe was my dearest friend. And then my last shot of bourbon was basil, hey, because it's so smooth and Freeman Gargard died so young on the streets of Amaria Baghdad in 2007. I finished my shots, and I had a couple beers, and I sit and thought, and I sit to myself. I'm going to get in my car, and I'm going to drive it into the Ohio River,

so I can be with my dead friends in Vahala. Of course, a placement stopped me and put me in jail, that's reason why I was in jail. So, the next morning when I got out, I called home and my wife answered, didn't let me say a word, she said, you're going to therapy. What she didn't say, but strongly inferred, is that you're gonna go to therapy now or you're never gonna see me or your daughter again. My wife had long said that I had PTSD, that when I went to Iraq that I changed,

and when I got back from Afghanistan in 2011, that I had gotten worse. Now my wife is a PhD psychologist. She's the director of behavioral health at Fort Knox, Kentucky, in charge of all the behavioral health at Fort Knox. And so they diagnosed people with PTSD, and I said, you know, honey, what do you know, right? I said, it's perfectly normal to freak out with your back to the door because you can't see behind you. You know, it's normal to look at every passerby to see if they have a weapon in their hand

or if they're a threat. And it's normal to have your friends who had died in combat revolve through your mind in an endless cycle of despair. And you know, it's normal to every now and then think about putting a gun to your head and pulling the trigger. Now, I did not have PTSD. I didn't believe it.

You don't go to war and serve your country and get sick. A particular colonel who had been in the army at the time 28 years, and had prepared his entire adult life to serve in combat. But I went to therapy because I felt that if I didn't, I knew I would lose my wife and my daughter. Now, there's three things that I learned whenever I was in therapy. First is that I needed it.

I was on this downward spiral of self-destruction. I needed to do something. The second was, is that it helped. That my therapist gave me cognitive tools to help mitigate the challenges that I have, particularly with anger. And three, that it wasn't quite enough. One day, I was talking to a fellow colonel who said a derogatory comment about one

of my buddies and I went after him. And I got pulled back and before I could do anything and I got in trouble, bad trouble. And it looked like I was going to possibly leave the army in disarmable conditions. It was about that time that my psychiatrist said, hey, Fred, have you tried medication? Now, that was another red line for me. I said, you know, I can do it myself. You know, I'm a soldier, I'm self-disciplined. But obviously, the situation I had with that kernel proved

otherwise. And I was again in an hour and never a moment of, you know, if I don't do something, then, you know, I could leave the army in a bad way. And when I first took the pills and the medication, ironically, it was just like a firefight. There is nothing that brings greater clarity than the snap of a bullet by your head

and its impact two inches away. And that clarity is followed by the slowing down or the world so you can see it in its full spectrum, you can anticipate dangers. And then you apply your training to do your work. Well, that pill provided me the clarity and the slowing down, and the therapy gave remember them only whenever I wanted to, they weren't, you know, revolving in my head. And, you know, shoot myself was a ridiculous notion that never itting by mine again. And then one morning, I woke up after her awesome night's sleep, and I'm laying next to my wife, and, you know, which is something we'd never do, pillows propped up, drinking coffee. And I look over to her and I touch her and I say, so this is what it's like to be really normal.

And she says, yes. And now I have this awesome job in this greatest city in the world, doing the thing that I love most and that's bringing art to the people and the places that need it most. And I feel incredibly blessed, remarkably happy and incredibly normal. And I think God every day for that night in the Jeffersonville jail and for the cop that pulled me over,

I think God for my wife who had the courage to give me that ultimatum. And I think God, for give me the clarity to make the right decision in my now or never moments. Thank you guys very much for listening. That was Fred Johnson. Fred is a retired infantry colonel who served in the U.S. Army for 29 years. He did two combat tours in Iraq, one in Afghanistan, and a deployment to Bosnia. He wrote a book about it all.

It's called Five Wars. You can find a link to it on our website, themoth.org. Next up is a story from Vivian Anderson. She told it at the Milwaukee Grand Slam, where we partner with Wisconsin Public Radio. Here's Vivian. So it's like one of those old war movies where the grizzled, old sergeant is walking through the forest, and he stops, and he looks at his men, and he says, it's too quiet.

Except I am in sixth grade, and I have just come home from school and walked into my house, and it is indeed too quiet. Like, my dog is not running up to me, throwing that little party that your dog throws for you Even my refrigerators like dude, it's getting warm in here, but I am not gonna click on and draw attention to me So I know something's wrong. I don't know what it is And I dropped my back and I had straight for the kitchen because if I am about to meet my doom I am going to have a snack first

I am about to meet my doom. I am going to have a snack first. I get to the kitchen, I open up the refrigerator, and I pull out the milk, and I'm about to take a swig right out of the container. And I see out of the corner of my eye, I see my mother sitting at our dining room table, and she's sitting perfectly still, perfectly silently. Like this big black widow spider just waiting

for her favorite prey to come home. And spread out in front of her is the contents of my stash. Not my drugs, but the things that make me feel most okay about myself and about living in this world, they're my bras and my panties and my nylons and my skirts and my tops. And just as I make eye contact with my mother, all eight of them, she starts. What the hell's the matter with you? What kind of a faggot are you? I'm going to take you to a therapist and he's going to fix you. You're a real son of a f***ing know that? That one was always my personal favorite, because technically I couldn't argue. I can't do it!

I can't do it! I can't do it! I can't do it! I can't do it! I can't do it! This was not the first time, nor would it be the last time that I would endure when he's sessions, and they could go on for hours. And the way I would make it through was I made myself a promise. I promised

that as soon as I could, as soon as I turned 18 and I could get out of the house, I would do it and I would go and I would have this sex change operation that I so desperately needed and I would never look back. And as long as I could make that promise to myself, I had hope. That was sixth grade. 7th grade, two important things happened to me. The first was that I sprouted from about five foot nothing up to about six feet tall. The other thing that happened was my voice dropped

and it went from being like happy little kid voice to being somewhere between James Earl Jones and Barry White. Now when Barry White's voice comes out of a 14 year old white boy's body, people tend to notice. And they tend to like it. I mean, I had a girlfriend in high school who referred to me as having a pure sex voice. Later still, when I became a pastor and I would start preaching on Sunday mornings...

Yeah, baby. Jesus, kind of love you, just right. Those dry. six feet tall and with Barry White's voice that there was no group of women anywhere on the planet that would accept me as one of their own. I also realized that I had zero chance of ever walking into a lady's room without being hit with purses and streaks of terror. And as soon as I had that realization, I no longer had hope, which brings me to Act 3. When a curtain goes up on Act 3, it finds me sitting alone in my bedroom after school, and I am surrounded by the contents of my stash, and I have an exacto knife in one hand and an upturned wrist.

And I am crying. I am crying, big, embarrassing sobs, just tears running down my cheeks because I don't want to die. And that realization in that moment is perfect. Like that is exactly what you want in that moment. I don't want to die, but at the same time, I did not know how to go on living. I knew that something had to change and I didn't know what it could be. I didn't know how to make that change. And I ended up in the next 20 minutes making a bargain with myself. And the bargain was this, that only part of me was going to die that night.

Only the best part of me, only the part of me that people liked, only the part of me that contained joy, only the part of me that was feminine. And she got bound up and buried alive deep in the back of my mind, where even the most dedicated therapist would never, ever find her. And I wiped away the tears and I bucked up and I endured for almost 20 more years. Until one day when I realized that I could no longer keep up my side of the bargain that I had made with myself that day and that I no longer had to.

Be well, Milwaukee. That was Vivian Anderson. Vivian is no longer a pastor. These days, she's turned her attentions to real estate in Madison, Wisconsin. Vivian's bio may be one of my all-time favorites. She wrote, Vivian can fly, she can forgive sins, and she can sell a large house in a single day. She's basically a superhero in heels. And having met Vivian, I can vouch for the bio. It's all true, even the flying. Next up, a college student in prison and a high stakes eBay bidding war. The Mothradio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by PRX. This is the Moth Radio Hour from PRX, I'm Jennifer Hickson. Pamborel is the winner of the very first Denver Grand Slam, where we partner with Public

Radio Station, K-U-N-C. Pams a soft-spoken woman, but absolutely took down the house. Here's Pam Barrell, live in Colorado. I didn't know what I wanted to do after high school, but my mother did. She decided that I was going to attend a prestigious college, study pre-med, and become a doctor. I didn't have the courage to tell her that I lacked the self-confidence to make life and death decisions for other people.

I also lacked the courage to resist her plan. But I did draw one non-negotiable line in the sand. If I had to go to college, it was going to be a traditional black college in a large city. On my first day as a scholarship student at Whitman College in Walla Walla Washington. I discovered that I was the only black woman in the entering class. I also discovered that my dorm room had been reconfigured so that my roommate and I wouldn't share a bedroom. I asked the residents' manager why hours was the only room that had been changed around. And she said, well, we thought you'd

feel more comfortable with that arrangement. So from my very first day, I was made to feel that I was an outsider who needed to be treated differently from my peers. I didn't know how to navigate that situation and I spent the next four years trying to break a code I didn't understand. In my sophomore year, I volunteered with 11 other students at the Washington State Penitentiary, a maximum security prison. The main goal of the program was to help soon-to-be-release prisoners adapt to life on the outside. I had found my people. I have never felt more at home or more appreciated than I did with those men. They had lost control of their destiny. They were anxious, scared and confused,

but they were determined to succeed. They had each other's backs and supported each other through addictions and through helplessness and rage. Talking to them was the highlight of my week for almost two years. I never missed a meeting. Then one night, I drove to our designated meeting place on campus, and no one was there. I immediately recognized what had happened.

The Ohio players, one of the biggest things to hit campus in years years were performing that night. I passed streams of concert goers as I drove the empty van to the prison. I was surprised by the intensity of my affection for these men. Looking back, I think I realized that they were where they were because they had acted on their

feelings, and I was where I was because I had not. When I got to the prison, I decided to see all of the men together in one group. As the 30 men settled in, one of the men said, where is everybody? I told them about the concert and another man said, don't you like the Ohio players? I said, they're one of my favorite bands and he said, then what you do in here fool and we all laughed. I said, well, I'd rather be here. I love you guys. I care about you. And I want to do everything I can to help you succeed.

The room went deathly still. No one spoke. Finally, I asked the group what was wrong. One of the men began to cry and said, in my whole life, no one has ever told me that they loved me or that they cared about me. Then one by one, every man began to cry.

After a while, one of the men pointed to the guard who was monitoring our group and said, look, even old balde is crying. Eventually they went their way and I went mine. I don't know if that program helped those men, but I know it helped me. I still lack courage and self-confidence, but when I'm afraid or feeling challenged by the world. I think back to that special group of foster brothers of mine. And I tell myself, hey guys, we can get through this together. Thank you.

Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Pam Burrell works at the post office and is also a singer-songwriter. She had an incredibly passionate group of friends in the audience that night. I saw at least two of them crying with joy when she won.

You could just tell, Pam is a good friend. This next story is by New York City's StorySlam legend Steve Zimmer. He's told over 100 Moth Slam Stories, and important to note, they're pretty much all really good. He's got a couple grand slam wins under his belt. Live from New York, where we partner with WNYC, here's Steve Zimmer. I've never been married or lived with someone or owned real estate or taken a true vacation or purchased brand new furniture. These are sources of concern for my girlfriend, Megan, when she moves in with me in July 2014. So, four months later, it's November and she's still there. And we need to get a desk because Megan's a freelance book editor.

And so she has a lot of papers that can't go on my desk. And so I go on eBay to look at used desks. And the very first one is this beautiful Danish wood desk, expiring in five minutes and currently at $300. So I call Megan in and we're like, this is worth way more than $300. And so we put in a max bit of $503 to outmaneuver the crowd at $501.

And now if we don't win the desk then afterward eBay will send me an auction alert saying You've lost or you let it slip away These alerts never used to bother me, but now that I'm 52 years old they they feel really insightful and and 52 years old, they feel really insightful. And so with three minutes left, with the three minutes left, we're the high bitter, and I start to get worried because Megan and I have never made a big purchase together, and our previous attempt at a big purchase resulted in the busily incident One month ago Megan wanted to get a $400 busily filing cabinet for the apartment So I went on Craigslist and found a used busily for $50 and I texted Megan to meet me at the sellers address and queue gardens Tell it carry it and it would be a long subway right home but you know mostly above ground so with the right attitude it

could be a date and and unfortunately Megan tracked down the Craigslist ad which I purposely not showed her because it made the businessly look damaged and and she was like NFW. And that night we had a big argument. And Megan pointed out that I'll spend 90 hours on the internet to save 10 bucks, yet pay $1,000 fines for doing my taxes a day late. And that I was a petty, miserable person

and was slowly making her miserable. So I was like, fine, we'll get the new bus leak. And it turned into our worst fight. And now, on one later, our relationship still hasn't recovered. Yet we're trying to buy a dust together in an auction, in which I'm scared of both winning and losing. And I'm thinking, you know, it's too bad.

Megan and I didn't meet when we were younger and not such difficult people. And there was still time. Just then eBay sends an alert saying, there's two minutes left and we've been out bid at $510. Now things get tricky. I'm afraid to stop bidding because I know Megan will get mad. And Megan's afraid to continue bidding because she knows

that I'll initially go along to keep the piece, but then afterward I'll be resentful and act like a little bitch. So neither of us says anything. We're locked and passive aggressive stalemate, which I know from my parents marriage can be a surprisingly stable relationship platform. But we don't want that.

And so we just sit there and just staring at this image of the desk, which had been perfectly maintained by the previous owner who must have understood how hard it is to find a desk you really like. And Megan says, it's beautiful. And I say, it is beautiful. And the eBay auction alert says, there's still time. So I'm like, let's bid $800.

And Megan's like, really? And I'm like, let's bid $800. And Megan's like, really? And I'm like, yes, it's worth it, especially when you collect her in the money that we save from not getting the busily. And so we bid $806 and settle in for the last minute of the auction, with 10 seconds left where the high bidder. And then the price goes to 1,100 and 1,300 before closing at $1,520.

And Megan and I sit there motionless, still locked in the embrace that we instinctively initiated when the price went over $1,000. And we try to make sense of what just happened. eBay, however, understands instantly and sends issues and alerts saying that we're losers. And it's true, we're older and have had lives defined by regret. But there's still time. So three months later, I bet on an engagement ring

that had been perfectly maintained by the previous owner. And this time, it doesn't slip away. Thank you. That was Steve Zimmer. He lives in New York City with his wife and family. He always tells me he thinks he's about to retire from the Mod Stories slam, that he thinks he's finally run out of stories. But I think he probably has at least another hundred. Anyway, I hope so.

Are any of these stories reminding you of stories of your own? That's what happens at Mod Show's. You hear something and you think, oh yeah, that reminds me of that time. So once you find your story, think it through, make sure it has stakes, a strong beginning and ending, that it involves some sort of change, then call our pitch line and give us a one-minute version.

You can do it right at our website at the Moth.org or call us at 877-799-MOTH. That's 877-799-6684. We're looking forward to hearing from you. When we come back, an ex-con, a lesbian mom, and an ER doc. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by PRX. You're listening to the Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Jennifer Hickson.

This next story is from Tony Sipprian from the San Francisco Grand Slam where we partner with public radio stations, KQED and KALW. The theme was never again. It was a really loaded theme for a man who spent a very long time in prison atoning for gang violence. Here's Tony Sipperen.

And... APPLAUSE Growing up in Watts, California, you're bound to have a never again. I could be appearing about the 10-year-old who found himself behind the wheel of a stolen 1963 falcon and crashed. I could be standing here telling about the 12-year-old who was arrested for possession of a firearm only to have his name changed by the booking officer.

I could be standing here telling about the 15-year-old who was in possession of a stolen meat slicer. Now, I'm going to tell you about the 17-year-old who was arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced for his role in a gang-related homicide. Mind you, he fell asleep during trial for two reasons. One, lack of sleep, two, lack of hope. But the judge, she made sure that he was awake during the sentence and phase. She said, Will the defendant please rise? Their I stood all 120 pounds of me. She said, you've been a very busy young man.

She said, it is here that I sentence you by the power vested in this court to 26 years to life in the California Department of Corrections. to 26 years to life in the California Department of Corrections. She said, but I'm a forego to last part of this sentence because of your baby face and your small stature. I hear about sentence you to the California Youth Authority where you will remain until age 25. That time a youth authority was short spent.

By age 19, I found myself standing in San Quentin when a Californian's most dangerous prisons. 4D20, fourth tier, 20 of sale, D block. Went through the sale bars, I could see wind surfers. Now that was freedom I thought something that I would never see again. At age 24 I found hope through a friend who threw me a lifeline, hope, understanding, and compassion. No matter what never again stories I may have told her.

At age 29, that hope started to fade. For I saw me and dying around me. I saw a man die from an abscess tooth being pulled. He went to the dentist, they pulled the tooth, the poison released into his bloodstream and he died. I saw a man die from a heart attack, with early warning signs, hey man I'm having chest pains over here.

Hey Phil out of sick call slip. Monday morning they found him dead in his bed. All his hopelessness started to solidify when the governor said, the only way that a life term prison or whatever get out of prison is in a pie box. I turned to drugs for a temporary escape. By age 35, a friend came to me and said, hey man, I've been found suitable. I'm going home. Suitability. Every life parent prison wants to hear that word.

If he could do it, so could I. I immediately arm myself with a can of bullshit repellent. And bullshit repellent works like this. Hey man, I got a joint to smoke. I'm cool, I don't need that. Hey man, these dudes talking shit about us. Pssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss I then joined every self-help group I could in order to find the real me. By age 40, I walked into the parole board, file suitable. By age 41, the governor had taken it after that 150-day wait.

At age 42, I went back into the parole board, found suitable again. Governor took it again. At age 43, I'm home. Never, ever, a fucking again. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was Tony Cicrion at the San Francisco Grand Slam with the theme Never Again. When we were going over his story a week or so before the show, Tony shared a detail that's really stayed with me. After serving his sentence, Tony moved to Berkeley with his wife and got a manufacturing job

that he loves. He clocks out at 430, which often puts him right in some nasty bumper to bumper commuter traffic at 5. He says he looks around at the other cars and sees the people in there all miserable. But Tony says he never minds that traffic because in the California state penitentiary 5pm is roll call when you have to stand outside your cell and yell out your prison number to the CO. It's a really depressing part of each day, times 26 years, so Tony says he is just fine with sitting in that traffic at 5. Our next story is from Pam Colby in Minnesota.

She won the Grand Slam at the Fitzgerald Theater. Here's Pam. When I was growing up, often my family would drive the long, slow roads from northern Minnesota to Minneapolis to visit my grandma. I love the visits, but the drive was hell. Sitting in the back seat among my sisters, trying to sit still, keep my hands to myself. By the time we arrived, I was a wound up spring ready to pop.

Sometimes when my grandma saw me coming, she's looked afraid. See, a few years back when I was flying through her living room, I crashed into her, knocking her to the floor. As I came out of my imaginary world, I started down down there, awkward, unable to get up. Embarrassment in the air as the adults came scrambling to get her to her feet. See back in 1938 when she was just 28, she was struck with the polio virus, and she was paralyzed from the neck down within 24 hours. It took her years to regain her muscles, but she learned to walk again, kind of like Roosevelt.

It was more of a balancing act. But she looked like she could walk. What she lacked in her walk and she made up in her talking. I love to listen to her tell stories and I could stay up late in the night listening to my mom and my grandma talk. I'd wait. I'd want to hear the ghost stories, my eyes getting wider, like how when great grandma died, aunt Olga saw her spirit walk right out of her body.

Or then there were the ghost stories from Sweden that always involved a rocking chair that rocked after the person had died, like, I'm still here, y'all. Back and forth without a soul in sight. But really, when I graduated from college, I decided to move to Minneapolis, really, because my grandma was here. But also, because I knew there was a lesbian community here.

It was the early 1980s, and I wasn't really out, especially to my grandma. But she seemed to get me, like praising me, when I cut off my long hippie here, and going back to my tomboy look We didn't really communicate through eye contact nobody in my family used eye contact That would be too intimate But when I brought my new girlfriend over for dinner. she served us on the good China.

And in 1990, when my lesbian partner and I decided to have a child, and me, the butchie one, became pregnant, my aunt and my grandma gave us a baby shower. When baby Joe was born, my grandma was no longer able to walk into the hospital, but she came in her wheelchair, and we set him down in her lap. She held on to him tight. About four years after that, a ne' most beautiful day in Minnesota, the birds were singing it was April, spring, finally, Daffodil's tulips, I was out running errands with Joa, and I decided to swing by and sear. She was in a nursing home now, falling due to the secondary effects of polio. And we stopped in. She wasn't in her chair, which my son liked to push her around in.

She was in bed. I visited her often, and I said, how are you doing, grandma? And she said, all right, there's a big plate of food and a piece of cherry pie, and Joe said, great grandma, can I have your cherry pie? And she said, yeah, and then I watched her watch him eat it. And she was smiling, which was nice, because she hadn't been very happy lately. And then suddenly, full on eye contact. You know, I really don't have an appetite anymore. I said, yeah, it's okay, grandma.

You don't have to eat. You've had a good long life. The next morning, I was at work and I got the call. She died. And I went and I said goodbye to her body. And then I went home and I felt kind of like a big old stone sitting on the couch that clouded loneliness and sadness coming down and thinking about her not being in my life anymore. And then I looked across the room at the rocking chair.

And it was moving. Every so slightly without a soul insight. Thank you. Pam Colby is a filmmaker based in the Twin Cities. She teaches cinema and documentary filmmaking at Independent Filmmaker Project, Minnesota. To see a picture of Pam's son with her mom, visit themoth.org. Her current doc project is Not in My Lifetime, and it's about growing up queer, marriage, and the impact of becoming legal.

Our final story is from Beth Dillman, who's an ER doctor in New York City. She's a really warm and funny person, but this particular story is intense. Please be warned that the story deals with the aftermath of gun violence. Here's Beth. I know what happens after you die. I take your family into a quiet room with Kleenex, and then I say the word dead, not expired because you are a person, not milk, and not passed on because families always want to believe that means I just transferred you to another hospital.

Dead. I have to say it. And that's really all they taught us about how to break bad news in medical school. One hour lecture. So we learned by watching our teaching physicians. We were their constant companions in this sort of theater of the bereaved lurking in doorways and bedside and the hospitals ER waiting to see how soft they made their voices. When did they touch someone on the shoulder? How much medical jargon did they use before getting to the word dead? dead. When you trained to become a doctor, they don't really teach you about death. They teach you how to prevent it, how to fight it, how to say it, not how to face it. So on one of my first nights as a

teaching physician in the emergency room, as we worked on the body of a 16-year-old boy with eight bullet holes in his chest and abdomen, we were almost angry at his body. Is he breathing? Is he bleeding? Is his heart beating? I'd go to the head of the bed and I plunge a breathing tube down his airway and I hook him up to the respirator that breathes for him. We put a large bribe in each arm and even larger one in his groin and through that we start pressure bagging, typo negative blood, just trying to replace with his lost. We put tubes everywhere. I call for another unit of blood, but no matter how fast we work, we can't work fast enough. The monitor starts to sound this shrill, insect wine that's meant to alert us the

patient is crashing, which we already know. So it feels less like a warning and more like a rebuke. And then we lose his blood pressure and his pulse, but he's 16. So I perform a trauma Hail Mary. I grab a 15 blade scalpel and I make an incision from the nipple all the way down to the bed. I take the scissors, I cut through the intercostal membranes, we take the ribs, spreaders, put them between the ribs and we crank his chest open.

There's this huge gush of blood and then a moment of stillness, like the second after a lightning strike. this huge gush of blood and then a moment of stillness, like the second after a lightning strike. Even his blood smells metallic, like ozone. And I reach my hands into his chest and I put them on his still heart, and I began squeezing it for him, feeling for damage.

Then I take my right hand, and I sweep it down the length of his aorta, and it is so riddled with holes that the frayed pieces just disintegrate in my hands. The first time I had to be the one to break bad news to a patient, I was in my last year of residency training. I remember I had to do it in the patient's room because his adult daughter refused to leave his bedside. So I said, I'm sorry, he's dead. We did everything we could. And then I was supposed to step out of the room,

give her a few moments of privacy, but I was paralyzed, rooted to the spot by the sense of failure and loss. When I looked in the bed, I couldn't stop imagining my own father in it, and my supervisor must have seen what was going on, because she grabbed me by the arm, dragged me outside, and said, don't you ever do that again. Don't ever pretend that grief belongs to you when it doesn't. One day the person you love is going to be in that stretcher, but if today is not the day, you say you're sorry, you mean it, but then you have to walk away. I look up from the boy and see that my

own audience is formed. They wait to see what I do next, and I realize in front of me is a gaping hole. And the boy's family will probably be here very soon. So I turn to the surgery resident and I say listen as fast as you can, you just have to get this kid closed up. Not 10 minutes go by. When we hear the sound of a woman demanding to be let in, we are not ready. Security tries to keep her out. We are shoving goss and surgical supplies and tubing into giant trash bags, but she is a tsunami force. We barely have this boy closed up and half covered in a sheet when I see her standing in the doorway Clearly his mother She goes absolute quiet

I'm sorry he's dead. We did everything we could We did everything we could. She takes a running leap towards the body, a nurse at the head of the bed notices a large needle, still attached to the suture holding him together, and she plucks it off the table just before his mother lands on top of his body, trying to protect it with her own. She starts keening. It's a terrible sound. I'm sorry. He's dead. We did everything we could. She slides off his body and I see her put the boys fingers to her mouth just briefly before holding them against her cheek I start to leave as soon as the social worker enters Moveshing for the rest of the crowd to follow me out. I

Think that's what they can learn from watching me. It's how to walk away and Without a moment's break. I go to see the next patient. Because there are 40 people in the waiting room who all want immediate attention, and they can't know that I still feel the dead boy's heart in my hands like an anchor. But I know if I don't put it down now, I may never remember that this loss doesn't belong to me.

One day, grief will be mine, but not tonight. Thank you. That was Best Stillman, Best is an emergency physician and writer. That's it for this special Grand Slam edition of the Moth Radio Hour. Go find a story slam in your city, put your name in the hat, and maybe you'll join us here next time. Your host this hour with Jennifer Hickson. Jennifer also directed the stories and the show. The rest of the most directorial staff includes Katherine Burns, Sarah Haberman, Sarah Austin, Janesse, and Meg Bowles. Production support from Moods 80.

Most stories are true, is remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Most Moth events 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 Brad Meldow, Tortoise, Alabama Shakes, RJD2, Boombox, and Regina Carter. You can find links to all the music we use at our website. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by me, Jay Allison, with Vicki

Merrick, at Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. This hour was produced with funds from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National End hour was produced with funds from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. The Mothradio Hour is presented by PRX. For more about our podcast, for information on pitching

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