The Moth Radio Hour: Turning the Page

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From PRX, this is the Moth Radio Hour.

I'm Sarah Austin-Janes.

In this episode, Facing the Next Step: Stories of Moving Forward.

I've always appreciated that H.G.

Wells quote: adapt or perish.

Now as ever is nature's inexorable imperative.

Basically, you must change.

We cannot go back, we can only move forward.

And in the journey through the mock, maybe you'll find a story.

We start with a woman who's mourning her youth.

And just to note, it's a very funny story about the downward travel of parts of her own body.

Elizabeth Gray shared this at an Open Mic Story Slam in Melbourne, Australia, where we partner with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, ABCRN.

Here's Elizabeth live with them all.

So this story begins six years ago when I was 38 years old and it was a beautiful morning because Nana had stayed over which meant that I got to sleep in.

So because I was well rested I actually wanted to spend time with my children.

And so I thought what I would do is I would go out while they're sitting at the kitchen table and I'd jump up and I'd go, rrrr!

So got out of bed, popped my dressing gown on, strapped it on nice and tight,

crept out to the dining table and I leapt in the air and as I leapt in the air, my breasts,

which were joyous and free of any constraints,

leapt with me.

And then when I landed, they landed a second behind

and they made this enormous clap sound as they hit my torso.

And my kids didn't seem to notice and if Nana noticed she didn't say anything.

But I kind of crept back to the bedroom and I sat down in shock as this sound just kind of echoed around my brain

because this thunderous clap was the death knell of my youth.

And

for the first time in my my life, I actually thought, maybe I should get some plastic surgery.

Maybe I should get a breast reduction.

And over the years, age and gravity had, you know, affected my breasts.

And not only that, but there'd been 15 years of fluctuating weight.

And I'd breastfed two children.

And in addition to that, my left breast is actually two sizes larger than my right.

So when I'm naked, I kind of look a bit like a Picasso painting.

But I worked out that if I stand with my left arm straight up

and my right arm

90 degrees

away from my body to the right,

everything evens out

and takes 10 years off my breasts.

But it's a little bit hard to feel sexy when you look like you're doing some kind of kinky semaphore thing going on.

So being a good Virgo, I made a list of pros and cons.

And the pros were, you know, better self-image, more confidence, and being able to buy a normal sports bra.

as opposed to a sports bra which was designed by NASA and cost about $150.

But there were quite a lot of cons, quite a lot more cons, and some of those were, I'm terrible with pain, I'm a terrible patient, I don't have a big disposable income, and I have quite an addictive personality.

So I was sort of looking a couple of years into the future, thinking that I would look, you know, great, nice and shiny and plastic, but be completely destitute.

Sort of like, I don't know, dumpster diving Barbie complete with her own shopping trolley.

So I thought well I'll talk to my husband about it see if he can help me with the decision.

Now my husband loves my breasts and he loves my body and the only negative thing he said about my body is that there's too many clothes covering it.

So

I sat him down and I said honey I think I want to get a breast reduction.

And he was quiet for a moment and he said

You know I love you just the way you are, but if this is really important to you, then I will support you 100%.

Yeah, and I felt, you know, and even though I wasn't any closer to a decision, I felt better about everything.

And I went away and made us a cup of tea, and I came back to find him in the bedroom, weeping quietly into one of my double D-cup bras.

So anyway, for the next three years, I kind of oscillated, you know, between, you know, should I get it done?

Should I get surgery?

Should I not?

It's sort of like on the one hand it was like, I will not succumb to, you know, this advertiser's cult of youth.

And then on the other side I was like, but think of all the gorgeous bras we could wear.

And then one day my whole life just went to crap.

I rode off my car.

My husband was involved in a terrible workplace accident and this trip to Canada that we'd been planning for ages was at risk risk of being cancelled.

And then I found a lump on my right breast.

And

so I went to the doctor who referred me to a specialist and then she wanted me to get some tests and a mammogram.

So I had my mammogram done by this little Scottish round lady

and if you've never had a mammogram before, What you do is you put your breast on a sort of square plate and you snuggle up to this machine, which is something like out of Doctor Who

and then they lower a perspex plate down onto your breast and they keep lowering it until there's tears in your eyes and your breast is as flat as a pancake.

So right one done, onto the left one, get it up onto the plate and she goes, oh goodness me, I'll have to get the bigger plate out for that one.

And if that wasn't bad enough, you know, she changed the plates, rest on the plate, and she she goes, oh, it goes right underneath your aunt pit, doesn't it lovely?

I'll just pull that around for you, shall I?

And right then, I just wanted the ground to open up and, you know, swallow me whole.

But after about eight weeks of getting, you know, prodded and poked and humiliated and squashed, I finally got my results.

And the results were negative, which were amazing.

And I got out of the specialist.

I just cried and I cried and I cried.

And it's true that you don't realise how much you love something until there's a risk that it's going to be taken away.

So I realised that day that I actually love my breasts in all their, you know, saggy, lumpy, uneven glory.

And God willing, we're going to, both my breasts and I are going to age disgracefully right to the end.

Elizabeth Gray lives with her husband, two sons, and two cats, and has just taken up micro-macrame as her new isolation hobby.

Elizabeth works for a small women's health organization, and she actually shared a written copy of this story with her team.

She says her favorite response was from a colleague who read the story, strode up to Elizabeth's desk, and announced that she had decided to stop dying her hair and let her silver shine through.

Elizabeth's story convinced her to be brave and embrace the gray.

We met our next storyteller, Nima Avashia, at the Moth Teacher Institute.

Every year, the Moth hosts a week of storytelling workshops for 5th to 12th grade educators from around the country, and they share best practices for using personal stories in the classroom.

Nima has been a civics teacher in Boston for years, and she applied for this Moth opportunity to join her writing life and her teaching life, and to inspire her students to tell their own stories.

At the end of the week-long workshop, we record the stories from these educators.

So live from the Moth Teacher Institute, here's Nima Avashia.

So last November on a Friday, two of my former students, Chris and Nami, came back to visit.

And in general, that's not weird.

Kids kind of know Fridays are open office hours, come back, check in with Miss Avashia.

But this Friday was different.

They weren't just coming back to chit-chat or do homework.

They were coming back to grieve.

And I didn't really know how I was going to do that with them.

And that was weird for me because I'm a civics teacher.

And that means I spend my whole year teaching kids about their rights and how government works and how to be an engaged citizen.

And they kind of see me as this like demystifier.

And so even after they graduate, I get texts.

I just got stopped by the cops.

What do I need to do?

Or my mom's trying to go get her citizenship.

What should I do?

That's kind of our relationship.

And I'm used to knowing the answers.

Or if I don't know the answer, I know how to get it.

But earlier in that week, week, we had all discovered that their former classmate and my former student, Angel, had been killed in gun violence in our neighborhood.

And Angel was this goofy, funny kid.

He loved everybody in his class.

He made funny faces and told corny jokes.

He baked me a fruitcake the day before Christmas, which who makes fruitcakes anymore?

You know, he was just, he was, not that you ever think any kid is going to end up in that situation, but it just would have never occurred to me that that was going to be the situation.

And we were all reeling, and he was the fourth former student who had died for me in a year.

And so they were coming back, and I felt this pressure of like, I'm supposed to take them through this, but like, I'm not through this.

Like, I don't know how to do this.

For the first hour, it didn't matter.

They were sobbing, and my shirt was soaked, and like, that's what we did for about an hour.

But they're also adolescent boys, and humor is kind of their go-to cope.

And And so, after about an hour, it kind of went from crying to telling stories and then to telling funny stories.

And they started to tell me about how, at the end of their eighth grade year, they had this plot to spray paint the principal's car.

This particular principal only lasted a year.

He was kind of a dictator.

He liked to pick fights.

He would suspend kids for wearing a hood.

Kids didn't like him.

Teachers didn't like him.

And they wanted revenge.

So Angel decided to go buy some spray paint.

But he bought black spray paint and the principal's car was black.

So

this time it was not going to work.

And Nami, at that point in the story, and I didn't know the story until then, opens his bag and he pulls out the can of spray paint.

And he's like, I've been carrying this around all week.

Like, I don't know what to do.

And I say, I think I know what we should do.

I think we need to go tag something.

And you should know that I'm not just a civics teacher during the day.

I'm kind of like a civics geek at night.

Like in Boston, we have an app called Boss311 where you can like report things like there's a downed tree, come fix it, or there's a dead squirrel in the road, come remove it.

And I am obsessed with this app and I report things all the time and I read other people's reports.

And, you know, like...

Kids know this about me.

They know I don't drive more than five miles above the speed limit.

I've never used any kind of controlled substance or any uncontrolled substance.

I just am pretty square.

They know this.

And so Chris, who's generally very quiet, is like, what?

You're suggesting that we go do something illegal right now?

He's like, I don't think I understand.

You're our civics teacher.

You're not supposed to do this.

What they didn't know is that for the previous eight months, I had been trying to meet with city leaders, with the superintendent, with street workers, with anyone I could get to listen to the fact that in Boston last year, 16 young people under the age of 19 were killed.

It was a massive spike.

More than a quarter of the homicides in the city were kids.

And of that, four were mine.

And I was doing all of this advocacy, and it wasn't doing anything.

And it also wasn't helping me.

I didn't come away feeling better.

And then there was this spray can.

And I was like, well, nothing else has worked.

Being a civics teacher and using those strategies hasn't accomplished anything.

So here's a spray can, and maybe we should use it.

So, it was dark, we'd been talking for several hours.

We went behind the school, and there was like a concrete jersey barrier that the cops had put out to prevent people from doing illicit things behind the school.

We were about to do an illicit thing,

and we basically took turns tagging the barrier.

And in Boston, I don't know if this is true in other places, when young people are killed,

their friends in the community create a hashtag.

So, we tagged hashtag Angels World on the barrier.

And we put our flashlights out on our phones and we kind of lit it up.

We got a broken desk and we turned it into a tripod and we took pictures of ourselves.

And Chris was like, Angel would fucking love this.

And he was like, oh, sorry, Avashia, I forgot that you were my teacher for a second.

And I said, no, you're totally right.

Angel would have fucking love this.

And in that moment, that like hierarchy between teacher and student, it just kind of flattened, right?

And we were just mourning, and we were trying to figure out how to connect with Angel and how to connect with each other.

So I took our pictures, some with me in them, some without me in them.

And as we walked to my car so I could drive them home, I said, you better not post the pictures with me in them on the internet.

That shit could get me fired.

Because at the end of the day, I'm still their civics teacher.

Thank you.

That was Nima Avashia.

Nima has worked as a civics teacher in the Boston public schools for more than 17 years.

And when she's not teaching, she writes personal essays, makes tons of pickles and salsa, and spends time with her partner, Laura, who is also a middle school teacher.

Angel's graffiti is still up, and when his younger cousin was a student at Nima's school, she says sometimes at dismissal, they'd walk over together to pay the graffiti a visit and share a memory of Angel.

During the pandemic, Nima thought that school closures offered some freedom from the teacher-student hierarchy.

On Zoom calls with students, they saw each other's homes, families, and bad haircuts, and everyone was much more honest about the support they needed.

She says flattening the teacher-student hierarchy was actually one of the most powerful shifts in education that happened during the pandemic.

To see a photo of Angel and his classmates with Nima, go to themoth.org.

After our break, two stories where moving on requires a little help from a friend when the Moth Radio Hour continues.

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

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This is the Moth Radio Hour from PRX.

I'm Sarah Austin-Janess.

The stories in this hour are about turning the page and moving on.

And sometimes, to do that, you need a nudge or an energetic push from another person.

This next story from Maxie Jones takes place when he's a teenager, right after his mother dies.

Maxie told this story at an open mic slam in Detroit where we partner with public radio station WDET.

Here's Maxie live at the mall.

In February of 1978,

I started the second semester of the 10th grade.

That was on February 1st.

On February 2nd,

which would have been my second day of my second semester of the 10th grade, when I woke up to go to school, my mother didn't wake up that morning.

Now, that following week, I missed school, of course, while we laid my mother to rest.

And when I came back to school, about a week or two later,

it was quite different for me.

I remember that when I came back to school, I really didn't care much to be there at all.

And it was a new semester and my teachers didn't really know me very well.

I had this one English teacher, his name is Mr.

Goldberg.

And Mr.

Goldberg would ask the class a question

and he would call on people.

And when he called on me, he would say, Maxie, do you know the answer?

And he pretty much like wake me up from wherever my mind would be.

And I would say, what?

Excuse me, what was that?

And he would ask me the question again, and I would always have the correct answer.

So one day he asked me to meet him after class, and I met him after class, and he said, he said, I don't understand what's going on.

He said, you always seem lost.

You're always someplace else during the class, but you know all the answers.

You did all your homework.

And, you know, I just kind of explained to him what was going on.

And I told him that.

You know, the reason I came to school every day was because my mother made me come to school.

And now, my mother's not here to make me come to school, and I don't really feel

the need to be here anymore.

So he said, Well, he said, Well, just do me a favor.

He said, Listen, you know what?

A teacher teaches eight, well, there are eight periods in a day.

A teacher teaches five periods in a day, and there are three prep periods.

Usually, the teacher will use one of those prep periods for lunch, and his other prep period, Mr.

Goldberg, said, I want you to meet me in my office, six period.

And so I met him in the office sixth period, just to talk.

And then he said, meet me tomorrow, sixth period.

And this went on and on.

Every single day he had me meet him sixth period during his prep period.

And I would help him grade papers and we would talk and we would do whatever.

When open school night came,

I didn't have anyone to come with me.

My mother always came with me to open school night.

When open school night came, my sister, who had just graduated from that same school, came with me to open school night.

And my social studies teacher wouldn't talk to to her.

He said, I know who you are.

You just graduated from the school.

So he thought we were trying to play some kind of game or something.

So when the teacher wouldn't talk to her, Mr.

Goldberg was standing outside the room.

He came in and he said, wait a minute, wait a minute.

Talk to her.

And he said, I'll explain later.

So the teacher talked to my sister and told her about how I was doing the school and so on.

And then Mr.

Goldberg, what he did after that was he went around to all my classes and talked to all my teachers and told them what was going on.

And he told them all, he said, if you have any issue with Maxie Jones, come to me.

And so that's what he did.

And so it went that way for the whole semester.

Every day I met him at sixth period and

he checked on my classes and all that stuff.

What ended up happening was that the next year when I was a junior, he did the same thing.

He had me meet him every single day and we talked and he talked to all my teachers about whatever was going on with me.

And he kind of let them know, listen, if you got any problem with Maxie Jones, come and talk to me.

And And I didn't really realize that

by the time I graduated from high school, I never missed a single day of school.

And

at high school graduation, Mr.

Goldberg was there.

And I asked him, I said, I said, hey, Mr.

Goldberg, how you doing?

And

he said, this feels funny.

He said, I don't come to graduations.

And I said, why?

He said,

because I teach seniors.

And he said, no, he said, because I teach 10th graders.

And he said, I don't teach seniors, so I never come to the graduation.

So I said, well, why are you here?

And he said,

because I wouldn't miss seeing you graduate for anything in the world.

And I didn't realize then what he had done.

It took me years before before I finally realized that.

I graduated from high school with honors, and I was in the top 85 percentile of my class.

I had a region scholarship and a full ride to college and all that stuff.

The truth is, I was really always academically capable of that, but it was one of those situations where all I really needed to do was to show up for it.

At 15 years old, having lost my mother, not really seeing the value of an education, I was really

in line to be a statistic, a high school dropout, and who knows what would have came of it.

But the thing is,

I showed up to school every single day, and I realized that the reason I showed up was because there was somebody there who was expecting to see me.

And that was Mr.

Goldberg.

Thank you very much.

That was Maxie Jones.

Maxie lives in Michigan, right outside of Detroit.

He says storytelling has actually become his favorite pastime, and that during the pandemic, he missed the moth stage tremendously.

The quarantine was put in place right after he told his 99th story with the moth.

Maxie graduated from high school more than 40 years ago, and Mr.

Goldberg has never been more than a phone call away.

To see a photo of the lovely message that Mr.

Goldberg wrote in Maxie's high school yearbook, go to themoth.org.

Next up, a story from Jennifer Birmingham from one of our New York Story Slams, where we partner with public radio station WNYC.

Here's Jennifer live with the moth.

Okay, so I was married twice in rapid succession.

Six weeks after my husband moved out, I looked up an old boyfriend and we immediately started dating.

And a couple years after that, we were married.

And I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to marry the recycled rebound guy, but I did.

And

because I didn't want to fail again, and

more importantly, because I had a baby boy with my second husband, I stayed longer than I should.

I stayed through the lies and the affairs and him losing his job and refusing to ever get another one.

And I stayed through two years of marriage counseling and just when I thought I couldn't take another day, our counselor asked for a solo session.

And she asked me to come in and she said, hey, I can see you're pretty ready for a divorce.

But I'm not sure you are.

You need to be able to accept three things before you you really are ready, and here they are.

One, you may lose your child.

And she said, in your case, it would probably only be 50%, but you have to be ready to give him up.

Two, you are the moneyed spouse, so you better be ready to pay child support for someone to take your child from you.

And three,

you may never find love again.

Yeah.

These are

really stark things to hear, but they're real.

I mean, divorce is messy, and you honestly don't know what's going to happen.

And I wasn't ready to move forward with those three things, so I went back to the marriage for a couple more years, and until it was completely untenable, and I was willing to pay pretty much any price to get out.

And so I got out, and happily, I got 100% custody of my son.

And because of that, taking out a second job to pay child support was a moot point.

But the question of whether I was going to find love again, I decided to let that linger.

I did not want another rebound relationship, and so I declared a six-month sabbatical from dating, and I did.

And at the end of six months, I declared another 12-month sabbatical from dating.

And to make sure I lived up to that commitment, I decided to get orthodontics, not the

subtle Invisalign that most sane adults sign up for.

I got braces

because I knew for me there was no better reminder that I wasn't ready to date than

having sharp metal objects cemented to my teeth.

And it worked.

I stayed out a full 18 months.

But you know, eventually life calls you back and I decided I had to try to get back out there and I signed up for all the usual suspects and I found myself on my first date in a really long time.

And he was a great first date.

He was perfectly benign.

He was absolutely not my type, but terrifically nice.

And we had drinks and we had dinner.

And I was like, whew, did it.

Now I can go back into hiding.

And we walked outside and I hailed a cab.

And just as the cab pulled up, the guy leaned in and kissed me.

And this kind of undid me because I wasn't ready.

And I wasn't really sure I wanted wanted to go back out there and I jumped into the cab and I pleaded with the driver to drive I was like drive drive drive drive but he didn't move he just sat there chuckling in the front seat and he told me that he had witnessed the kiss and it looked really good and

so

I

I stuck my head in that little window between the driver and the passenger and I was like, no, it was not good.

It was terrible.

It was awkward.

And this is my first first date in 15 years and it was just, it's too much.

And my driver introduced himself as Pablo and told me that he himself has been on a sabbatical from dating and yet he had a lot of dating advice to dispense.

And oh,

he dispensed.

And

Pablo told me all his theories on dating as he drove me home from the Upper West Side to Harlem.

And then when we got to my building, he pulled over and he turned off the meter and we talked for another 45 minutes.

We did, all the while holding hands between that little window.

And

I, you know, I wish I could tell you this was the night that I fell in love with Pablo, the wise man.

Pablo, the wise man of the New York City taxi fleet.

It wasn't, but it really did feel like it was

that the universe had put Pablo in my path to tell me a few things that made it easier to move forward.

After I got out of the cab I ran upstairs and I wrote down as much as I could and

three of the things I memorized to heart and I carry them with me.

There are three things that are a lot easier to take.

One,

Pablo told me, don't ever judge a date by the first kiss.

Good ones will turn bad, bad ones will turn good, only time will tell.

Two, the only thing that matters is that two people can really talk.

Everything else can get out.

And three,

at any given moment, God is going to smite you off the face of this earth.

He said,

Pablo said, so get out there.

Life is short.

Get out there, full tilt.

That was Jennifer Birmingham.

Jennifer lives in New York City and is mom to Nikili, Aiden, and Miles.

I asked for her dating and love updates, and she said, I did find love again.

It was temporary, but it put to rest any lingering fear I had that the therapist may have been right about that never happening again.

These days, I'm running full tilt at other loves, my kids, my work, and hobbies like photography, writing, and traveling.

My hope is that in pursuing one of these passions, I'll meet the love of my life.

To see photos of Jennifer and her three children, go to themoth.org.

In some cases, the simple act of crafting and telling a story is a way to move forward.

The Moth produces over 600 events each year, and the stories are all told by people like you.

Yes, you.

Do you have any stories of moving on or really any personal story that matters to you?

We'd love to hear it.

You can record your pitch right on our site or call 877-799-MOF.

That's 877-799-6684.

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

I was a momless boy.

When I was in kindergarten, she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

She fought for five years, and when I was in fifth grade, and I was there holding her hand when it happened, the next day, they took me away to a friend's house, and they took her away, too.

Overnight, her room was transformed, and there wasn't much left besides this pot I had painted for Mother's Day and a note that she had written the day I was baptized.

After her funeral, we never really talked much about her.

But when I missed her, I read this note.

And it talked about how she knew I would grow up to be kind and strong and do the right things.

But

eventually my dad remarried and we didn't talk about mom in front of dad'cause he never wanted to talk about her.

But we really felt like we couldn't talk him to

talk about her in front of Susan or stepmom.

So life went on.

My brother moved out and I eventually went to college and Susan was diagnosed with breast cancer.

I really didn't understand life and on those sad days I'd get out that piece of paper and I would read that I was going to be kind and strong.

And that paper,

I believed it.

Like, I believed her, and I missed her.

And

over the years, I had fallen out of touch with my mom's family.

And they thought my dad had remarried too soon.

And he thought that they were annoying in-laws.

And so

eventually I visited my aunt Laura.

And she went upstairs and got this notebook.

And when I saw it, I realized that that was the notebook that lived lived on my mom's bedside table and it was her journal.

And

I cried.

I ugly cried and that was the best Christmas present I've ever gotten.

Over the next year, I could only read a page at a time before I was so worked up I had to stop.

And the journal started the day she found the lump.

I had no idea how afraid she was to tell my dad about the lump.

But like with these questions answered, I felt more comfortable asking Susan about her lumps and like what her experience was like with cancer and with my family.

And

the journal opened up the door for my stepmom and I to talk about cancer grief and my mom more candidly.

And

I got married this past year and Susan and I danced to You'll Be in My Heart by Phil Collins.

During that dance, I was ugly crying and Susan apologized that my mom couldn't be there there dancing with me and I told her that the song was about a stepmom and I thanked her for raising me and teaching me so much.

And 14 years later, I know my mom is still cheering me on, still teaching me to be kind and strong and helping me become the man I always wanted to be.

I'm grateful I've had two wonderful female role models that I can call mom.

Remember, you can pitch us your story.

And when you do, here are a few tips to think about before you record.

We want to hear a short version of the plot, but also how you felt while these things were happening.

Stories are like fingerprints.

They're unique to you.

So share a few details of these scenes that you'll never forget.

How did these moments change you?

You can call us at 877-799-Moth or pitch us online at themoth.org.

And you could inspire someone you know to pitch to.

Spread the word.

After our break, a woman plans to move through grief and a man tries to help his stepkids but they may not be interested when the moth radio hour continues.

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

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You're listening to the Moth Radio Hour from PRX.

I'm Sarah Austin-Janess.

This is an hour all about moving forward, even if it's only in small steps.

Susan Early told this next story at an open mic Moth Slam in Denver, Colorado, where we partner with public radio station KUNC.

Live at the moth, here's Susan Early.

I grew up in New York City, and I came to Colorado every summer from the time I was six to 16, secretly sad that my grandparents didn't live in Florida like everyone else's grandparents in New York.

But I've learned to appreciate what I had.

My grandparents were incredible people, and I was very lucky to spend every summer with them growing up.

In college, I lived here for a summer with them, and I got to know them as adults, and it was a privilege and quite fun.

We had a lot of fun that summer.

My grandfather passed away right before his 80th birthday.

I knew it was going to be really hard on my grandmother, and everyone else in the family had come ahead of time to help with the arrangements and the logistics.

And so I arranged my schedule to come and stay extra on the back end.

And

it was a good plan in my mind because I knew once everyone left, it's really hard.

They had been married just short of 60 years.

They spent their whole adult lives together.

He had been in a nursing home the last two years, but he always had hope of getting back home.

And my grandmother, Grandma Jane, had bought him a beautiful blue polo shirt at Ross's on Mexico and Colorado that I drove by on my way here.

And

when my mom left, she said to me, Grandma wants you to return that shirt.

I tried to return it.

She didn't buy it there.

She doesn't have the receipt.

You're not going to be able to do it.

I was like, okay,

not a problem.

So we get up the day after everyone has left, and my grandma's like, oh, we got to run some errands.

I'm like, no problem.

What do you need to do?

She's like, we have to return that shirt.

I'm like, okay, let's go.

We're going to go to Village Inn afterwards, which was better than Perkins, but still,

I was more afraid of that than trying to return this shirt to Ross's.

So she pulls up to the part at Ross's, and she's sitting in her

purple Toyota Camry that she hated because it looked like a Barbie car, but it was the color my grandfather picked out.

Because it was the cheapest one on the lot.

And

she says, my foot is killing me.

You go in.

I'm like, no problem.

So I go in, I have the bag, I have the receipt, and this really beautiful sky blue polo shirt that would match my grandpa's eyes.

So I knew, I thought, she has bought him a birthday present every year for almost 60 years.

Like, she was ready.

And he just,

he left the earth a few days before his birthday, but she was ready for that.

with a present in case he made it.

He wouldn't have worn it.

He didn't wear a lot of shirts, but she had something new to celebrate with him.

So I walk in and the cashier is Yolanda and I look at her and I say I really need your help.

She's like what?

I'm like do you see that lovely lady in the purple Toyota looking at us watching us like a hawk?

She's like yeah.

I'm like that's my grandma.

She just lost her husband and I cannot walk out of here with this shirt.

She was like okay.

I'm like, look at it.

She swears she bought it here.

She swears this is a receipt.

My mom's been in here.

We can't return it.

She diligently opens the bag.

She pulls out the receipt and she's like, yeah, we don't even sell this shirt.

I'm like, I don't care.

Give it to someone.

Throw it away.

Give it to someone who works here.

I just, I cannot walk out of here with this shirt.

And she looks at me and she goes, how long were they married?

I'm like, almost 60 years.

She's like, no problem.

She takes the shirt.

She's like,

do I want me to give you money back?

I'm like, yeah, can you pretend?

She's like, oh yeah.

She makes a big show.

She opens the register.

She slides the money across the counter to me.

I put it in my fake, I put the fake money in my wallet.

I go back out.

Grandma's like, how'd it go?

I'm like, we're good.

I got your $12.

She's like, awesome.

Pull it out of my wallet.

I give it to her.

We go home.

We're reading our books, enjoying the day.

My mom calls.

And of course, you know, when you're having that conversation where you can't say what you want to say because you're in the room with someone else you don't want to hear.

And my mom's like, I can't believe you did that.

How did you do that?

I'm like, you're right.

I said, it was kind of tricky.

She goes, what do you mean?

I'm like, well,

you're right.

And she's like,

what are you talking about?

She's like, oh, you're in the room with grandma.

I'm like, exactly.

And she says, so she didn't buy it at Ross's.

I was like, no.

And that wasn't the receipt.

I was like, correct.

And she's like,

but grandma said you got it returned and you gave her the money.

I'm like, exactly.

And all of a sudden, you can see the light bulb over the phone.

And my mom got off.

She's like, oh my god, you gave her your money.

I'm like, right.

Because

it was about not leaving that shirt in the bag in the car because that was a shirt that the love of her life.

When she walked in the room, those blue eyes lit up and she didn't want it.

And I made sure she didn't have it.

Thank you.

That was Susan Early.

Susan still lives in Colorado and she continued to have adventures with her grandmother up until the end.

And she says her greatest service was to just be with her as she took her very last steps forward.

To see a photo of Susan on vacation with her grandparents in Colorado, go to themoth.org.

Our last storyteller in this hour is Eric Heen.

He told us at a moth slam in Houston, Texas, where we partner with Houston Public Media.

Here's Eric live at the moth.

When I was 26 years old, I fell in love with a woman who was eight years older than I was.

She had just divorced an abusive man, and there was rumors that she had issues with alcohol.

So this was not a good recipe for a healthy relationship, but I was in love and I moved in with her.

To complicate things, she had two daughters, 12 and 14 years old.

The first thing the youngest daughter, Bridget, said to me the day I moved in, was, My real dad is going to kick your ass.

I just,

I shrugged that off.

I figured the mother would take care of the daughters and I would have not much to do with them kids.

But almost right away these paternal instincts just kind of kicked in and I'd get so

I would want to help them with their homework or if boys came around I'd get really protective.

I was feeling kind of fatherly there.

The older girl,

she was very independent, no problems at all with her.

But this younger girl, Bridget,

she terrorized me.

She'd call me names, she'd call me butt munch all the time.

And she would, she'd come up behind me and hit me in the back as hard as she could and then run off.

But I always figured that maybe it's just an act, and then maybe deep down she had a good heart.

Well, as time went on,

the mother relapsed into some alcohol issues.

So this interfered with her parental skills.

The father was a deadbeat, and he had drinking issues as well.

So I looked at this Bridget, and I'm thinking, you know, poor kid.

So I'd do stuff.

I bought her a guitar and guitar lessons.

I'd go to her school programs and clap for her,

trying to do what I could.

But all through this, she still

treated me just like crap.

But I thought, well, it's not that bad because at least she's on the right track, you know.

But in the long run, maybe I wasn't doing so good there because after a while, she started skipping classes.

She got busted for shoplifting.

Eventually, she was starting to use drugs.

It didn't look good for Bridget.

One day the older sister called me when I was at work and she said, Bridget's been arrested and mom is not in any condition to handle the situation.

So I rushed over to the police station and juvenile officer told me that Bridget had gotten into a fight with another girl and that Bridget had pulled out a knife.

They brought me back to this room back there where she was sitting.

And as soon as she saw me, she said,

get him out of here.

He's not my real dad.

So they brought me back out to the front.

They said,

yeah, technically, you're not the legal guardian.

So get out.

Well, I went home.

And I looked around

and I thought, what the hell am I doing here?

So I didn't love the mother for a long time.

Bridget hated my guts, and I wasn't her father.

Right then, I decided people don't change.

And if you try to help them change, you're only gonna waste your own life.

Within 24 hours, I was packed up and I was gone.

And I cut off all communications with them.

There's a little more to the story.

Ten years later I'm living here in Houston, got a whole new life.

About the time Facebook came out, I joined and right off the bat I get this message and it's from Bridget.

She said that she'd been trying to find me for years

and that she said call me right away it's it's very important and she had her phone number there

and I looked at her Facebook page here she's she's a realtor

she's volunteers for all these community projects

she changed I was wrong

so I called the number and

hear her voice all these memories flooding back

She said that all through her childhood that I was the only one who really gave her much time and effort.

And she said when she changed that I was her role model for that.

And she said,

She said, I met this really great guy.

She said,

he reminds me of you.

And she said, I want you to come give me away at my wedding ceremony next month.

And I said,

hell yeah, I'll do it.

And I said,

but why aren't you asking your real dad?

And she said,

I am.

That was Eric Keene.

Eric is a former Montana sheep rancher who ended up in Houston, Texas in a career as a federal investigator.

Now retired, he spends his days writing stories and volunteering his services for his public radio station.

Bridget lives in Montana and has a family of her own and Eric visits every year.

You can share the stories from this hour or others from the Moth Archive through our website, themoth.org.

Find us on social media too.

We're on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc., at the moth.

This hour has been about progress.

Taking the smallest step, after all, is still movement.

And maybe you'll tell a story about the journey.

Check out the Moth schedule on our website and find out about our online slams and throw your name in the virtual hat.

We want to hear your stories.

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

We hope you'll join us next time.

time.

Your host for this hour was Sarah Austin Janes.

Grand Slam Coaching by Michelle Jolowski and in the Moth Teacher Institute by Kim Lopez and Nika Williams.

The rest of the Moths directorial staff includes Catherine Burns, Sarah Haberman, Jennifer Hickson, and Meg Bowles.

Production support from Emily Couch.

Our pitch came from Jeff Hinton.

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

Our theme music is by The Drift.

Other music in this hour from The Magic Lantern, Stellwagon Symphonet, Julian Lodge, Keith Jarrett, Jan Gabarik, Polly Donielson, and John Christensen, Dave Douglas, Blue Dot Sessions, and Bill Frizzell.

You can find links to all the music we use at our website.

The Moth Radio Hour is produced by me, Jay Allison, with Vicki Merrick at Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

This hour was produced with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts.

The Moth Radio Hour is presented by PRX.

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

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