The Moth - The Moth Radio Hour: Lost and Found

Episode Date: February 8, 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. Host: Sarah Austin Jenness 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.

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 Piorix, this is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Sarah Austin-Geness.

In this episode, lost and found stories. Airloom's 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, through an article in a local Mizzoula 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 mouth. It's July 7th, scorching hot 95 degrees. I'm in a dodged, dorango 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 carrying for a baby. This man had possibly crashed a blue car and he was carrying for a baby. I'm at the end of the road. I'm depressed. I'm struggling. My marriage is fallen apart. And in front of me, there's nothing but large bushes and pine trees that had overgrown the road that I was on.

Another dead end. I turned my patrol car around to continue the search. The area that I'm searching is low low national forest. It's 2.1 million square miles. It's a little bit larger than Delaware folks. I continue searching for hours. 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. I'm 20 miles away. So I go. I mean, those are officers. way 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 the 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 Greg, nobody knows where he's at. As I'm scrambling my brain, I to try to figure out what I'm going to do next. My portable radio breaks Welch 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's 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 Elle. 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

her. And he says to me, "'Crucumstance, dead, I buried him alive, I crashed off of a cliff. You won't find him. I don't know where he is at. And eraged. I'm asking him for more information. And he tells me about... He tells me about a bush that he drove over and started the 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'd 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 a 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 this 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 walk down, down slope of the trash, and about a hundred yards here and a hundred yards there. I'm still picking up traces of human.

Till 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 me searching rescue, people that 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 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 suspects pants in an easterly downslope direction from a trash and then I find a car seat and a 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. Thirty degree slopes were hot, were sweaty, were tired, 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 the baby that has tried and tried and tried and tried and tried and tried until he couldn't try 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 there's 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 him up in a down coat And I kiss his forehead and I cry And I hold him 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 and drink over to their care, in less than a minute and

a half drinking drinks, two bottles of infamyl, he was that dehydrated. However, he's a strong kid and he's alive today, and healthy. I go back to my patrol car. I think I had 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 from 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, where 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, themoth.org. ... ... After our break, a woman comes out of hiding

and a Beatles fan falls in love. When the Moth Radio 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 Sarah Austin-Geness. 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 Moth.

Live with the mom. So it's one of those first days for you catch yourself getting way too excited because things are going way too well. Supposed to be just drinks that turn into dinner or more drinks. Then we were back at his place in Inwood in New York City and we were just talking, talking, talking. And as it often does on first dates, the conversation snaked 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, I don't know, 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 gonna feel if I did it. I was like, 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. 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 the 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 y'all are pressley. The Congresswoman who's district we're in right now, she did something so incredible. She posted a video where she revealed that she had 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, blue-ish purple. 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 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 moth showcase that explored 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 Horse 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 house 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 them on, standing in the park.

You had to look like a warrior. You had to 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. It was great grandfather's grandfather's father's brothers sisters mothers cousins

And I had to be accepted and I had to do what they did They used to wear these shiny shoes called imperial's 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 says, no. Back to New York, you go. So back to New York, 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 in 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 the brotherhood, but then I felt to be trail, 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 of family. I was lying inside that Beatles song, when I was growing up, that reminded me of family. It 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 culture. I had that for a little while. But that magic feeling was no longer there and no way 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 came in, and she was smiling, she was beaming, she lit up a room. All right? When she came, that smile was there.

When she was leaving, my head bob left and right with her. Whew. 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 we were 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, when the following day, we must have this psychic connection. It was the heart of February. It 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, I just, I gotta tell you something, I gotta show you something.

And she whipped out these two pictures. And these two pictures, and I'm cold, I'm trembling, and I'm counting heads I'm trembling, and I'm counting heads. Two, four, five, seven, seven heads. And she says, these are my children. They 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 how to do this. You know, I had a, I'm still finding my way. Anyway, we, we left it and I figured out why she didn't allow me to walk her home. She was really trying to protect her children from who 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 said, well, she's very pretty. And 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. I got used to ironing my stuff. And I'm thinking about, I 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 there 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? Now 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. 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 dogs outside waiting for you. And I said, ooh, and I confront stuff. So I went outside, and there was these two young men cross the street in the park. One with his hat, cocked to the side. He was about 18 years old. The other one had a headband down low

with a pit bull stare. And the older one called me over. And when he called me over, so I said, yeah, what's up? And he says, what's your intention for our mother? I said, your mother, who's your mother? 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 seasoned, and I knew that life. And he called the young one over, and the younger one did that pop towards him, but I ball in me, and the older one told the younger one something and the younger one as they were walking away The young 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. Woo! Woo! Woo!

Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Gregory Ferreira 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 themoth.org. After our break, a man gives his favorite book away and then tries desperately to find it again, and a lifelong New Yorker has to pick up and move, when the moth Radio Hour continues. But I don't need no other lover Something in the starlight shows me Don't wanna leave it now You know I believe in how You know I believe in love. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by the Public Radio Exchange, PRX.org.

You're listening to The Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Sarah Austin-Geness. 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 month. Here's Joseph. When I was in college, I had a friend whose name was AJ.

In 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. We were fusing to look at each other. We were 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 liked the Metz. But the one thing, the one thing that we both love together was the Yankee announcer, Phil Rizudo. Now Phil Rizudo 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 it 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 A.G. and I love the most about Phil Rosuto was his stream of consciousness storytelling. Stories used to spring from him out of seemingly nowhere. You never knew where they were gonna go. You never knew where they were gonna end.

In fact, they were so epic that Rosuto himself in his own scorecard over a particular inning would write the initials, www, which stood for, wasn't watching. Anyway, one day, AJ invites me over to his house, and he presents me with a gift. It's a book, and the book is called, Oh Holy Cow. And what these two writers have done,

they've taken Rosudo's broadcasts and they've transcribed them, and they called 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 had appreciated 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 operable brain tumor and a month later, AJ dies.

So now fast for 25 years and my mother who is a widow who lives alone and 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 pass this use 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 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 Oholy Cow. And I am so emotionally exhausted that I do nothing. And I let the book go. And the book, I watch 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. I go to the nursing home, I passed the bookstore, I think, AJ's books in there. And I realized 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 realized that the power stems from the fact that my mother is still alive. And as long as my mother is 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. And I say, listen, I gave you a book and I need it back. And she says, well, 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 Arch It's just ills and ills and ills 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 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 closed 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. Applause. Thank you. Applause. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 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 mouth. So my wife Naomi calls and she says, Aaron, I got the job.

Can you believe it? I got the job. My dream job. They offered it to me right in the middle of the interview. I got it. And we just have to move to Boston. 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 Mini 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, like, great apartment in New York at all. And then Naomi says, we have to let them know tomorrow afternoon. I love you, bye, and changs up. In the next 24 hours, we go through the first four stages of grief in 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 try long distance. What am I gonna 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 PhD. 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 not just acceptance, it's relief. It feels good, it feels good to say it. And then two days before relieving, 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 in 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's his four-cythmonuments 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 the right mind is inside an air conditioning, but we're walking across the Brooklyn Bridge through Chinatown, up East Broadway, then the Lansing, 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, I also have to go in. I have to. And Murray's not there, but his assistant is ridiculous. And I'm like, 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 for my grandpa Bernie. And he kind of squinches up his face, and he's like, yeah, yeah, Beth, David, cemetery, right?

But 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 250. Like, he's never touched an iPad, you know? Like, 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 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 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 rock 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 that'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 hours of googling, I found these 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 frickin' time machine. But also, like a time machine. My New York, my grandpa Bernie's New York, it's gone. like a frickin' 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'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 Wolf. 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 Murray's monument store and Grandpa Bernie's clock, which is now proudly displayed in Aaron's Boston home, go to themoth.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, Katherine Burns and Sarah Austin Janess, who also hosted and directed the stories in the hour along with Janelle Pfeiffer. Co-producer is Vicki Merrick, the social producer and the lead couch, additional Grand Slam coaching by Chloe Sammon. The rest of the Moth's leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Jennifer Hicks and Meg Bulls, Kate Teller's Jennifer Birmingham, Marina Cluche, Suzanne Rust, Brandon Grant, Inga Gladowski, Sarah Jane Johnson, and Aldi Kaza. Most stories are true, as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers.

Our theme music is by the drift other music in this hour from Selwagin's symphonet, The Beatles, Julian Lodge, and a Not 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, and presented by PRX. For more about our podcast for information on pitching us your own story, and everything else, go to our website, TheMorth.org.