The Moth Radio Hour: Oh, Brother

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This is the Moth Radio Hour.

I'm Jennifer Hickson.

In this hour, we'll be hearing from and about brothers.

Although he's eight years older than me, my brother was around for all of my growing up because he needed my mother's basement for band practice.

Because of him, our house was always filled with rock and roll and people and parties.

But perhaps the greatest gift, he pushed all the boundaries.

He was the classic partying older brother, involved in all sorts of mischief, thereby making my transgressions seem mild.

For instance, when he was just 13, he borrowed the keys to my mother's Ford Country Squire station wagon and crashed it into the neighbor's yard a block or two away.

So the getting in trouble bar was high.

My sister and I cruised through adolescence in his wide, wide wake.

Yes, ma, I'm late for curfew, but good news, I didn't wreck the car.

He made it so much easier for us.

Our first story is about an older brother and an unspoken truth.

It was told at the Housing Works bookstore in Manhattan, where public radio station WNYC is a media partner.

Here's Brian Kennedy live at the moth.

So I was talking to my mom on the phone when she uttered the single most horrifying sentence in the history of the world.

Oh, did your brother tell you?

He's finally coming to visit you in New York.

Oh, shit.

My brother and I, when we were little, we were often mistaken for twins.

My mother had this disgusting habit of dressing us in matching outfits, and I think that confused people.

But once we had a little more say in our wardrobe, it became clear to everyone that we were pretty different.

For example, my brother's pajamas were G.I.

Joe.

They were camouflaged.

They had this big strapping army guy in the front with like his rifle and bombs blowing up behind him.

And my pajamas were Wonder Woman.

And it wasn't just Wonder Woman on the front.

It was actually a onesie designed to look like I was wearing her costume.

It had flesh-colored arms and legs, so it looked like I just had on a red bustier and a blue bikini bottom.

So

needless to say, I was a homosexual.

Now, I don't think this was really a secret or would have been a surprise to my brother.

I mean, I spent all of high school locked up in my bedroom listening to the soundtrack of Jesus Christ Superstar.

But officially, I never ever came out to him.

My brother kind of scared me.

He was this big, gruff, manly man, and the only time he ever showed emotion was when he was watching college basketball on the television.

So I figured it was best not to tell him.

I knew the time had come that I finally had to tell him.

I couldn't hide it from him anymore, and more importantly, I didn't want to hide it because I was in my first serious relationship and I wanted my boyfriend to meet my entire family, including my brother.

So if I was brave, I would have called him on the phone and told him ahead of time.

But I took the coward's way out and I said, oh no, just tell him in person.

It's so much easier.

So he arrives at JFK airport and my sister-in-law came along.

So I had the opportunity to kill two birds with one gay stone.

Being the good host that I was, I decided to take the train out to JFK, meet them there when they landed, and we got into a cab together.

Now, they think we're going to Brooklyn in this cab because that's where I live.

What they didn't know was the address I gave the cabbie was actually my boyfriend's apartment in Manhattan.

So the three of us are crammed in the back of this cab together and making small talk about their plane ride and everything and there's a voice screaming in my head, tell them, tell them, you have to tell them.

And then there's another voice screaming at that one, girl, settle down.

He cannot come out in a cab with some strange fabby listening to their conversation.

That is rude.

So I didn't say anything.

So we get out of the the cab.

We're standing on the sidewalk with suitcases looking up at the fancy high-rises of the Columbus Circle area.

Very, very sheepishly, I say,

it's my boyfriend's apartment.

Oh my god, I told them, I feel pretty good about it.

Now, at the same time, I also own up to the fact that I'm a total shit for just dropping this bomb on them in the middle of Manhattan, their first time visiting me.

But thankfully, they were so gracious about it.

My sister had this huge smile on her face, or my sister-in-law, sorry, that'd be creepy if my brother and sister were married.

My sister-in-law puts this huge smile on her face and she says, oh, that's great.

Does that mean we get to meet your boyfriend?

So that week, not only did they meet my boyfriend, but my brother got to meet the real me.

And all those years, I was afraid to tell him that I was gay because we were so different and we hardly talked as it was.

I was afraid if I actually said the words out loud, it would mean he would think less of me and we would talk even less.

But the opposite was true, really.

Once I stopped hiding myself and putting up that wall, we had so much more to talk about and it was great.

And around the same time, my brother became a father, and I feel like that's when I really got to know the real him,

because that rough, manly man that I was so afraid of, I now got to see him be silly and loving with these two little girls, and it was wonderful.

And

when I went home for Christmas last year, my brother was the one to pick me up from the airport and as we were driving back to my parents' house he was telling me a story about the night before when he was reading a bedtime story to his oldest daughter and she stopped him and she said, she said, Daddy, how come Uncle Brian and Uncle Danny don't have any girls in their family?

Isn't that kind of weird?

And I smiled and I felt so proud because I was sure that the answer he gave her was just poetic and beautiful and explaining how sometimes a man can love another man and you don't need a woman.

But instead he told me his real answer, which was, well honey, that's a very interesting question.

Why don't you go to bed and tomorrow morning when you wake up you can ask your mother about it?

And

although it wasn't the answer I was looking for, it still made me smile because

I had waited until the very last minute to come out to my brother.

So if he was taking his time and explaining it to his daughter maybe that meant that we still had something in common thank you

that was brian kennedy to see a picture of him in those telltale wonder woman pjs please visit themoth.org where you can also download the story Brian told this story in 2012 and a lot has happened since then.

Brian is now married, so when his three nieces come to visit, they have two uncles.

That's another great thing about brothers.

They become uncles.

By day, Brian works at a non-profit that supports the LGBTQ plus community.

But his big love is writing, and his wonderful first novel is called A Little Bit Country.

Our next story was told in July of 2020, deep in the midst of the coronavirus global pandemic.

Our live shows weren't happening, so we held some virtual story slams on Zoom.

That's why in this next story, you won't hear audience reaction or clapping at the end.

Nicole Schnitzler told this one to a virtual moth audience from her home in Illinois.

Here's Nicole Schnitzler.

When Illinois's shelter-in-place orders took effect, my dad and I decided to bring my brother Daniel home to stay with us.

Daniel and I no longer live at my dad's.

I live in a condo downtown, and Daniel in a suburban group home.

He is 44 years old and he's autistic.

Our unit is tighter these days.

Our other brother Kevin lives with his family in California and our mom passed away from lymphoma when Daniel was 21 and I was 12.

We knew it was important to be together right now.

When I picked him up from his group home to get him on a Tuesday afternoon, he was confused.

My dad is usually the one who gets him for the weekends, which they spend together.

Generally Generally speaking, those with autism are highly dependent on routine, and Daniel is no exception.

As he gathered his things, I realized

the many other things we'd be explaining to him: my dad and I, why his workshop is canceled, why his bowling program has been postponed,

why he's now relocating home home

with me and his gene as he calls our dad

but

perhaps most of all we were worried about having to explain one colossal change for daniel why we could no longer take him to the grocery store

daniel relishes the sunday trips we take to jewel

an hour he can fill our cart with craft parmesan cheese hershey syrup and all of his other creature comforts An hour of his week over which he can exercise some control.

I knew already that I would do everything in my power I could to stop the two of them from going on their own.

Both high risk for COVID-19, my dad, who is 75 years old, and Daniel, who is overweight with diabetes.

As soon as we got in the car, the requests started.

Nicole, we will go to Jewel.

For lack of a better explanation, I tell him it's closed.

When you wake up, he says.

It's a go-to phrase when he understands that maybe it won't happen today, but it will tomorrow, right?

It's going to be longer than tomorrow, buddy, I say.

The next morning, Daniel hands me a grocery list.

We'll go to Jewel, he says, putting on his coat.

I remain seated.

I'm sorry, Kiddo, we can't.

It's closed, he says.

I nod.

And then that's when it begins.

He storms upstairs, grabs the two pillows from his bed, and lurches them from our second floor balcony onto an armchair that rests in our living room.

Directly below, one of the pillows falls to the floor.

It's a miss by his count.

He's angry.

He thunders back down, biting his hand and making outbursts along the way.

Our dad joins me downstairs to observe the pattern that we have seen unfold over the past couple of years when Daniel wants to control something that he cannot.

In seeing this, my dad implores me to let them go, to let them just go to the store, saying that Daniel's mental health is as vital as his physical health right now, that he's already had to give up way too much too soon, that he needs a single thing that he can count on.

It's a valid point.

I think about my own comforts, quick to go, the ones that I could easily remedy, though.

An espresso machine instead of Starbucks runs every day, Zoom calls instead of happy hours with friends.

I think of my dad's consolations too: naps, reading, Entoman's donuts.

But I think about the ways also that Daniel has adapted before

to the many group homes, to the countless caregivers, to the loss of a mother.

I ask my dad to let me try one more thing.

After more pillow tosses, I beckon Daniel to the kitchen.

I pull up Instacart on my computer and I show him the page where there's a bottle of Hershey's syrup.

What about this one, Daniel?

I ask.

He nods and I add it to the cart.

Okay, I explained to him.

We add everything here from the list, and then the person, the very nice person, brings it to our front door.

Does that sound good?

He looks skeptical.

I think I did too.

But he let me finish his list, and I finally did have an answer for him.

The groceries would arrive tomorrow

when you wake up.

The next day, the doorbell rang.

Daniel went straight to one bag, the one with the Hershey syrup, smiling widely as he did.

It looks good, he said.

It's the one go-to phrase he has when it's something that he approves of.

After mixing himself a glass of ice-cold chocolate milk, he grabs his pillows from the armchair and begins the pillow toss cycle anew.

This time, though, he is singing happy refrains from the producers and lay Miz.

My dad grabs an Intiman's doughnuts and heads upstairs to read, make myself an espresso.

And the three of us stood in various rooms and on separate floors, all listening for the perfect pillow toss.

Thank you.

That was Nicole Schnitzler.

She's a Chicago-based freelance writer who covers food, travel, and lifestyle.

She also writes a lot about her brother and is the founder of Doors Open Dishes, a nonprofit that partners with chefs to help support group homes and workshops for people with developmental disabilities.

As for her brother Daniel, as of September of 2021, he was thrilled to return to his community program, Gateway to Learning.

Nicole also went back to her place, but they still get together regularly.

During their first post-pandemic family vacation, I asked Nicole to explain their family chant, which they still do every night before bed, just for good measure.

Here's Nicole, her dad, and Daniel.

Okay, Daniel, so I'm gonna tell Jennifer a little bit about our cheer that we started, and then will you do the cheer with me after?

Yes.

Okay, thank you.

So

this all started at the onset of the pandemic when

we really didn't feel comfortable hugging and we still wanted to do something for family unity, for solidarity.

So we began these nightly huddles where we would come together and

cheer, cheer for the forthcoming vaccines.

Right, Dad?

That's right.

And so we had

a cheer for Pfizer, which was Prize Fighter Pfizer, and we had a cheer for Moderna, which was Move On Moderna, and then we had a cheer for Johnson Johnson because that came out in 2021 and we said JJ21.

So that's the meaning of the lyrics.

Daniel, what do we say at the beginning of the cheer?

What makes you happy?

All right, I want to ask Dad.

What makes you happy?

Being together with you guys.

Being together with you guys.

What makes you happy?

Well, I'm happy that we're on vacation right now, that we're able to go on vacation.

I'm happy to be on vacation with you.

And Daniel, what makes you happy?

Food.

One, two, three, go.

Go, Bob, go, move on.

Price, Pfizer, Pfizer.

Move on, Madura.

Shade, shade, fight when you want.

To see a picture of Nicole with Daniel and the rest of the family, visit themoth.org where you can also download the story.

Coming up, more stories about brothers and how they show up in your life as you get older, when the Moth Radio Hour continues.

The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

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You're listening to the Moth Radio Hour.

I'm Jennifer Hickson, and we're hearing from and about male siblings.

Our next story is from Bill Burnett.

He told it in Portland where we partner with Oregon Public Broadcasting.

Here's Bill.

After about eight years of drug addiction, in 2002, I was down to like no money, no car, no job.

And I looked at my options and I wasn't particularly close to my brother Tony, but he offered to take me in.

So I got off the bus in Flagstaff, a small mountain town, kind of bewildered.

And he took me to IHOP and the pancakes were so good.

Something about losing everything to addiction just makes IHOP pancakes extra delicious.

Don't do it for that because it's

not worth it.

So after about a week, he gave me some money to go into town while he was working and get some lunch.

And I was so freaked out and anxious being around people that I was shaking in the restaurant.

And I couldn't even go into a little souvenir store.

And so

we would play like Madden football on his PS2.

And in spite of my fragile emotional state, he had no problem just crushing me game after game.

We would also play a lot of EverQuest, which is kind of like a forerunner to World of Warcraft.

And by the way, in EverQuest, when you died, you didn't just push a button and fly back to your corpse.

You had to wander naked through many lands and get past the same baddies you did before.

You know, and best case, you lost a shit ton of experience.

You young people don't know how good you have it.

So I was a couple years removed from my high-paying job as a big shot tech guy, and I I was in a small town with small town jobs and I got a temp job filing medical records at the hospital.

And I tried,

they actually gave me empty folders to file as a test before giving me real records.

It was very humbling and I

I tried for a promotion to faxing medical records to doctor's offices, but I failed the interview.

She asked what relevant experience I had.

And I said, well, Etta.com, I was point of contact with Microsoft on a $50 million a year contract to deliver search data and our team delivered and we had a successful IPO.

And she said, well, yeah, it doesn't sound like you really have any experience with medical records vaccinated So she turned me down and I was like so not prepared for that and my brother and I made fun of her and we laughed and that helped, but it hurt and I realized that

it wasn't her fault that I was in that position or that she didn't want to work with me.

There was something about interacting with people that I just couldn't understand at all.

And that was scary.

I got some better odd jobs like overnight disc jockey at a country station and me and the other DJs had an agreement where if somebody called in to request Toby Keith, we'd play the Dixie Chicks instead.

Right?

So, you know, I moved out, got my own place, and my brother and I still hung out a lot.

And, you know, we played Madden.

I got better.

We'd still get mad at each other.

And I started, we'd watch a lot of football.

He was a Cowboys fan, and I hated the Cowboys because, you know, America's team.

But with all the time I was with him, you know, and he had so many Cowboys things at his house, and he just loved him so much, I kind of was rooting along with him just to be polite, I guess.

And we went through various ups and downs together.

Life is happening.

And

after about three years, I left Flagstaff.

and my time there wasn't amazing but you know I stayed alive and I got to heal and you know not long after that I did get clean and eventually to a point where I love life.

My brother has a

disability that kind of started affecting him later, which is, you know, he's legally blind.

And he can still crush me in Madden,

but you know, his life is very difficult.

And

there's it's never a burden to do whatever I can to help him out.

What is a burden is that I became a Cowboys fan.

So I like you know get really upset when they lose and really happy when they win as if I've done something good.

And I live in Seattle where people give you a lot of shit for that, you know?

But it is the Pacific Northwest, so it kind of feels like the cowboys suck, but also we respect your perspective.

And I tried to root for the Seahawks, it just didn't work.

I just, I'm with the cowboys, and sometimes people ask me why, and I say, well, it's a long story.

You know, and I smile because I know it's because

he saved my ass.

And when I root for them, I'm rooting for him.

Thank you.

That was Bill Burnett.

Bill is now more than 12 years sober.

Yay, Bill.

He's become a mental health and addiction awareness advocate.

Check out his TED Talk.

By day, he works as a communications director at a tech startup that helps nonprofits fundraise.

To see a picture of Bill with his beloved brother Tony and his son Justice, visit themoth.org.

And this one's for you, Tony.

Let's go, Cowboys.

Our next story was told in Boston, where we partnered with public radio station WBUR and PRX.

Here's Catherine Wu.

So it's two nights before my wedding, and I'm sitting in the living room of this ridiculously nice cabin on the shores of Lake Michigan that my entire wedding party has rented for the weekend.

My friends are all sitting outside, huddled around this fire pit, and they're all toasting marshmallows and slapping away mosquitoes, but I'm not out there.

I'm in here

staring at my laptop because I'm trying to draft an email.

And the email starts: Dear Alex, which already sounds really like stiff and awkward and uncomfortable, but I have no other way to start this email.

Dear Alex, I'm getting married on Saturday, and I know you said you were busy, but it'd be really great if you showed up.

And my fingers feel fat and heavy as I type the next four words.

Please,

I'm your sister.

Half sister, I should clarify at this point.

Alex and my other two siblings are my dad's kids from his first marriage, and they're all about 15 years older than me.

The three of them grew up really, really close.

And I, as an effective only child, was driven my entire childhood by my singular desire to be a part of of this tight-knit group.

And that singular desire crafted the trajectory of my entire young adult life.

Every time I saw them, I copied everything they did, you know, the books they liked, the movies they liked.

I pretended I liked pineapple on my pizza until I was 12.

That shit's gross.

And when my brother Alex got married, I was so excited because it was one of the only times I was able to snap a picture of the four of us together, two brothers and two sisters, and I saved that photo and I pinned it to my wall.

But that relationship was always really asymmetrical.

So the three of them, they shared a mom and their childhood and 50% of their DNA, whatever.

I didn't have that and they never really let me forget it.

And by the time I was in high school, Alex was actually really the only one of them that would still answer my phone calls, even even after our dad died.

But I never really let go of that

hope.

And a couple years ago when I got engaged, one of the first things I thought about was,

I just want my big brother at my wedding the same way I was at his.

So I call Alex and I tell him that he means something to me and I want him there.

And we end up talking for like an hour.

I think it's the longest conversation he and I have ever had.

And he tells me about his childhood and stuff about our dad that I never knew.

And at the end of all of this, he tells me, he promises me that he is going to do everything he can to be there on my wedding day.

And as soon as I hang up the phone, I call my partner and I tell him, I really think he's going to be there.

I can't wait for you to meet my big brother.

And a few weeks later, I get a text and it says, Hey, kiddo, things are looking pretty busy, and I don't think I'm going to make it, but I'll let you know if anything changes.

Nothing does, because now I'm sitting here four months later in this living room, and while my friends are sitting outside, basking in the glow of the fire, the only glow I'm basking in is the one from my laptop as I finish this email.

And I close it out and I sign it, love,

but I don't hit send.

My finger just hovers over that mouse pad, and this countdown starts in my head.

I think Alex is in California.

If I send this and he sees it and he leaves in an hour, he can catch a red eye and he'll be here with 30 hours and 45 minutes to spare.

I wait a minute, and suddenly it's 30 hours, 44 minutes to spare, 30 hours, 43 minutes to spare, and I still cannot push that damn button.

I can't send the email

because all of a sudden I realize that

even if I do,

he is not going to come.

And when he sees that email and he doesn't show up anyway, it's not going to be because

we don't share a mom or a childhood or 50% of our DNA.

It's going to be because

In spite of all the things we do share, I was never really his family.

I don't send the email.

What I do instead is I shut my computer and I walk outside to the group of people who did drop everything and fly here to be with me this weekend.

And I sit down and someone hands me a drink.

And the fire has already started to die down, but I still feel how warm the air around me is.

And there's really no one in this circle of people that shares parents or a childhood or even all that much of their DNA, relatively speaking.

But sitting there in this group of the nine people I love most in the world,

it's not so hard anymore to feel lucky for the family that I already have.

Thank you.

That was Catherine Wu.

She's a staff staff writer at The Atlantic, where she writes about science.

She's also a producer at Story Collider, a storytelling show about science.

Catherine had a wonderful time at her wedding with all her chosen family.

About her brother, she wrote, He was a lot older than me, and we didn't do much growing up together, but I was, without them, an only kid.

And I remembered that whenever he and my other siblings came to visit, I always felt a little less alone.

To see some pictures of her bridal party and the fire pit, and Catherine with her dad, visit themoth.org.

Do you have a story to tell us?

How about one involving your sister?

We'll do an hour about sisters eventually, and we'd love to hear a story about your adventures.

You can pitch us your story by recording it right on our site or call 877-799-MOTH.

That's 877-799-6684.

The best pictures are developed for moth shows all around the world.

When we return, a little sister seizes upon a rare opportunity for sweet revenge, and a boy in India dreams up a way to make a tough day a little bit better for his younger brother.

The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

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You're listening to The Moth Radio Hour.

I'm Jennifer Hickson.

Our next story is from Lynn Chamberlain Adams.

She told it at a show in Chicago where we partner with public radio station WBEZ.

Before listening, just in case you don't know about the terrifying movie from the 1970s, The Exorcist, it's a story about a young woman who has been possessed by a demon.

By today's standards, it might not be so scary, but at the time, many people considered it the most terrifying movie ever.

Here's Lynn Adams, who hadn't seen the movie yet, but had definitely read the book.

So

my brother Kent is a year and a half older than I am, and

We still have the same sense of humor, so there were a lot of laughs when we were little, but truly he tortured me.

He would hide on me,

you know, in my recollection, it was every day, multiple times a day, and every single time I would burst into tears, go running, crying.

In those days, you had a TV, one TV, and you would wait for your show to come on each week.

So I would be on the couch because Man from Uncle was on, and I was going to get to see it.

He comes in, he changed the channel.

Just because he could.

You know, you can either get punched or leave or but you're not going to watch your show

When I was 14, I'm in the kitchen, got the funnies, the comic strips, on the table, on the counter, and Kent and his friend Jimmy come through the kitchen, and Jimmy stops for a moment,

and we talk about something in the funnies.

We have a laugh, and as they're walking out, he says, you know, Chamberlain, your sister's okay.

My brother said, what?

He said, no, really, she's okay.

That was the last time my brother and I ever fought to this day.

We never fought again.

We've got each other's back, everything was great.

Two years after that, with the funnies,

The Exorcist came out, the movie.

And I had read the book the year before.

So, one night, I'm home, I'm getting ready for bed.

My parents are away.

I'm wearing these.

I don't know if anybody has them anymore.

They're like bloomers with a nighty over them.

I work still.

And I'm 16, so

anyway, so I'm getting ready for bed and my parents are away.

My brother comes into my room and he said, I swear to God, you tell anybody this, I will kill you.

How many are here?

I wait and he said, you know, we saw the exorcist tonight and I am scared shitless.

I am not sleeping in my room.

I'm sleeping in your other bed.

And in that moment, I just felt like everything came into

place.

Now, another piece of this is that I have, it's called dermatographia, it doesn't affect anything, but it just means you have a lot of histamine in your body and you can write on your body.

So, you could take a toothpick and do a Paisley pattern, and it would show up three minutes later as a bright red welt, very well defined, against your skin.

So I said, fine, whatever.

My beds are like this in the corner.

I don't know how to say it.

They're perpendicular to each other.

And

I said, but I'm going to sleep.

He said, fine.

So we turn off the lights and I wait a couple minutes.

And I had put a bobby pin next to my bed.

And I raise up my nightgown and I write, help me.

And

I waited another three or four minutes.

And then in the dark, I could hear his breathing getting fairly regular, and I went,

You know the sound a June bug makes when it's bouncing off like the screen and the wall and the light?

He started batting around in the darkness of my room trying to find the light switch.

And he bangs into my desk, he bangs against the other wall, he hits the light switch and he goes, damn it, this is not funny!

And he turns on the light.

And I said, Ken, I don't know what's wrong.

Everything feels so weird.

I don't know what's happening to me.

And this is all happening very quickly.

And

he's looking at me and I went, what's the what?

What?

And I lift it up and there it says, help me.

Raise.

Truly, I'm 58, and this was like the best moment of my life today.

I said,

last two years have been great, but for the first 14, are we even?

And we were even.

That was Lynn Chamberlain Adams.

And that, my friends, was some sweet little sister revenge.

Yes, Lynn, that was for every younger sibling who has been bullied or teased by a big brother.

I relate.

Take that.

Lynn Adams is a world traveler who lived all over Europe before raising her kids in Indiana.

To get a little follow-up and perspective on the story, I sent Lynn a couple of questions so she could have a conversation with with her big brother Kent.

Here they are discussing that infamous night and what it means to be siblings.

I don't remember from then until we were into our 40s or 50s ever talking about it, but we must have.

I think I had to,

you know, tell the story a lot to get it out of me.

But that didn't stop me from having one eye.

This is no kidding.

One eye open in the shower for the next four years.

I was in graduated from because of the movie, not because of me.

Yeah, because of the movie.

But of course, your traumatization didn't help the matter.

So thanks for that.

Sure.

Sure.

Did you ever attempt to get revenge?

No, because revenge would have involved.

There's only one revenge that would have been anywhere.

you know, approximating what you accomplished, and that would have been your own death.

So

I wasn't ready to go to that extent.

So it was just either kill you or let it go.

And obviously, I chose the

whole event was my revenge for everything.

Oh, yeah.

So

there was no revenge.

Yeah,

it was well earned.

What is the best thing about being a brother?

About being a brother or being your brother?

Let's say being my brother.

I suppose the

eternal camaraderie and friendship, I mean, you know, above and beyond all other things and all other people

using me's as pals for

life.

That was Lynn Chamberlain Adams and her brother Kent Chamberlain.

To see some pics of them growing up, visit themoth.org, where you can also download the story.

Our next story is from Om Chowdhury.

He told it in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where we partnered with public radio station WESA.

Here's Om.

So I put my name in the hat, and a part of me was really hoping that it would not come up.

It really was.

Simply because consciously I tried to keep people away from looking inside me, but maybe subconsciously I wanted to talk to you guys.

And so here I am.

So this is a story of two brothers, me, myself, I'm 29 years old and my brother Raj who's about 23 years old.

And we grew up in north of India and growing up, let me give you a little bit of an idea about my childhood days.

Growing up in my country was no different from like growing up in ancient Greece.

Like imagine yourself you are in Sparta where like if you are a guy, you're not supposed to cry.

You're not supposed to shed tears.

Your tear ducts are not functional.

If you are going through something physical or emotional or mental problems, all you have to do is put on a red cape and move on.

And

that was my childhood pretty much growing up.

And

over the course of time, it presented with us a lot of problems,

also gave us a really unique signature.

Now, I don't have much, I mean I do have memories of my parents, but my younger brother unfortunately doesn't.

And

all the cultural values that I grew up with immediately came into perspective one single day when I was 11 years old and my brother was five years old.

And instead of my dad picking me up from college, it was actually my grandma who picked me up from my college, sorry, my school.

And it was really surprising because she never comes and picked me up from the school and I knew something was wrong and

I got home and I realized that

my dad wasn't there anymore which

which was which is fine because a lot of us have gone through this

and everyone will go through this at some point sooner or later so there are no sympathy points here

but I look across the room and I really don't know what to do I look across the room and there's just my five-year-old brother who's just sitting in the corner and he's he's crying and he's sad and he's confused and one look into his eyes and it literally tore my heart.

Like, what am I supposed to tell this kid?

He's barely five.

And no matter what I say, there is nothing I can do or say to make him feel better.

And now I'm not a psychologist.

I don't know why I did what I did next, but all I did was I ran from the funeral home.

And I did.

I went to the closest stationery shop,

got a red velvet paper, which you use in arts and craft, made two.

made two clown hats out of it and made two

took two pieces pieces of red papers, scrumbled them up, and made two clown noses out of it.

And I immediately came running back and I put one hat on myself, one on my brother, and I said, Hey, do you want to go have an ice cream with me?

And it was really surprising.

The reason I did that was because my brother was in love with these street side vendors who would dress up as clowns and bring ice cream and balloons, and he loved it.

And

now, some people say, well,

one person once said that subtlety is a sign of cultural weakness.

A man who is uncivilized knows exactly what he wants and he knows exactly what is right and exactly what is wrong.

And in my case, it was pretty evident to me that what was right was making this five-year-old kid laugh.

And what was really wrong was these social norms that I'm supposed to comply with.

I don't need a red cape at that particular moment, but instead I need is a red hat and a red clown nose.

And that particular day, I ended up missing every single person in that funeral home.

I took my brother out and we were gone, we were evolved for like almost a couple of hours and I came very next day and finished all the belonging, like all the rituals that I had to do.

Now I won't wish my trajectory on anyone.

Next 18 years weren't exactly a walking park for either of me or my brother.

There was no food for us, there was no money, there was no house, but Somehow we got through it and both of us are doing really well right now.

Both of us are like Hazen Tepper and Cat School of Business and I got my PhD from CMU and things worked out really well.

But

over this course of next 18 years, I realized that me and my brother had formed this really super clownish bond where if one of us was struggling, the other person would always bring exactly two clown hats.

And it was our way of saying to each other like, hey, the world hasn't ended yet and it is not going to end because I'm always going to have your back.

Fast forward story 18 years,

about seven weeks ago,

I'm not sure I should be talking about this, but my world came crashing down and

I really thought that I'd seen everything that the life has to throw at me, but it did not.

Three of the people I loved most in my entire life, I lost them in a single week.

I was really, hey, once again, no sympathy points here because we all go through it, and if not,

one of each days, we will.

But I was really depressed.

It took me 48 hours to get out of bed.

I did not eat.

I did not sleep.

I did not drink.

I did absolutely nothing.

And at the end of the day, I ended up calling my brother, one of those like normal conversations, and I was speaking to him, and he was like, now he's sitting halfway across the globe at this point.

And he was like, hey, how are you doing?

And I didn't want him to worry at all, so I was like, oh, I'm doing perfectly fine.

How are you doing?

And we had this normal conversation and we hung up.

Exactly 23 hours and 47 minutes later, I get get a call on my cell phone saying, dude, Pittsburgh is fucking cold.

How do you live in this god-forsaken place?

And

I'm like, wait, wait,

where are you?

Where are you?

And

he's like, stop talking and just come pick me up from the airport.

And

I rush across the airport, I rush across all the traffic, I go to airport, and

I see this guy who's clad in jeans, blue jeans, a shirt that says world's clowniest brother ever, ever, which he himself made it up.

And the only thing he brought with him that day, halfway across the globe, was his visa, his passport, and two hats.

Two clown hats.

And he tells me, I know it's really snowy out there, but how about we go and us two clowns have that piece of ice cream that we always wanted.

So that's my story.

That was Aum Chowdhury.

He's a computational biologist and data scientist.

In addition to his love for science, he has a deep passion for music.

You can find him dancing at blues events all over the northeast.

And his little brother Raj, he just graduated with his master's and Aum couldn't be prouder.

That's it for this episode of the Moth Radio Hour.

Thanks to all the storytellers in this hour and let's hear it for all the brothers in the world too.

You have driven us crazy and you have saved our lives.

Specifically, to the brothers in this hour: Mike, Tony, Alex, Daniel, Kent, Raj, and my brother, Vernon.

Thank you.

We hope you'll join us next time.

This episode of The Moth Radio Hour was produced by me, Jay Allison, Catherine Burns, and Jennifer Hickson, who also hosted the show.

Co-producer is Vicki Merrick, associate producer Emily Couch.

The rest of the Moths leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Sarah Austin-Janess, Meg Bowles, Kate Tellers, Jennifer Birmingham, Marina Cluche, Suzanne Rust, Brandon Grant, Inga Gladowski, Sarah Jane Johnson, and Aldi Caza.

Moth stories are true as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers.

Our theme music is by the drift.

Other music in this hour from Blue Dot Sessions, Stephen Fawcett, Mel Brooks and Glenn Kelly, the funkiest band you've ever heard, Philip Glass and the Third Coast Percussion, Mike Oldfield, and Adam Baldich.

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 Rhys Dennis.

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

Mike and Alyssa are always trying to outdo each other.

When Alyssa got a small water bottle, Mike showed up with a four-litre jug.

When Mike started gardening, Alyssa started beekeeping.

They called it truce for their holiday and used Expedia Trip Planner to collaborate on all the details of their trip.

Once there, Mike still did more laps around the pool.

Whatever.

You were made to outdo your holidays.

We were made to help organize the competition.

Expedia, made to travel.