The Moth - The Moth Radio Hour: Misfits, The MET, and a Nursing Home Switcheroo

Episode Date: October 5, 2021

An hour devoted to misfits! An awkward teenager finds his place at a museum, a child is given a sense of structure and order in life, a woman worries she isn't "Korean enough," and a daughter does her best to soothe her elderly mom. Hosted by The Moth’s Executive Producer, Sarah Austin Jenness. To see photos from this week’s episode, visit: TheMoth.org The Moth Radio Hour is produced by The Moth and Jay Allison of Atlantic Public Media. Storytellers: Andrew Solomon, Greg Audel, Linda Gregory, Hilda Chazanovitz

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 theMoth.org forward slash Houston. This is The Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Sarah Austin-Janez from The Malth, and I'm glad you're listening. The Malth is a place for two stories told by people all around the

world. In this hour, four stories of misfits, outsiders, and, you know, just general awkwardness. What do you do when you don't fit in? Do you try harder? Do you run? Well, here's a story about a woman who feels she's not Korean enough. A wild student who wants rules. A daughter who's always felt a little disconnected from her mom. And our first story, where a young man escapes an ordinary life in search of glamour. And as a heads up, this story contains a mild sexual reference. Here's Andrew Solomon, live at the mall at the New York Public Library. APPLAUSE

My senior year of high school, I decided it was time for things to change. My braces were off. I got contact lenses. My skin started to clear up. And my yearbook quote was, high hoe the glamorous life. And I needed a summer job. And I applied for several jobs, including a job in the editorial department of the Metropolitan Museum

of Art, that I didn't think I'd get, because I knew there were a vast number of people competing for it. And to my total delight, I did get it. And I thought, my intellect. My intellect is going to change the world, and they can tell. So I got to my first day there and I went into the office of the woman who had hired me.

And I noticed that the thank you note I'd sent her after our interview was on her little bulletin board behind her desk. And I said, Polly, that's so touching that you've put up the thank you note that I wrote to you. And she said, you know, there were 200 applicants for this job. And basically what this job involves is filing, proofreading, and Xeroxing, and any idiot

could do it. But you are, thank you, note, was on my favorite color of blue paper. So I decided that I'd give you the job. So indeed, the next few days were taken up with filing and zeroxing and an occasional little bit of copy editing. And I was given a desk in a room at the back of the editorial department where there were many other people with many other desks.

And because of the architecture of that part of the museum, I had a sort of triangular piece of wall space over my desk with a nail sticking out of it. And I thought, I should a sort of triangular piece of wall space over my desk with the nails sticking out of it. And I thought, I should hang something up there. I should hang up something in a frame. So I got home that night to dinner with my parents and I said, there's a nails sticking out of the wall right above my desk. And I really should take something in to hang there, something in a frame. Well, in my father's bachelor days, he had been a great fan of an opera singer

named Luba Vaelic. And when he met my mother, he had a photograph of Luba Vaelic as Tosca that was hanging in his apartment. And when they got married, she said that she did not want photos of other women all over the apartment. But that he could hang Luba Vaelic in the bathroom, if he wanted to. So all my life, my parents had a photograph of Luba Veilich in their bathroom.

And that summer, they were making some repairs in their bathroom. And so I father said, well, you can have Luba if you want to. So off I went to the Metropolitan Museum with my picture, and I hung it over my desk, and there it was. And three days later, the chairman of the editorial department, with whom I had until then had no interaction whatsoever, came back into the room to get something, and suddenly this booming voice rang out. When she sang Rosa Linda, New York laughed.

When she sang Dona Anna, New York cried, and when she sang Salome, New York was speechless. Is that your photograph, he said? And I said, yes, thinking I could carry it off, that I was actually the loop of a Lich fan in the family. I said, yes, that is my photograph. He said, you're coming out for a drink with me after work, young man.

So all we went for our drink at the Stanhope, and he introduced me in the course of that drink to all of the big, high-powered people in the department. And he said to me, what are you doing in the department anyway? And I said, zeroxing, filing a little copy editing, some proof reading. He said, that's ridiculous. Well, come up with something else for you to do. I'll know by tomorrow. One of the people he'd introduced me to was the head of classical art, a man named Dietrich von

Bottmer. And the next day I found myself in the elevator with Dietrich von Bottmer. And we had a very pleasant chat, and I thought these people aren't so scary. There was no reason for me to be so intimidated. And the doors of the elevator opened on the second floor to reveal two women who were knocking on a vase. And one was saying to the other, it's just as I thought, there's nothing in there.

And Dietrich von Bahtmer jumped out of the elevator and he said, what did you expect to find in my amphora geraniums? He said, and they turned and ran. I got upstairs, and John O'Neill, the chairman of the Editorial Department, said, you're going to do photo research for the Costume Institute catalog. And I thought, OK, I've arrived. The Costume Institute was a nexus of glamour, even within the glamorous metropolitan museum of art, and I was all revved up to go down there.

So I went down, and I started doing photo research, and I worked with two curators, and it was the 80s, and there was a lot of jewelry all over the place at that point. And one of the curators was wearing this amazing Ruby ring, a kind of cocktail ring with this gigantic Ruby in it. And she wore it every day. And I'd noticed that. And after about a week, she came in one day and I noticed she wasn't wearing it. And I said to her, you're, you're ring.

And she said, oh yes, she said, I lost it. And I said, with that dark breaking, I said, where did you lose it? And she said, in a caramel custard. And I said, I beg your pardon. And she said, it's happened to me before. So then I went back up to the editorial department. And they told me, we've decided that you

should be the one to edit the introduction to the catalog by Deanna Vreland. Deanna Vreland, who had been the editor of Vogue, who was now the consultative chairman of the Costume Institute, who was the most glamorous person in the most glamorous department in the most glamorous institution. And I was incredibly excited, and I thought they've really realized my editorial voice.

My editorial voice can do anything. So all I went for my meeting with Mrs. Reelon, and I got downstairs. She didn't come in all the time, but she came in that day, and she walked in, and there was someone who answers the telephone who sat behind a big glass desk in the costume institute. And Mrs. Reelon walked in and looked at her and said,

so you're the new receptionist. And she said, yes, Mrs. Reelon, I am, and I'm very excited to be here. And Mrs. Reelon looked her up and down, and said, you, Mrs. Philan Dyerm, and I'm very excited to be here in Mrs. Rie then looked her up and down and said, you would be a lovely creature if you could grow legs. And then she walked over to where some other characters were looking at images of what was supposed to go in the exhibition. And one of them had just picked up a picture and said, my mother used to have a dress just like this. And Mrs. Reeland said, that's the most bourgeois outfit

in the entire exhibition. And I thought, right, editing, here we go. So, off we went into the room and I said, well Mrs. Reeland, I said, very nervous. I said, I've made some edits and I just want to show you what they are, I've worked from your draft. And here's the first one and she looked at it and she said, why did you change that word?

And I said, well Mrs. Freeman, it's the verb and it doesn't agree with the subject in the sentence. So I was just making it agree. And she said, does it have to agree? And I said, it is museum policy that the verb agree with the subject. And she said, young man, that seems to me to show an exceptional lack of imagination. So by the time we got done, I was virtually in tears, and I went back up with the somewhat edited version of it that I had. And I said, when I got back upstairs, I said, that was hard. I said, did the person who sent me down, he said, I know, none of the rest of us could bear to do it.

So we sent you. Well, a few days after that, Mrs. Brieland and I had managed to hatch some little version of a reasonable relationship. She came in, and the exhibition was almost ready to open. And she walked through the exhibition, and she pointed at each of these mannequins, the exhibition which I thought looked fantastic, and she said, her head has to move to the left.

You have to change the hat on that one. This one is awful, it shouldn't be here at all. That one, and she went on and on, and I thought, ugh, this impossible old woman is making everyone's lives miserable. But when she was finished, the exhibition looked about a million times better than it had before. And she and I then went upstairs and we were walking through the great hall of the Metropolitan Museum and she put one of her

small hall-like hands on my arm and she said to me, young man, stop for a minute. So I stopped and she said, I want you to look around this room and contemplate the fact that every one of these people went into a store in which other things were available and selected what they're wearing right now. I look down, I look down at her hand on the sleeve of my blazer, which I believe my mother had selected in a store where other things were available, and hope that I was passing muster. About a week after that, shortly before the exhibition, it was to open in its final form. She came in one day and one of the characters had hung over her desk of photo.

It's an amazing photo, so if you may have seen it, it's Richard Avidon's photograph of Norea of Naked Leaping Forward with his arms up in the air. And Mrs. Berlin walked in and saw up there and said, I see you have my photograph up over your desk. And the character said, your photograph, Mrs. Fiedlin, and she said, of course, she said, I had it done when I was at FOB. They thought it was such an extravagance.

We had to fly that Russian boy. We had to fly him in from Paris, but I said to them, you wait and see, this will be the apotheosis of the dance. And indeed it is. And the incursion, well, that's very fascinating. What happened? She said, it was, I was with Dickie Avedon, and we went to his studio, which is like a cathedral.

And we got ourselves settled in there. And I have my assistants, and Dickie had his assistants. And we were all making plans and figuring things out. And then that Russian arrived off of his airplane. And he came in, and he said he needed to warm up. And he began to dance in among us. No music, he just danced right in between everyone. And my dear, I must tell you, it was very strange, but it was rather beautiful. And then I said to Dickie, I said, my goodness, I said, this has to be a private moment. And so we sent all of his assistants out,

and we sent all of my assistants out. And it was just Dickie Avadon and me and that Russian. And he went behind your screen to take off his clothes. And what happened, she said, gesturing vertically up from her crotch. She said, you know how it can be with men in the mornings. She said, when he came out, it was like that. And we had to wait half an hour for it to go down.

And I must tell you, my dear, it was very strange, but it was rather beautiful. I had gone from my family where there was a picture of Luba Vaelich on the wall, where we had windows that looked out on the glamour. I had found the door, and I had finally walked out into glamour itself. It was very strange and it was very beautiful, except it was also often very ordinary and quite ugly. It wasn't much of a safe haven, but it felt safe to me even though it was treacherous, because it seemed as though finally I might escape

from glasses, from braces, from that tyranny of insecure anxiety that had ruled my adolescence. Thank you. That was Andrew Solomon. Andrew is the author of Far From the Tree, Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity, and the Noonday Demon, an atlas of depression. Andrew is now also a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He says, I think of Mrs. Reeland every time I walk through the great hall of the Met. I also think of her when I'm having my photo

taken. She once said, unless it's a fashion shoot, where the simplest thing you can to get your photo taken, it's either a photo of your face or of your clothes, but it can't be both. Coming up next, two stories, one from Houston, Texas, and one from Korea, when the Mothradio Hour continues. The Mothradio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by PRX. This is the Mothrad and presented by PRX. This is the Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Sarah Austin-Geness.

Next up, a story from Greg Audel at our Open Mike Stories LAM series in Houston, Texas, where we partner with Houston Public Media. People ask where our storytellers come from. Greg was an Uber driver. One night when he dropped off a customer at a theater, he said, what is going on with so many people lined up? The customer described Moth Story Slamms and it turns out Greg is a regular listener to this show. So he parked the Uber and he walked right in to throw his

name in the hat and he's been telling stories with the Moth ever since. So calling all your drivers out there, we want to hear your stories. And here's Greg Odell at the Moth in Houston, Texas. You know, I realized at a young age, and I was a very, very lucky kid. Up until the age of 12, my life was pretty normal, but then at 12 years old, my parents divorced. And, you know, my folks, you know, were occupied with their lives. You know, my mother was trying to adjust to being a single mother, and, you know, And my folks, we're occupied with their lives. My mother was trying to adjust to being a single mother and figure out how to support a family.

She was in a new relationship. She was learning to be a lesbian, which wasn't easy in friends with Texas. She won in my father and I had to spend quality time together, and which we had never done before. She just didn't find out until years later that it was always at strip clubs and bars. And I didn't really have time to go to school.

The same my parents weren't strict, would be a tremendous exaggeration. Instead of going to school, I would do things that interested me, I would chase celebrities. I would sleep until noon. I was in charge of my own foods. I lived on frozen pizzas and hamburgers. That's all I would eat.

And I drank three liters of soda every single day. And I felt sorry for kids who grew up with strict parents. I would look at them. I didn't really understand why they would put up with it. I would hear kids say things like, oh, I need to check with my parents about that. Oh, I need to be home by midnight. I thought that was really strange and really kind of pathetic and all honesty.

You know, parents were to be counseled. You know, they were to be helped, but, you know, they had their own lives to live. And then when I was 14, I was accepted to the high school for the performing arts in Houston, which was about 30 miles from my house. And I was very lucky that I became friends with a kid who lived within about 10 minutes of me and his father worked downtown.

So we would often commute back and forth. And I noticed his dad was kind of a control freak. When he would pick us up, he'd be like, oh, what happened to school today? Do you have any homework to do? Did you get the leaves out of the pool? Man, and I asked my friend one time, I was like, why do you put up with that?

And he didn't really know where I was coming from. And also, this friend of mine, he changed his clothes every single day. So one night, I don't even remember why, but it was a school night. And I had to stay the night over there. I'd only known him maybe a month or so. And we got to his house, and his mother had snacks for us after school. I thought,

well, that's Quaint. And then she said, well, why don't you all go do your homework? I thought, wow, that's interesting. I hadn't done that before. So we did our homework and then they had dinner on the table. And we sat around, everybody talked about what their day was like and what they did and Then we went and played video games. I'd never played video games before I worked all the time I you know was working from the time I was 12 so that was interesting and then at 9.45 His dad came back to the room where we were playing video games Okay guys you got 15 minutes before lights out I can't tell you to this day exactly what happened. My eyes filled with tears and we went to the bathroom and

someone put a toothbrush out for me. It's been a long time since I brushed my teeth but that was pretty cool and And then for some reason, you know, his mother told us, you know, on the way back to your room, you know, leave your clothes in the laundry room and I'll wash them for you. This was like, I felt like I was in leave it to beaver. So we went to, you know, my buddy's room, and I finally couldn't help it, I was sobbing. And I said to my buddy, I said, room and I finally couldn't help it, I was sobbing. And I said to my buddy, I said, to your parents act like that all the time?

He goes, yeah, I said, to your dad, tell you to go to bed at 10 o'clock at night? He's like, yeah. I said, can I stay tomorrow night? He said, yeah, he goes, my parents told me the other night that at any time you wanted to stay here, you could stay here. So I pretty much stayed there for the next three years. And their rules became my rules, their punishments became my punishments.

You know, I told my parents, you know, when I was in junior high that my report card was none of their business and they didn't get to see it. I tried that once with my friend's father. It didn't go over so well. He saw every progress report. And at school they knew if I was in trouble at school, it's amazing. I don't think this could happen these days, but they never called my parents. They called my friends parents.

And then as I got older, I realized this thing, rules, routines, structure, there was value in it. And there was also value in being that person for others. So as I grew older, my sister became a single mother. And I tried to take on Uncle's last surrogate father for her kids. And then it's just kind of a tradition that's gone on. Right now, the kids that I'm sort of Uncle Gregor too, or two and a half, four and a half,

seven, 10, 13, 20, and 22. And they know we're gonna have a great time together when we go out or when I'm at their house or if I happen for a week, but homework's gonna be done on time. Their beds are gonna be made. They going to be polite to each other. Am I strict? Yeah, I'm strict. I'm so proud of it. That's it. Thanks. That was Greg O'Dell. He said, a misfit who finds a place to fit in feels better than

if they'd won the lottery. Greg is a sometime co-host of a radio show called, So What's Your Story? But the greatest job he's ever had is being an uncle. And I love this. He tells people that if their dining room table isn't big enough to accommodate their kids' friends, then they need to get a larger dining room table. In this hour, we're bringing you stories of not quite fitting in. And our next storyteller is Linda Gregory. Linda crafted the story in a Moth community workshop

we taught with a group called Also Known As. They help international adoptees. Linda is an adoptee and she said she was doing a cultural search to find her place. And that's where the story begins. Here's Linda live at the Moth. Thousands of years ago in Korea, an ancestor dreamed of eight tortoises, which was the premonition for the birth of eight sons, to be born and carry out a long family line. This was a story I first heard when I met my boyfriend, Abraham's family.

Abraham is Korean-American, and he had probably heard this story a thousand times that it had become boring. But to me, I was a Korean adoptee and I was an aw. You see, as a Korean adoptee, I was raised in America since I was four months old. And my connection to America and my family was through the American Revolution. And my only connection to Korea were through history books. But for my boyfriend, Abraham, he was connected to Korea through this living history. You see, he was actually the chung-son in his family, or the eldest grandson of the eldest

son, and he would carry out the long family line. And I knew that someday I would have to meet his family. I would have to meet his grandparents, who were the eldest of this long family line. But I also knew for me that I was on my own search to find how I connect to Korea. What is my identity, and what is my heritage? And so I decided that year that I I connect to Korea. What is my identity and what is my heritage? And so I decided that year that I would go to Korea

for about a year and I would learn Korean and I would reconnect and find these answers. And I had been there for about three months when I received a phone call from Abraham and he said, you have to meet my grandparents. His grandparents were both in their 80s, and their health was dwindling. And his grandfather, especially his Harabujji,

had advancing dementia. And it was his final wish to see his Changsong Mary. So I had to see them. I had no choice. I wanted to receive their blessing and I wanted to connect with them. And so before I set up the appointment to go see them, I had heard one request and that was to send a photo. The first step was to win harmony or his grandmother's approval because harmony had the sight or noonshi, which is the ability to see into a person's character through a single photo. And he said, quick, send me your best photo. In this photo, I had to appear strong and healthy, and maybe just a little bit taller.

And we sent the photo, and all the while I'm worrying, because this could determine our relationship. Would we stay together? Would it be compromised? And I worried about this internal fear too. And that was, was I butchokeo or was I not enough? Would she know that I wasn't really Korean? And so, the time came to prepare to meet them.

And before I could meet them, I needed to learn one simple etiquette, one simple one for every Korean. And that was to bow, to bow deeply down to the ground. It's something that's done for an elder to show your greatest respect, something that I didn't know how to do. And so without Abraham there, without family, without really knowing this culture,

I used our greatest resource. That was YouTube. And I practiced YouTube for several days. And although it was never going to get perfect, I was never going to be able to bow perfectly, it was time. And I traveled to the edge of Seoul to visit them. And at first, I had imagined that I would arrive at a palace where I would have to walk a great distance being escorted over to Bale before them. And in reality, when I arrived, it was a small apartment with a leather sofa, a big screen TV, and I heard a shriek from the side, and it was a shriek of joy filled with energy, and it was his grandmother, or her harmony.

And her harmony came running toward me, throwing her walker aside with wobbly knees, with open arms, and she grabbed me. And I stood there frozen for a minute, and I hugged her back because I didn't really have a choice. And all the while I'm thinking, is this a trick? Am I allowed to touch her? And when am I supposed to bow? I even thought maybe for a second,

I'll just back up a little bit and bow right there before her. But the time never came. And later in that visit, Hermione held my hand, a similar size to mine, and something felt so familiar. And she held it and grasped it and said, of course, I would have accepted you. But I didn't understand why, because I still had embeiled.

I hadn't proven that I'm Korean. I hadn't done anything. And in the background was Abraham's grandfather, or a Hada buti. He was silent. And I couldn't tell if the words didn't come out or if he didn't have anything to say, but we never spoke. But there was something about his presence that I wanted to know more about.

You see, he looked really similar to my boyfriend Abraham. He had the same military physique, the same square shoulders, and this quiet and warm presence about him. And so I knew that before I left Korea, I would have to meet him again. I was looking for something, but I wasn't really sure what that was. So before I left Korea, I made a final visit back. And I had heard that Hadobuchi had been waiting the night before and all morning to think of a precious story, some words that he could share with me. And I thought of the words that I wanted to tell him to say thank you and how blessed I felt

to be part of this family and how I would try to be Korean and uphold these traditions of this long family legacy. And when I arrived, we sat facing each other. No words would come out, each sitting with great anticipation, and nothing would come out. And it was already time to go. And as I left, I turned back, wanting to see something, and nothing coming out.

And so I hugged him, and he hugged me back. And his embrace was warm and accepting. So I hugged him and he hugged me back. And his embrace was warm and accepting and one of unconditional love. And then he said to me, said, Ang He, I love you. And I never even had to bow. Thank you. That was Linda Gregory. Linda married Abraham and they now have a daughter. She told me that his family actually proposed to her.

Here's what happened. One day, Abraham's family takes Linda and Abraham to get fitted for Hanboks, Korean traditional attire, and then the family says, okay, now put the Hanboks on for your engagement dinner. Linda and Abraham do, and they all go out to a restaurant where the family blesses their marriage, and they ask Linda if she would take their family. She said yes. To see a photo from that engagement dinner and to learn more about our Moth community program where we craft stories with under-heard communities, go to the Moth.org. Coming up next, a daughter struggles to connect with her mother, who is a Holocaust survivor, when the Moth Radio Hour continues.

The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by the Public Radio Exchange, PRX.org. I'm Sarah Austin-Jones and you're listening to The Moth Radio Hour. Our last storyteller is Hilda Chazanovitz. Hilda was part of a Moth community workshop we taught at the Museum of Jewish Heritage for the 2G community. 2G is second generation Holocaust survivors. Here's Hilda Chazanovaetz, live at the mall.

My mother never wanted to go to the home. She lived in her apartment for almost 40 years, much of that time on her own. She was fiercely independent. Her third fall left her unconscious on the floor of her apartment. When EMT got there, they estimated she'd been there for eight hours. We took her to the hospital. She was there for four days and then released to the home for rehabilitation.

I, of course, was thrilled. I was relieved. I knew she would be taken care of, that she would be safe. My mother was pissed. She was angry. That Thursday evening in August, when I arrived, she was more than angry. She was really agitated and upset.

She lashed out at me, ganof, tréf, goyoshikup, gay and shriared, she said, go to hell. I was not offended, I was not hurt. I knew why she was so upset. Earlier that day, Dr. Chatterjee and Nurse Ferguson had told my mother that she would need to change rooms. This must have been a huge blow for her because instead of moving to a new room,

meant that she was going to be a more permanent resident in the home. Of course, she told the doctor and the nurse, no, I'm not moving, I'm staying right here. They tried to negotiate with her, they brought the rabbi in. None of that worked. And I knew and tried to explain to them

that when my mother said no, she meant no. Not maybe nothing, no. I was feeling pretty desperate because this room that was being proposed was on the long-term care floor. Those rooms don't come along very often. I'd been waiting about a month. So I left my mother's room in despair and I started thinking about what had been happening with my mother over the last

weeks. She'd refused medication, she'd refused physical therapy, she had begun hitting some of the aids and she bit the doctor the week before. I was assured by everyone that this was fairly routine in the home. This happened all the time. I accepted that. I however started flashing back on what I had experienced with my mother only days before. I was with her one day at lunchtime. Lunchtime meant room service as she took most of her meals in her room. And Isaiah was clearing away the tray after lunch and he offered to make my mother a cup of tea. It was like her favorite thing after the meal and we're waiting and my mother leans over, and quietly says to me, they're all Nazis.

And my heart sinks. This is not a casual reference for my mother. I catch a glimpse of the number on her left arm. The marker from Auschwitz that I had seen so many times before, but knew so little about. It was filled with secrets, tales that I never was able to hear, but my mother had lived with those secrets, and the nightmare of what that number meant for almost

70 years now. Talking about Nazis became fairly routine over the days that had followed. So I knew that I was in a real dilemma now and there was no forcing my mother. So I decided to go look at the new room. I really had nothing else to do at that point. I didn't know what to say to my mother. I didn't know what to say to the home. They wouldn't force her to move.

So I went upstairs to look at the proposed room. The room was 745. My mother was in room 245. When I arrived at the room, I thought, it's the same room. How lucky could I be? Lucky why? I take stock of the room.

And it's a little different. The wallpaper is different. the paint is different, but my mother was legally blind, and I'm immediately thinking about how I'm going to transform the room. So this room on seven could be my mother's room. I race back down to the social work department, and I call a meeting, which I'm known to do, and we hatched the plan to move my mother the very next morning without her knowing. Where I had the guts to even think about this, I have no idea, but I was desperate. So, that evening,

as I often did when I was feeling desperate, I called Rosie. Rosie is my mother's, was my mother's aid. She had taken care of her for some time, and although she was my mother's caregiver, she was as much my caregiver and my confidant. Rosie and I worked out the details of the plan on the phone. The next morning I arrived at the home very early. I meet with the staff on the second floor and on the seventh floor. I meet with maintenance, the social workers, and everything gets laid out. So everyone is in on this mission to move my mother from one room to the other without her knowing. So it's a secret to her.

Rosie arrives several hours later and they have their usual routine of getting ready for the day lunch and Rosie was going to take my mother to the garden. The garden was this incredible oasis on the campus at 106th Street and I knew that I'd have a good three hours while Rosie and my mother spent time in the garden and I could make everything happen. As soon as Rosie wheeled my mother out of her room on two to go to the garden, I sprang into action,

and with the help of numerous staff members, aides, maintenance, everybody, we proceeded to make the switch. Furniture had to be switched out. All of my mother's personal belongings, and she had accumulated quite a bit, I might add, in the last two months, clothes, her personal effects.

Everything had to be brought up to seven. I remember going up and down the elevator, maybe seven or eight times, I forgot her spare teeth in the medicine cabinet. They were a little pink container that was pretty memorable. I had to get a new toilet seat installed in the room. Everything really had to be just so because my mother was blind and in order for her to negotiate her way it was very important that everything be familiar for her.

With only about 45 minutes to spare, I realized I needed some help having the bed made up on seven, the new room. The bed had to be made just so, the way the sheets were folded, the pillows, et cetera. I enlisted Julia, who knew how to do that. Not everybody could do that. And I certainly couldn't do it.

So together, we're making the bed, and I'm taking a good look at the bed. I've got 30 minutes left to complete the mission. And I realize it's the wrong bed. And I'm sweating. This is crucial. The handrails were wrong. The levers to lower and elevate the bed were wrong.

I dial up maintenance. It's 3.30 Friday afternoon. And I ask them if they would consider moving the bed from 2 up to 7. My voice is cracking. And they didn't say no. I begged. And they agreed to do it.

About 10 or 15 minutes later, I'm now standing in the new room on 7. They've pulled out the bed in that room. It's in the hallway, but I'm now standing in 7.45, no bed. And I've got about 15 minutes left before Rosie and my mom return. I'm barely breathing by this point, but sure enough, in a few minutes, I hear the freight elevator let out, and the bed from the second floor room is being brought up. It's already made, it's perfect. And they wheel it in.

We adjust the call button, we do everything so it's just so. I can breathe again. As I'm making the last minute check, I can hear Rosie's voice. She and my mom are returning. They've come off the elevator. And I hear them approaching the room. I decide to duck out.

Even though my mother probably wouldn't have seen me, she might have sensed my presence. She doesn't even know I'm in the building. And I hide in the corridor. And I wait. I'm hiding in the corridor where the laundry cart is. There's a dirty laundry cart. There's a clean laundry cart.

There's a medicine tray that they've just set up to do the medication. And I'm waiting there and waiting and listening. And I hear Rosie and my mom talking, they enter the room and I hear no explosion. I hear just the normal chatter about what's for dinner, what my mother is going to wear that evening. And I start breathing more normally now. I wait.

Rosie comes out in about 20 minutes. And I take her arm and we walk to the elevator. Silent. We're in the elevator, silent. We're in the elevator and we're smiling at each other. We get down to the lobby and we're jumping up and down for joy and disbelief. We're barely talking, but we didn't need to talk. Rosie goes home and I'm getting a stomachache because I have to return the next day.

It's Saturday and I am going up to see my mom. I bring the usual treats, mandatory, especially on the weekend. And as I approach her room that Saturday, I'm wondering what I'm about to face, thinking that the slew of insults I had heard only, you know, earlier that week would be nothing compared to what I was about to face. And I enter the room and my mother starts complaining about breakfast. It was cold again. And then she's upset with me because I'm late, which I wasn't. And then I proceed to present her with what I've brought. And even the Bobka from her favorite bakery is not to her liking.

And I'm sitting there thinking, wow, everything is normal here. LAUGHTER There's no mention of the room. There's no mention of anything. This is just like it would be if we had never talked about changing her room. Now, I'm not cocky, so I'm just sort of taking all of this

in, waiting. My mother was an incredibly clever woman, and I'm just wondering what's going to happen. And when I left that day, I really didn't know what to make of it all. But I did know this in the weeks to come. I knew in my heart of hearts that my mother really knew that she had been moved. She never said anything.

I never said anything. But for me, the beauty of it all was that for the first time that I can ever remember, my mother and I had a secret of our very own, one that we could share, and one that we never spoke of. Thank you. That was Hilda Chazanova. Hilda is an executive consultant and lives in New York City with her husband.

Recently, I had a chance to sit down and talk with Hilda about her experience telling the story. I found myself thinking and feeling about my mother in new ways. And that was profound. I began to see her as more heroic, as more inspiring. I mean, these are not necessarily words that I would have used 10 years earlier. You mentioned that you thought this story going out onto radio was coming at a specific time

or a good time. Can you tell me a little bit more about that? After my mother died, I started thinking about going to Poland, which I never could have done when she was alive. It was too loaded. But I finally did go for the first time in 2014. Friend of mine and I, we've actually gone back to my mother's hometown several times.

We did an interfaith satire there last spring in Radham, Poland, which is where my mother was from. We had probably 60 or 70 people. For us, our goal was to try and remind people what Jewish life was like before the war. Wow. And so this was very, very moving for us, needless to say, both personally and on many other levels. And I remember asking at the beginning of the Seder, who had ever been to a Seder before, and no one had ever been to a Seder before. So it was very well received, you know?

And I sometimes think, what would my mother have thought of this? I mean, my mother never understood, you know, my career or any of that. But I thought that somehow she would feel that we were restoring something that was very precious and she might not have loved the idea of it because it was interfaith but I think just the whole concept of it might have made her smile just a little bit. That was Hilda Chazanovitz. For more of this interview, for photos of Hilda and her mother, and for extras related to all of the stories on the Moth radio hour, go to the Moth.org. This has been an hour of stories of not quite fitting in.

For a lot of us at the Moth, if we're feeling like outsiders, listening to people's stories helps to reconnect us. We hope that's true for you too. And maybe someday you'll feel like telling a story yourself. That's it for this episode of The Moth Radio Hour. Thanks for listening. We hope you'll join us next time. Your host this hour was Sarah Austin Geness. Sarah also directed the stories in the show, along with Katherine Burns and Larry Rosen, additional Moth Community Coaching by Terrence Mickey. The rest of the most directorial staff includes Sarah Haberman, Jennifer Hickson and Meg Bowles, production support from

Timothy Luley. Most stories are true, is remembered and affirmed by the story tellers. 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 Chili Gonzalez, Mark Orton, Croca, and DieQ Quack. You can find links to all the music we use at our website. The Malthus Produce for Radio 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 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 your own story, and everything else. Go to our website, thumoth.org. for information on pitching your own story and everything else. Go to our website, thomoth.org.