The Moth - When the World Shifts: The Moth Radio Hour

Episode Date: March 31, 2026

This Episode originally aired on May 17th, 2022. In this hour, stories of seismic changes and subtle shifts—and the aftershocks left in their path. New perspectives on faith, family, and one's self. This episode is hosted by Brandon Grant, Director of Marketing at The Moth. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by The Moth and Jay Allison of Atlantic Public Media. Storytellers: Marlon James discovers his talent as a junior exorcist.  Hannah Brennan learns there is wisdom in her body.  While going through a divorce, Tricia Rose Burt finds comfort in her art.  Kim Sykes recalls growing up in New Orleans with a complicated father.  Podcast # 765 To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When WestJet first took flight in 1996, the vibes were a bit different. People thought denim on denim was peak fashion, inline skates were everywhere, and two out of three women rocked, the Rachel. While those things stayed in the 90s, one thing that hasn't is that fuzzy feeling you get when WestJet welcomes you on board. Here's to WestJetting since 96. Travel back in time with us and actually travel with us at westjet.com slash 30 years. This episode is brought to you by FedEx.

These days, the power move isn't having a big moment. metallic credit card to drop on the check at a corporate launch. The real power move is leveling up your business with FedEx intelligence and accessing one of the biggest data networks powered by one of the biggest delivery networks. Level up your business with FedEx, the new power move. This is The Moth Radio Hour. I'm Brandon Grant from the Moth, and I'll be your host this time. In this hour, we bring you four stories about seismic moments and subtle shifts. An expectant mother finds power in trusting her body. A young artist follows her heart through divorce. A woman recalls the impact of a hurricane. And in our first story, acclaimed Jamaican

author Marlon James reflects on his time as a junior exorcist. A quick note, there is some reference to sexual awakening in this story. Marlon told this at a mock main stage in St. Paul, where we partner with Minnesota Public Radio. Here's Marlon James, live at the month. So it's teenage Christian summer camp, but I'm not a camper. I'm the camp marshal. And what that usually meant was that whenever there were congregations of people of different genital, genitalia, I would show up with a ruler and just go, make space for Jesus.

My genius was that I could appear anywhere. If somebody with male genitalia ended up anywhere near or somewhere with female genitalia and then move within 11 inches of each other, I showed up in between and I went, make space for Jesus. And I was pretty good at this. But it wasn't until one service where I realized what my true talent was. It was 6 o'clock. It was the second service. It was two services because we were devout like that.

And in the middle of church, in middle of the middle of the church, In middle of this service, a 14-year-old girl, 14 and 15-year-old girl, starts screaming. She's screaming, she's hollering, she's running around the church. If you know anything about my church, that is normal behavior. But she's screaming at a pretty high volume, and the guest preacher who's from Texas, so I figure he knows his stuff,

he comes towards her, to touch her, and she just yells and runs straight out of the church. She dashes out of the church. And without even thinking, I dashed straight after her. And she collapses. She collapses to the ground and I catch her and I'm holding her down. And the pastor comes up and says, by the power of Jesus, I cast you out. And this little 14-year-old girl develops the strength of a linebacker.

And I am holding her down and he's praying and he's casting out demons. And he's saying, by the spirit of Jesus, I cast you out. And she looks at me and goes, I'm not coming out. And before I could lose my shit, the pastor says, no, by the authority of Jesus, I cast you out. And he does some more authorizing and lays hands. And she squeals, she screams, she shout. And then she just sort of collapses in my arms and opens her eyes

and she looks straight at me and straight at the pastor. And she was fine. she was a 14-year-old girl again, and with that, I became a junior exorcist. Now, there are things you need to know about demons. Demons don't possess you, they influence you. Most of the time, they can't read your thoughts, but most of the time when they're talking, you think it's you.

And demons don't need you to believe. And I was very good. as a junior exorcist. I was the devil-driving muscle. But even during that, and becoming really, really good at this, there are always things that were plaguing me and things I was struggling with.

And, you know, it's 2 o'clock in the morning and you're on a website you shouldn't be on. And you're, you know, I am having all these feelings and I'm having these things that I'm seeing, and I'm seeing all these men, and they're always naked. And I'm thinking I'm having all these struggles, these demons. And I'm thinking, you know, I can't wrestle from all this sexual sin, so it must be demons.

And there's this abundant life I'm supposed to be living in church, and I'm not living it, demons. And, you know, I am thinking of George Clooney, and he's not wearing any clothes. it must be demons. And but more than that, more than that, I realized something that I wanted to be a normal person so badly. Actually, that's not true.

I didn't want to be, I didn't want to be a normal person at all. I wanted to want it. I didn't want marriage and a family and kids. I wanted to want that. I didn't want to be acceptable. I wanted to want acceptance. I didn't want to wake up in the morning with my family and we're eating cherios and I asked how was band practice.

I wanted to want these things. And I wanted to be normal so badly. It didn't care if I wasn't happy. And I got to the point where I realized as a junior exercis that I needed to be exercised. So I called my best friend at a time who conveniently was a person. pastor and I said you know I think I think I need to be delivered because in in

charismatic churches we call them deliverances not exorcism I know you thought squeal like a pig but so I call you know and and my exorcism debt my exorcism date was set up and I headed to another church because word couldn't get out that the exorcist was being exercised and So I went to this other church and there was a room. It was a small like 12 feet by 12 feet room. It was beige. There were small windows at the top.

It looked like prison. And I was thinking even at that point, I can leave. I can go. I can get out of this place. Nobody will know. Nobody will care. And just when I'm thinking that, a man and a woman come in and they sit down. And looking at them sitting down,

made me look at the floor. And on the floor were two big black garbage bags. And the man says to me, tell me about yourself. And I have a script when anybody asks me that. I go into how I love my dad, but I hate him. And, you know, we're not together. We're not close. And, you know, I've come to a certain point of acceptance of him.

And I don't hate him. I just disliking very much. I was very, very pleased with this answer. You know, I was a sexually confused dude with daddy issues, like half of the audience here. And I was very satisfied with this answer. And then he said to me, tell me about your mother. And I had, I froze.

It never occurred to me at all to think about my mother. And it just came all at once that everything I was living at that time, the liar was living, the ways in which I was not being myself was all in this effort to never disappoint my mother. And I realized at that point my entire life was built around the sham of not displeasing my mom. And I opened my mouth to say all of this and a scream came out. And I couldn't stop screaming. I couldn't stop bawling. I was crying. I was shaking.

And the two pastors immediately jumped up and started to speak in tongues I've never heard. And, you know, I started to cry and choke so much that I started to vomit. And they grabbed the first garbage bag. They were screaming. They were laying hands out sometimes and pulling hands off. And I was just, I just couldn't control myself. And I said, you know, I, if people know, you know, the real me, nobody would love me. And he was like, all love is in Christ, and that's a

lie from the pit of hell. And then I'd say, there is no life of the mind in the church. You're all morons. And he was like, that is a lie from the pit of hell and so on. And then I said, he sees men naked every time he prays. And it hit, and that was the first time it was my voice. It was coming out of my mouth. But it was spoken in the third person. and that's when literally all hell broke loose. They grabbed me, they started to again pray and lay hands. I am crying, I'm choking. And at one point, the woman who up to this point has not really said anything

looks at me and says, you have to cast them out. And two things hit me. One, as an exorcist, I'm usually the demon castor. So the idea of casting up my own demons made no sense. And the second thing is she said them. he says, yes, you have many demons in you. You have to cast them out. And she led me in his prayer, and I went, you know,

by the power of Jesus, I cast you out. By the power of Jesus, I cast you out. By the power of Jesus, I cast you out. And I said that eight times, because there were eight demons in me. And afterwards, you know, she, when I was all done, she just, you know,

held my face in her arms, in her hands, and smiled. and the male pastor said, it's over. And he said, you know, you're free. You're going to go home now. And I want you to purify your life. I want you to not give the demons entryway. Because another thing about demons, once they leave you, they come back with seven.

And so I went home to purify my life. I got rid of TV, which was the first time I found out that my cable was canceled, years earlier, so that really wasn't very hard. And I got rid of, and then I said also get rid of that demon rock music. And that was horrible. But, you know, Patty Smith had to go. Elliot Smith, go.

Kirk Cobain, gone. Pearl Jam, they could stay. And I felt really, I actually did feel pure. I felt pure, I felt cleansed. I walked with my head held high. I really actually did feel better. And then the demons came back. Loss and thoughts of sins and Jake Jillinghall naked.

But something was different. Because one of the musicians I did not throw away was David Bowie. And David Bowie has a song called Rock and Roll Suicide. And the really magical thing about that song is everything you hate about yourself when that song starts. It becomes everything you love about yourself when that song ends. And I realized something. Demons can't possess you. They influence you.

demons don't need you to believe. Do I believe in them? I did believe in them at a time. In the same way, I believe that Gabriel Garcia-Marquez's realism is no magic. It's real. And something else was different. You know, I think, yeah, sure, maybe they're demons, but maybe you have a chemical imbalance. Or maybe you're a boy who likes boys or you're a girl who likes girls.

Or maybe you realize that biology isn't destiny. And maybe you realize like I did that maybe the thing you needed to exercise for me was my church. Because, you know, normality in a lot of ways, you know, is a myth. And I was so obsessed with being, obsessed with being normal. And I realized something. I realized something and it hit me almost like a whisper. that maybe the reason you're not normal is that you're not here to do a normal thing.

That one I learned in church. Thank you. That was Marlon James. Marlon is the author of several award-winning books, including The Book of Night Women, A Brief History of Seven Killings, and Black Leopard Red Wolf. His newest novel is Moon Witch Spider-King. As a fellow Jamaican who grew up in a pretty religious family,

Marlon's story brought back many memories from my childhood. I never felt at ease, knowing I was different. It wasn't until I came to peace with who I was as a gay man that I started to feel less at odds with everything around me. My perspective shifted, which allowed me to step into the world as my true self. In a moment, we'll hear a story about the birth of a child under unlikely circumstances, when the Moth Radio Hour continues. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media

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Frankie Munis, Brian Cranston, and the rest of the family reunite in Malcolm in the Middle, life's still unfair. After 10 years avoiding them, how and lowest demand Malcolm be at their anniversary party, pulling him straight back into their chaos. Malcolm in the middle, life still unfair. A special four-part event,

streaming April 10th on Hulu on Disney Plus. This is the Mothmore. radio hour, I'm Brandon Grant. This hour is all about turning points and new horizons. Hannah Brennan told this story at a Moth Community Engagement Program showcase in Brooklyn. The evening was presented by our friends at the Kate Spade New York Foundation. Here's Hannah, live at the month. I lower myself heavy and hot into my favorite yellow armchair. As I sit, my very large, very pregnant stomach weighs heavy on my thighs.

I am huge. I haven't been able to see, let alone reach, my swollen, tingling feet for weeks. And it is a hot, humid, sweaty, sticky, gilet. lie in Virginia. I'm at home waiting to give birth to my first child. My midwife is soon to arrive with her senior student for what has become her daily visit because I am three weeks past my due date. Three weeks. What are they going to say today? When I first became pregnant. My husband and I did some research and spoke to other mums. It was 2017 and we discovered that in the USA, medical intervention is common in hospital births and one in three ends in

cesarean section. That is major abdominal surgery. Some people said that it wasn't advisable to have a home birth at my ripe old age of 41. But I really wanted an undisturbed, unmedicated birth at home. And my husband was in full support. At around four months pregnant, we found our midwife. This woman had been delivering babies longer than I had been alive. It's no exaggeration to say that I loved and trusted her from our very first meeting.

My husband and I began monthly prenatal sessions with her, and each one was over an hour. We focused not on charts or measurements, but on conversations about my life. Always giving me the lead, she would ask me questions that made me reflect. In one of our early prenatal sessions, with my characteristic desire to know and understand,

I asked the questions that you ask when you've never had a baby before. how will I know when I'm in proper labour? When will you come? What will happen next? She sat on her stool in front of us, swaying slightly thoughtful and attentive, and said,

you are not going to do labour. Labor is going to do you. For this birth to go the way that you want it to, you are going to have to get out. out of your head and trust your body's wisdom. Trust my body's wisdom? Trust the wisdom that doesn't come from my head? What does that mean?

How do you do that? As I reflected, more childhood memories began to return. As a child and a teen, kids had ruthlessly teased me, Teased me for being sensitive and overweight, treating me like something comic and unfeeling. Because I was overweight, men would shout mean things at me in the street. No one in the magazines or on TV looked like me. I received the clear message that I was neither valuable nor desirable.

This indelible part of my, of, me that everyone could see, my body, I considered a failure, a liability, and I was angry, and I was confused, and I was really hurt. So I decided to be smart instead. And long after my body began to change physically, those messages stayed with me. And being smart and having a plan and being in control became key to my identity and my feelings of success and then becoming pregnant and my body is growing and changing in ways that I don't understand. It still felt pretty important to have a plan and be in control, but that was because I still believed my body to be a liability, not a source of wisdom. As months went by, my baby grew inside me.

and with my midwife's gentle probing, I started to rediscover my body's wisdom. A true teacher, she made it clear in her method that she was the expert in midwifery, and she trusted and believed in me to be the expert in my body and in giving birth. I started to trust that if, my body could make a brand new human being, it probably knew how to get it out. But here I am,

in pain and discomfort in my yellow chair, far too pregnant. My midwife and her student arrive and sit close to me. She presses her hands gently but keenly on my ankles, checking the level of swelling. after careful observation she says there is no indication that this baby is in distress nor is there any indication that you are in distress all the signs suggest that your body is moving towards birth just very slowly we can go to the hospital

or we can wait a little longer. It's your choice. We sit in silence. Tears trickle down my cheeks. Her advice seemed so wise just a few weeks ago. And now, surrender to my body's wisdom. I'm hot, I'm tired, everything hurts

and I'm not feeling too wise right now. I'm telling myself that my body knows how to give birth and I want to believe it. Am I fooling myself? Am I risking my baby's safety? I'm not supposed to be this far past my due date. Is something wrong? And wait a little longer? This waiting and trusting is really hard.

plus my family and friends are saying with more and more force you have got to go to the hospital I've turned my phone off I'm too pregnant and too open to hear their fears and concerns now otherwise I may just start believing them again I notice her hands on my feet this time for comfort and reassurance

she knows that going to the hospital will likely lead to the interventions I so want to avoid. Heck, if I was having a hospital birth, I would have been induced two weeks ago. She also knows that in over 40 years of practice, she has rarely seen a woman go this far. She looks at me with such love and says, it's okay.

You can trust yourself. That night, Under the full moon, I tell myself, my body knows how to give birth. This baby knows how to be born. Please, Moon, help me. This baby has got to come out. The next morning, I go into labour. My husband, my constant support.

my midwife's model of care is to stay out of my line of sight I barely see them but I know they are there monitoring me and the baby my body labours as it needs to and when it's time for birth they are there with me their quiet presence makes me feel completely supported and that my body is completely in charge

and it's like my mum has always said said, birth is the only pain for something right. And after 15 hours labour, at 43 and a half weeks pregnant, shortly before my 42nd birthday, in the special familiarity of our home, I give birth to our 10 pound, four ounce, healthy, happy, beautiful son. And I am different. I'm a different. I'm a different woman. My body is neither liability nor failure. My body is a source of great wisdom, and I trust it more and more every day. Thank you. Hannah H. Smith-Brennan, PhD, is a sociologist, educator, and author who focuses on childhood, youth and families.

Hannah's storytelling skills were mostly honed while growing up in London, late on Friday nights around the family pool table. Hannah and her midwife are now working on a book of birthing stories and are developing an educational program together. She says, quote, the birthing person and the baby are at the center of this process, and that when we care for this process as a community,

we can make a culture that is healthy, strong, and thriving. I was in the crowd the evening that Hannah first told this story. I was transfixed. It made me think about witnessing childbirth myself. One of my sisters decided on a natural birth for her first child. I was there throughout the entire birthing process, and I have to say, I was amazed at how strong she was in the face of something that I found so utterly daunting.

I'll never forget the look on her face as her son was placed into her arms for the first time. everything shifted for all of us at that moment. She became a mother, I became an uncle again, and this little human entered the world. In a moment, surviving heartbreak and hurricanes, when the Moth Radio Hour continues. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

Whether it's with your besties or date night, get to all the hottest concerts with Go Transit. Go connects to all the bests, biggest entertainment venues and makes it affordable with special e-ticket fares. A weekend pass offers unlimited travel across the network on any weekend day or holiday for just $10. A weekday group pass offers the same weekday travel flexibility from $30 for two people up to $60 for five. So no matter what day of the week, Go's got you covered. Find out more at go-transit.com slash tickets. The American Dream. We all have a version of it. The notion that where you begin has nothing to do

with where you end up, that anything is possible. Run for office, live off the grid, hit a homer, though robots, teach goat yoga, anything. This spring, the moth main stage is traveling to cities around the country with stories of the American dream. Does it even exist anymore? For who? What happens when that dream is dashed or deferred?

And what happens when the dream is fulfilled? Let's come together and listen to people telling true personal stories of their very own American dream. Experience the Moth Mainstage live. Find a city near you at the moth.org slash mainstage. This is The Moth Radio Hour. I'm Brandon Grant. We continue this hour with a story from Trisha Rosebert.

Tricia told this at a Moth Story Slam in Boston, sponsored by PRX and WBUR. Here's Trisha. I was raised that I should get married, that I should defer to my husband, and that I should rely on my husband to make me happy. I can tell you firsthand that this is inherently flawed. When my husband and I separate after five years of marriage,

he stays in our home in Sudbury, in the suburbs right outside of Boston, and I rent an apartment in town in Back Bay, and as it turns out without knowing it, I moved directly across the street from the woman my husband's been having an affair with. Now, for months, I suspected he was having an affair, but he kept denying it and telling me I was imagining things, and so I just felt crazy. So a couple of months after I moved in the new apartment, I thought to myself, I said, you know, God, I just don't want to feel crazy anymore.

So if he's having an affair, please let me know it. And if he's not having an affair, please help me trust him. And three days later, I'm driving to the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, where I'm a part-time art student, and I see my husband's car on the side of the road. This little white alpha-rameo, you can't miss it. And there's a woman putting something in my husband's car. And the first thing I do is throw my hands up in the air and say,

up in the air and say, thank you, God, I'm not crazy. And then I pull over, and I say, hi, that's my husband's car. And she says, well, I don't know what you're talking about. And I said, but that's my husband's car. And she says, well, I guess you're just going to have to talk to him about that. And I said, you know, give me a break. I've been married to the guy for five years, and that's my husband's car. Where's my husband? And right at that moment, he rounds the corner with an overnight bag. And I say, you know, I think we need to talk.

And he says, well, where do you want to talk? And I say, how about across the street at my apartment? I live at 304 Beacon Street, and she lives at 309 Beacon Street, which he knows. He convinces me that it is not a physical affair, but a spiritual one. And a dear friend says, Trisha, that's worse. plus he's lying to you. My husband and his girlfriend don't last. We start going to marriage counseling,

and I plunge into a very scary depression. I'm pacing along the Charles River, crossing the bridges, and walking the same circle over and over again. I keep looking at my arms, because I'm convinced I have sores all over my body. My throat is so tight, I can only eat mashed potatoes and chicken broth, nothing crunchy. So I'm incredibly thin, and I look like I should be hospitalized.

The only way I can get out of bed is to figure out how many hours until I can get back in it. I can concentrate for about five minutes at a time, and my nerves feel the way sunburned skin feels when you open up a really hot oven. With the help of a bevy of therapist and heavy medications, I'm able to continue working and pay my bills and keep going to art school. And art school is what gets me through this separation. Art school and church. And both places challenge how I was raised in very different ways,

but they're saying the same thing. You have a voice, listen to the voice, and become who you're being called to be, and you're going to be happy. Now, as an emerging artist, I craved anything that art school had to offer. And so I went to Ireland with the museum school on a painting trip. And I chose Ireland because I wanted mist and rain and tragedy. I was looking for drama and angst.

Instead, the sun shone every day for three stories. straight weeks. It was the first time in 20 years they had a stretch of sunshine for that long. One day it was hotter in Ireland than it was in Greece. Right before I left for Ireland, there was this slightest chance my husband and I could reconcile, but with distance brings clarity, and I realized I couldn't even write that guy a letter, much less be married to him. So I'm I went into this little church and I said, you know what, God, I am so happy to be alone. I don't want a husband. I don't even want a boyfriend.

All I want is to make art. And I mean this from the bottom of my toes. And I don't know it at the time, but I meet my future husband that night. I'm standing on this, one of those Irish stone walls. and I'm looking at this amazing sunset. And I'm having a hard time getting off the wall because I have these pretty but stupid shoes on, and things look kind of precarious.

And out of the blue, I hear someone say, do you need a hand? And I look down, and there's this incredibly handsome Irishman. And I'm confused because I've just announced how happy I was to be alone. and then I say, yes, yes, I do need a hand. And he helps me off the wall, and we start walking down the road together. And I know that I would go through all that pain all over again

if it brought me to this moment. Thank you. That was Trisha Rose Burke. Tricia and the incredibly handsome Irishman have been married for more than 22 years. She's also the host of the podcast No Time to Be Timid, which helps aspiring artists find the courage to make their creative work. To see photos of Trisha and her husband on their wedding day in Ireland in 1998, visit the moth.org slash extras.

While you're there, you can share your story with the moth. Visit our pitch line to leave us a two-minute version of a story you'd like to tell. Some of the most classic moth stories started on the pitchline. head to the moth.org slash pitch or call us at 877-799 moth. You can share these stories or others from the moth archive and by tickets to moth storytelling events in your area through our website, the moth.org. There are moth events year-round.

Find a show near you and come out to tell a story. You can also find us on social media. We're on Facebook and Twitter at the moth or on Instagram at Moth Stories. Our final story is from Kim Sykes. Kim shared this at a moth main stage in New York at City Hall. A quick note that the story was told over 20 years ago when we never imagined the moth would have a national radio show.

So our audio recordings weren't the greatest, but we think you'll be fine with it. Here's Kim, live at the month. I was saying yesterday that I think I'm the only Southerner who doesn't have an accent. And that's because I think I spent the first 20 years in my life trying to erase everything southern about itself. And then of course I'm spending the next 20 years of my life trying to remember it all to get it all back. Should I repeat what I just said? Here's a memory.

When Hurricane Betsy was coming to New Orleans, my daddy, he took me and my brothers and sisters, all seven of us, eight of us actually, and my mother out to Lake Pontchartrain to watch Betsy arrive. My daddy, he sat on the levee, and he liked to look out at the sky and the lake. The sky, the longer we stayed, got blacker and blacker, and the lake looked like a sheet, a black granite was so still you can almost walk on it my mom you know she was so

angry she wouldn't get out of the truck she sat with her back to my father in the lake refusing to come out she turned around every once a while and said well it's time to go home and he'd say in a minute bye and he'd sit right where it was the kids all of us we were too busy having fun to want to go home we ran around the decorative fountains that would shoot water up into the air and the lights would change the water to colors like blue and then yellow and then red. My father, he didn't want to come home. But my mother finally grabbed the keys and she says,

Willie, I'm taking these children home. And she headed for the truck. He started to laugh because everybody knew Mama couldn't drive. And then he'd take us home. Sitting on the levee watching a hurricane approach must have been looking into a mirror, like looking into a mirror for my father. They tell me, my Aunt Evelyn told me that his anger is silent and intense like an oncoming storm, but then burst forth violently at my mother and older brothers and sisters, destroying everything in his bath.

My aunt Evelyn told me that, uh, uh, all the other brothers and sisters, destroying everything in his bath. While trying to save her life one day, my mother picked up a pair of pinking shears and stabbed him in the chest, nearly killing him. But I never saw any of that. And he never hit her again. Back at my house, aunts, cousins, I never even knew. Uncles all came to my house when the hurricanes would come. They all agreed that it was the only time the housing projects was the safest place to be. The kids all of us sat in the living room under covers and blankets, telling ghost stories, scaring each other half to death,

while the adults sat in the kitchen listening to the radio and smoking cigarettes. Fetit was maybe an hour, hour and a half away, but outside you can hear the rain and the wind screaming, screaming down the street, big chunks of metal and wood clinking and crashing. The adults would run into the living room, peeking out the current. trying to look past the tape and the wood that was boarded over the windows and they'd be whispering things to each other trying not to scare the kids. We're already half scared to death. By the time the eye of the hurricane hit, everybody was in the living room. The radio was going. All the lights had gone out by that time.

We'd listen to some crazy newsman or weatherman who they'd sent out to the eye of storm. He'd be yelling, be yelling, the Wednesday. By the time Betsy had come and gone, I'd fallen asleep, thank God. We walked out the next morning, and the first thing I thought was that it looked like a war,

except minus the bodies. Trees had been snapped in half, and cars turned over and dragged down the street. On TV, we watch families and kids who were stranded on the top of their houses because the water had risen so high. But we were safe, just like I was safe from my father's brutality. I never saw the worst of my father's violence.

I saw a man who was kind to me and affectionate. I saw a man who would sit me on his knee and saying, all you want for Christmas is your two front teeth. A man who would take me, with him to take my mother to work. And my mother, in her clean white uniform, would get out of the truck to go to the house that she had to clean. And she'd walk towards the door, and the door would open, and these two little white kids

would run out, and their arms stressed running to her, and they'd grab her around her knees, and she'd bend down and grab them. And, oh, God, the pain and jealousy and hatred, I felt for those two kids. kids and my mother, God, and my father's hand resting on my shoulder and on my knee, and he knew how I felt. Every day I struggle with the memory of those kindnesses and the history of his abuse. I can't hate him, but I've given up lightning. My father planted trees and flowers for the city of New Orleans, on city-owned land. He planted all the trees and the projects. We had a big, fat oak tree right in front of our house.

Our backyard looked like a little small English garden. It had roses and hydranias and daisies and petunias. You name it, we had it. He'd bring home sod, too. And he'd lay the perfect green little squirtons. in the front and backyards, and we used to lie on the grass and make angels like the kids up north did in the snow.

It smelled so good. But there's not a day that goes by that I don't think about Willie and Violet. My parents, my father's been dead for almost 20 years and my mother for about 10. But every time I look in the mirror, I think of them. My mother's eyes and smile and her gestures.

for gestures. I keep looking for Willie. I wouldn't know him if I saw him. I never knew them, really. But when I see a tall oak tree, that gray-brown cracked trunk, I think of my father's hands and how he used to bring home flowers

from my mother's garden. Thanks. Kim Sykes is a writer, actress, and painter living in New York City. She's been seen on episodes of Homeland, Bull, in the feature film Pariah, and is busy writing screenplays and a novel. As I mentioned, Kim told that story over 20 years ago.

We asked her what sharing it was like. She said she was still wrestling with her family's history and that listening back, she can hear the struggle in her voice. She went on to say that New Orleans has been the scene of many devastating hurricanes that have torn her family apart. But at the same time, brought them closer together. To see photos of Kim in New Orleans

alongside a tall oak tree that reminds her of her father, visit the moth.org slash extras. We hope this hour inspired you to share your own true stories. At the dinner table with family and friends, with the stranger sitting next to you, or on a moth stage.

And that's it for this episode. Join us again next time for The Moth Radio Hour. This episode of The Moth Radio Hour was produced by me, Jay Allison, Catherine Burns, and Brandon Grant, who also hosted the show. The stories in this hour were directed by Meg Bowles, Larry Rosen, and Joey Sanders. Co-producer, Vicki Merrick, Associate producer, Emily Couch. The rest of the Moth's leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Sarah Austin, Janesse, Kate Tellers, Jennifer Birmingham,

Marina Clucay, Suzanne Rust, Inga Gladowski, Sarah Jane Johnson, and Aldi Kaza. Moth stories are true, as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Our theme music is by The Drift. Other music in this hour is from Epidemic Sound. Podcast music, production support from Davy Sumner. We receive funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Special thanks to our friends at Odyssey, including executive producer Leah Reese Dennis.

For more about our podcast for information on how to pitch us your own story and everything else, go to our website, the moth.org.