The Moth Radio Hour: Signed, Sealed, Delivered - Stories about Letters

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Speaker 4 From PRX, this is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Sarah Austin-Janess.
In this episode, stories all about letters. It turns out letters are not a thing of the past.

Speaker 4 Some people, like me, are still writing and stamping, opening and reading them.

Speaker 4 Our first story is from Meg Farrell. She told this at an open mic story slam in San Francisco, where we partnered with public radio stations KQED and KALW.

Speaker 4 Here's Meg live at the mall.

Speaker 5 It's 1998 and it's my second year in college. I know I look exceptionally young.

Speaker 5 I had just picked my major and I had done this by going into one of the buildings on campus where they house all the banners, one for each of the majors.

Speaker 5 And I looked up and I saw it and I was like, that's it. And it said leisure studies.

Speaker 5 And I was like,

Speaker 5 I can do that.

Speaker 5 I can do that really, really well.

Speaker 5 And so, like the exceptional leisure studies major I was, I decided to push out all my core requirements and just focus really intensely on my electives.

Speaker 5 And so I chose human sexuality because it sounded exotic. And yes, I was naive and innocent at the time.

Speaker 5 And I also chose it because at the time I was also dating my first girlfriend. And I thought it might be relevant.

Speaker 5 So the class started, and it started first with STDs. It was just like picture after picture after picture after picture after picture of STDs, which is really hard on me because I'm a visual learner.

Speaker 5 And then we quickly moved into sexuality. And because it was the 90s, we really just covered homosexuality, bisexuality, and heterosexuality.

Speaker 5 Because like at the time, you know, we didn't talk about much. I mean, like, if you were a man and you had a piercing in your right ear by urban legend, you were gay.

Speaker 5 Like what did we know? We all wore scrunchies. We were like a confused nation completely.

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 5 I should also tell you that I went to school in North Carolina and North Carolina is not the liberal hotbed that you think it is.

Speaker 5 At least it wasn't in 1998.

Speaker 5 And the other thing you need to know is that I've never really been much of an activist. Like yes, I did adopt a manatee in seventh grade,

Speaker 5 but I have no idea where he is right now.

Speaker 5 So, for these reasons combined, I was in the closet at the time. And so, when we started talking about homosexuality, I was like really interested about what was going to happen.

Speaker 5 And, you know, at first it started out like most things start out when you have like a group of like 18 and 19 year olds and it's like hive mind.

Speaker 5 And they're all like, I don't know, what do you think about homosexuality?

Speaker 5 I don't know, what do you think about homosexuality? I don't know, what do you think? And then it spiraled really fast into they're all going to hell.

Speaker 5 Yeah, and I was like, oh my god, I'm like in the center of the worst bad after-school special ever.

Speaker 5 Or like, perhaps this is the moment that like all of my deGrossi high training should come into action. I wasn't sure what it was.

Speaker 5 But the one thing I knew is I was starting to get like really upset because people were throwing out words like hell and Satan and all these things. And these were like all of my class friends.

Speaker 5 And it was really starting to like burn on me. And so it kept going, and it kept spiraling worse and worse.

Speaker 5 And then one girl stood up and she said, and she like turned, I remember she turned to the class, like she was making this grand announcement. And she's like, if my kid was ever gay, I disown them.

Speaker 5 And the class just like kept agreeing with it. It seemed to make sense to them.

Speaker 5 And then finally, someone else got up in the class and she goes, if there's someone gay here, they should just stand up and tell us why.

Speaker 5 Like, what the f?

Speaker 5 Like, seriously, in what scenario would that make sense?

Speaker 5 Like that is the most unsafe space I can imagine.

Speaker 5 So I kept it inside and mostly I was like really mad at them because they weren't who I thought they were. But I was also mad at me because I was doing exactly what I knew I would do, nothing.

Speaker 5 And I just went home really,

Speaker 5 really mad and really angry and really hurt. And I sat down at my roommate's computer and I started typing out this letter to my classmates.

Speaker 5 And I just filled it with all the anger and all the hate and every single word I could put, just fire. And then I went and dropped it off anonymously at my teacher's desk because that's what I do.

Speaker 5 I like push the anger and then I just drop off anonymous notes

Speaker 1 because I'm passive aggressive.

Speaker 5 So then I went to class and 20 minutes in, the teacher did something I had not expected. She read my letter and I mean I expected her to read my letter, but it was how she read my letter.

Speaker 5 Like, where I had shoved anger into each word, she read it calm and patient and compassionate and almost loving, giving people the space to actually take in the word for themselves.

Speaker 5 And so when I said, homosexuality is not a choice, she said, homosexuality is not a choice.

Speaker 5 And she continued reading my letter with my words, but her tone. And she went went on from there.
And she said, right now I'm sitting next to you, as I have this whole semester.

Speaker 5 The same person that you've laughed with, the same person that you've worked with. But if last week I had told you about who I loved, you would have looked at me differently.

Speaker 5 Maybe with disgust, maybe with hate, maybe something even worse. But by remaining anonymous, You can accept me for who I am.

Speaker 5 And then she kept reading my letter, and when she got to the end, she folded it up, and there was like this huge silence, like this long,

Speaker 5 painful silence. And I swear the only thing you could hear was like my heart beating out of my chest.
It was like a homo heart Edgar Allan Poe moment.

Speaker 5 And then from the back of the room, there was a slow clap.

Speaker 5 that grew into thunderous applause as the whole room erupted into cheers and clapture, which isn't a word.

Speaker 5 Sorry.

Speaker 5 And I even looked at the girl who had said she would disown her own kid, and she had tears streaming down her cheeks as she slapped her hands violently,

Speaker 5 like so excited with the moment.

Speaker 5 And guys, I would like, because I'm very vain, to say that it was my words. that peeled the hate from the room that day, but it wasn't.
It was my teacher. It was the way she said my words.

Speaker 5 Because this is the thing, guys, your words can be magical, they can be brilliant, they can be perfectly constructed, but they are worth nothing unless they're heard. Thank you guys.

Speaker 4 That was Meg Farrell. Meg is a Portland, Oregon-based storyteller, comedian, and writer.
She's working on a book for young people about what she wishes she had known sooner in life.

Speaker 4 She says the book may be the mildest form of a midlife crisis. Meg once heard the advice, shred your bank statements, but save your love letters.

Speaker 4 So she says the letters she's kept are accruing interest in her heart.

Speaker 4 She held on to the letter from this story too, which reminds her that anger isn't the way to unity.

Speaker 4 It was written over 24 years ago, and Meg says she believes in the power of being vulnerable, so she's shared it with all of us. To see that letter, go to themoth.org.

Speaker 4 Sometimes the mail comes, and you just cannot open a letter for fear of what's inside. You can't unread a letter.
Our next storyteller is Danielle Dardashti.

Speaker 4 Danielle told this at an open mic story slam in New York City, where WNYC is a media partner of the Moth.

Speaker 4 And just a technicality, this story involves a package with a letter inside. Here's Danielle live at the Moth.

Speaker 8 Thank you.

Speaker 8 It's January 2013

Speaker 8 and I'm in a job I love working for a boss I love at a major media company. On Tuesday, January 15th,

Speaker 8 I close the largest deal of my career.

Speaker 8 After months of strategizing and negotiating, I reel in a multi-million dollar deal that is all new business for the company, and I feel amazing.

Speaker 8 It's like in a movie where I'm walking down the halls, and everyone's high-fiving me and telling me congratulations in the elevator, and I feel like a rock star.

Speaker 8 Two days later, my daughter, Raquel, who's nine years old at the time, comes down with a stomach bug, and I have to call in sick to work to stay home with her.

Speaker 8 I'm up all night with her on Thursday night on the bathroom floor. And now it's Friday morning at 9 a.m.
And we're still on the bathroom floor together. And there's a lull between vomiting episodes.

Speaker 8 And I check my phone. And I see that I have three missed calls from my boss.

Speaker 8 So I call her back.

Speaker 8 And the moment she gets on the phone, I can hear that she doesn't doesn't sound exactly like herself, like maybe she's on speaker phone. And she says, hi, Danielle.
Sorry to bother you at a bad time.

Speaker 8 I'm in Dina's office. And Dina is the head of HR.

Speaker 8 She says,

Speaker 8 we had to make some tough decisions today and eliminate several jobs, including yours.

Speaker 8 The rest of the conversation is a complete blur. Something about numbers on a spreadsheet, mass layoffs across the company.

Speaker 8 My email has already been shut off, and they're overnighting me a package outlining my severance agreement.

Speaker 8 My daughter, Raquel, starts throwing up again, and I'm holding a wet washcloth on her head, and

Speaker 8 I'm leaning over the toilet with her, and I'm crying. And she's saying, Mommy, what's the matter? And I'm saying, no, I'm okay, I'm okay.

Speaker 8 But I'm not okay.

Speaker 8 I'm a wreck. I feel rejected and unappreciated.

Speaker 8 And I cry for three full days, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Monday is Martin Luther King Day.

Speaker 8 And it's the day that Obama is inaugurated to his second term in office.

Speaker 8 And I'm sitting in my living room in my pajamas still. I've been wearing the same pajamas for three days now.

Speaker 8 And I'm watching the inauguration on TV. And at some point,

Speaker 8 in the middle of the inauguration, suddenly I feel a sense of hope re-emerging in me. Like,

Speaker 8 yes, I can take a shower.

Speaker 8 Yes, I can put on a bra.

Speaker 8 Yes, I can open that severance package and see what's inside and what they offered me. So I tear it open

Speaker 8 and I am taken aback.

Speaker 8 Such a generous offer. They're offering me six months full pay severance and I've only been at the company for less than two years.

Speaker 8 Suddenly, I'm feeling extremely grateful and elated and I feel like I need to thank my boss for this.

Speaker 8 So I sit down at my computer and I realize, you know, I have a lot of people I need to thank. thank.
I need to thank the chief revenue officer and the CEO and the chief marketing officer.

Speaker 8 So I just copy all of them on the email and it goes something like this.

Speaker 8 Dear everyone,

Speaker 8 thank you for this awesome opportunity to work with all of you.

Speaker 8 Thank you for recognizing my abilities and promoting me into this amazing role. I've learned so much over the last two years and we've all accomplished so much together.

Speaker 8 Like this massive deal I just closed the other day.

Speaker 8 I know you're going to do amazing things with this client and make me very proud.

Speaker 8 Gratefully yours, Danielle Dardashti. And I didn't want to overthink it, so I just hit send.

Speaker 8 Two hours later, my phone rings.

Speaker 8 It's someone in HR.

Speaker 8 And she says, hi, Danielle. I'm calling from Dina's office.
And

Speaker 8 we have decided to grant your request for an enhanced severance package.

Speaker 8 Instead of six months severance, We're offering you 12 months severance and your entire back end bonus.

Speaker 8 We're overnighting you a new package outlining this new offer.

Speaker 8 And I'm thinking, what the fuck just happened?

Speaker 8 It wasn't until two years later that I found out they misinterpreted my enthusiastic email as a threat to sue them.

Speaker 8 So,

Speaker 8 what's my takeaway?

Speaker 8 Well, Well, it certainly never hurts in business to be thankful.

Speaker 8 But sometimes being grateful pays off big time.

Speaker 4 That was Danielle Dardashti. Danielle lives in White Plains, New York with her husband and their two college-aged kids.

Speaker 4 She's an Emmy Award-winning documentary producer, co-founder of a show called Story Boom, and she's also working on a podcast called The Nightingale of Iran.

Speaker 4 When Danielle told this story at our Moth Story Slam competition, she won. To see a photo of her on stage, go to themoth.org.

Speaker 4 And while you're there, check out our schedule of open mic storytelling events. Come out one night to a city near you and throw your name in the hat for a chance to get picked.

Speaker 4 We want to hear your stories.

Speaker 4 In a moment, two love letters, one to a romantic partner and one to the tooth fairy, when the moth radio hour continues.

Speaker 6 The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by PRX.

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Speaker 4 This is the Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Sarah Austin-Janus.
This is an episode with stories all about letters. That's right, physical letters that show up in your mailbox.

Speaker 4 You can hold them in your hand. People are still sending them.
Letters to set the record straight, thank you letters, I'm sorry letters, and yes, also love letters.

Speaker 4 Our next story was told by Maddie Strusky at a Moth Story Slam in Los Angeles, where we partner with public radio station KCRW.

Speaker 4 Here's Maddie live at the moth.

Speaker 6 I've always been a really great guy to break up with.

Speaker 6 When I was in high school, I used to watch my friends go through these horrible breakups and in attempts to win their exes back, they would always come up with these grand romantic gestures that look great when you see them in a rom-com, but when you experience them in real life are just stalkery is the only word I can come up with.

Speaker 6 I swore to my 17-year-old self that I would never become emotional over a breakup. I would, no matter what happened, I would always maintain my dignity.

Speaker 6 And a couple of years later, when I was in college, I met Sarah and she was amazing. She had pink hair and she was an artist and she loved to dance and sing karaoke and she just felt free.

Speaker 6 And we used to stay up all night listening to music and talking about things that mattered. And when we were together, I felt free.
And we just fell for each other really hard.

Speaker 6 And things were great because, you know, I was young and I was in love for the first time and everything was new and raw and I had never felt like this before in my life and I think that's why I had such a hard time when she broke up with me and the worst part of the breakup was that she didn't really give me a reason she just she just chose another guy over me and it it just crushed me and suddenly my my dignity and my self-respect didn't seem to matter that much to me i just i wanted to i wanted to get her back and i wanted to tell her how i felt but I'm not one for giant romantic stalkery gestures.

Speaker 6 So I grabbed a pen and I wrote the first love letter that I ever wrote in my life. And I just poured my guts out on the page and I told her how much I loved her.

Speaker 6 And I told her that I've never loved anybody like I loved her and I could never see myself loving anybody else the way I loved her. And, you know, without her around me, I just felt empty and lost.

Speaker 6 And

Speaker 6 I put this letter in an envelope and I mailed it to her and I just waited. And I kept waiting and I didn't get a response from her.

Speaker 6 And I just, I felt so humiliated and I was so mad at myself for writing this letter. I just hated myself for not walking away with a clean break from this relationship.

Speaker 6 But eventually, you know, I moved on and I got over Sarah and I graduated from college, and I dated other women who broke up with me, and I handled that with dignity and grace.

Speaker 6 And I moved from Boston to Los Angeles, and my life was going pretty well. But, but I always, even years later, I hated the fact that I wrote this letter and it just haunted me.

Speaker 6 And it was one of those things that sort of hangs around in the back of your mind, taking you down a notch when you're feeling a little bit too good about yourself.

Speaker 6 You know, like I'd be walking down the street enjoying a beautiful day and thinking about how good my life was going.

Speaker 6 And then this voice would just be like, oh, yeah, but remember that letter you wrote to Sarah, you pathetic piece of shit? And I'd be like, oh, yeah, right. And so that's how it was for a while.

Speaker 6 I would think about it, not all the time, but when I did, it just really made me feel bad about myself.

Speaker 6 And one day I go home and I grab my mail and I'm thumbing through the mail and I just stop in my tracks because there's a letter and it's from Sarah.

Speaker 6 And I haven't talked to Sarah in 10 years since I wrote that letter to her. And I open it up and it's pretty short.
And it just says, I'm going to be in LA pretty soon.

Speaker 6 And I'd love to catch up with you and talk face to face. And she left her number.
So I called her and we arranged to meet up at this coffee shop down the street from my apartment in Los Felas.

Speaker 6 So we ended up meeting up at the coffee shop.

Speaker 6 And after we had some small talk and some and we caught up for a few minutes, she said, listen, the reason I got in touch touch with you is, you know, I met this guy and I'm moving in with him and I was cleaning up my apartment and going through my things and I stumbled across this and she pulls out the letter that I wrote her and I just froze and she said, you know, I'm really sorry I never responded to this.

Speaker 6 I was in a really bad place then, but you need to know, I've been carrying this letter around for 10 years from place to place. And it really helped me get through some rough times.

Speaker 6 You know, just being able to read it and know that somebody at some point loved me the way that you did, it really, it helped me. And I just wanted to say thank you.

Speaker 6 And then she like slid the letter across the table to me and she said, but you know, the guy I'm with now is amazing.

Speaker 3 And,

Speaker 6 you know, he's amazing. And I'm in a much better place in my life.
And I don't think that I need this letter anymore.

Speaker 6 And I just wanted to give it back to you. And

Speaker 4 part of me,

Speaker 6 part of me wanted to grab that letter and just run out into the street and light it on fire right there and like and destroy the symbol of humiliation that I've been carrying around for the last 10 years.

Speaker 6 But I didn't because when I looked at it, you know, the letter, it looked worn and it looked like it had been read and reread dozens of times over the years. And I realized that letter meant.

Speaker 6 a completely different thing to her than it did to me, you know, where I saw shame and humiliation and embarrassment. She saw warmth and comfort and love.
And

Speaker 6 I just said, Sarah, you know, I wrote that letter for you and I wanted you to have it. And a lot of things might have changed in the last 10 years, but that hasn't.

Speaker 6 And she just smiled and she put it back in her bag and we didn't talk about it again. And we ended up spending a really great day together.

Speaker 6 You know, we just hung out, we reminisced about old times and she left and we kept in touch after that.

Speaker 6 You know, we wrote letters back and forth for a bit and then letters changed the emails and emails changed the Facebook posts. And we're both married now and we both have kids of our own.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 6 every once in a while, I still think about that letter. And I'm amazed by how much different I feel about it now than I used to.

Speaker 6 I used to just feel so embarrassed by it, but now I'm really proud that I wrote it. You know, I'm glad that I told her how I felt, even though it took us 10 years to talk about it.

Speaker 6 And I'm glad that it was able to help her through some rough times in her life.

Speaker 6 And I don't know what she ended up doing with that letter, but I like to think that she held on to it.

Speaker 6 And I like to think that maybe someday, if she's having a rough day, she might stumble across it again and it might bring a smile to her face and help her through another rough time.

Speaker 6 And, you know, it might have taken me 30 years to realize it, but that letter allowed me to have the most dignified breakup I've ever had in my life.

Speaker 4 That was Maddie Strusky. Maddie lives in Pasadena, California with his wife, Valerie, and he's a full-time stay-at-home dad to their nine-year-old daughter, Rain.

Speaker 4 Maddie and Sarah still touch bass about every six months or so. He says it feels like we pick up right where we left off every time.

Speaker 4 I have to admit, this story had me sobbing the first time I heard it. I have some old love letters too, but none that have been discussed decades after the fact.
That is some emotional maturity.

Speaker 4 Our next story is all about letters to the tooth fairy. So anyone out there listening with kids, just a word of caution.
These letters reveal secrets.

Speaker 4 Live from a Story Slam in Boston, where we partner with public radio station WBUR and PRX,

Speaker 4 here's Lou Levin.

Speaker 9 So I'm a Jewish kid from a small Jewish town in New York originally.

Speaker 9 It's called New City, New York, but it's actually

Speaker 9 sweetly named Jew City to the other Jews.

Speaker 9 And something nice about having that big a population as a kid is that come the holidays, it's more 50-50 in classrooms.

Speaker 9 You have kids that are celebrating Christmas and kids that are celebrating Hanukkah for presents.

Speaker 9 And I really enjoyed that that as a kid, but the thing that kind of I wished I had more in my religion was that all of the kids that celebrated Christmas and Easter and stuff had Santa and the Easter bunny to believe in and make them happy.

Speaker 9 And I thought that was really cool. But all I had was the tooth fairy.
So I really, really dug the tooth fairy.

Speaker 9 And I really enjoyed getting visits from her because it was like, oh, they get chocolate, but like I get a quarter when I lose my tooth.

Speaker 9 so it's a first grade and I have parents that work really hard to make me and my sister feel loved but also have to work a lot my mom was getting her master's in education and about to start teaching and my dad was an organic chemist so that included long hours at the lab and

Speaker 9 I didn't really see a lot of them at like parents come to school things.

Speaker 9 But one day in first grade, I came home and I was like, I want to make a new friend. I'm going to write to the tooth fairy.

Speaker 9 She's always shown up for me, so I'm just going to leave a letter under my pillow. And I wrote my first letter to the tooth fairy.
I said, Dear Tooth Fairy, I'm in first grade.

Speaker 9 You've collected my teeth before, but it's nice to meet you.

Speaker 9 I feel like we could be really good friends, and I'd love to hear about your life and your job. I'm super interested.

Speaker 9 Write me back if you feel like that would be a good idea. No pressure.
And I stuck it. I showed my mom.
I was like, mom, I'm writing to the tooth fairy. I hope she answers.
And my mom was like, mmm.

Speaker 9 Yeah, me too.

Speaker 4 That sounds fun.

Speaker 9 And that night I stuck it under my pillow. I went to sleep, no expectations, but hoping for a response.

Speaker 9 And the next morning, I woke up and I saw this beautiful letter under my pillow on like purple stationery with glitter on the border and a fairy sticker in the corner and it said it's so nice to talk to you not a lot of people do that with me I'm really excited

Speaker 3 I

Speaker 9 I think you're really you're a great kid and just nice things about wanting to start French with me so I was ecstatic not only because I got a response but because I knew it was definitely from the tooth fairy because we did not have fancy stationery or stickers in the house

Speaker 9 and I kept writing to her every night but before I would put it under my pillow I would tell my mom just because I wanted to let her know how the progress was going

Speaker 9 we were never gonna have a play date but I was still stoked and my mom would always nod her head and be like I'm glad it's going well keep doing it and so this is obviously how my mom knew that the tooth fairy would be getting letters.

Speaker 9 But eventually in your friendship, like you can stop telling your mom that you're talking to someone because you're just friends, you're just talking.

Speaker 9 And it made me so happy and joyful to get these letters back. So one night I was like, I'm going to ask the Tooth Fairy what she looks like.
It's the elusive question, but I feel like we're there.

Speaker 9 And so I say, hi, Tooth Fairy, I hope you're doing well.

Speaker 9 Thanks for responding to my last letter. I'm just wondering, you can trust me, no pressure, but you can trust me.

Speaker 9 What do you look like? Could you just tell me anything? I'm so excited to know.

Speaker 9 Because we would have contests at the dentist's office to draw the tooth fairy for like a bowl of Hershey kisses and I wanted to win.

Speaker 9 And so I left this letter under my pillow, but I did it without telling my mom this time.

Speaker 9 And in the morning, my letter was still there. I hadn't gotten an answer.
And I thought, oh my god, have I betrayed the Tooth Fairy's trust?

Speaker 9 Am I losing something that I've loved and that's made me happy for so long?

Speaker 9 And I told my mom, and my mom was like, oh man, she's she's probably just collecting teeth of the world. Like,

Speaker 9 don't worry.

Speaker 9 And I ended up getting a letter back late the next night, which was good. So my belief was still there.
And it was strong enough for me to bring a letter or four

Speaker 9 into first grade show and tell.

Speaker 9 Now,

Speaker 9 so I come in and I'm like, hey guys, I've been writing The Tooth Fairy. We're really close friends.
And if you want to give it a shot, she would probably talk to you too. Hear my letters.

Speaker 9 And there's this cool kid in class named Jordan Houseman, and he says from the back of the room, that's not the tooth fairy, it's your mom.

Speaker 9 And I go, oh, for a sec, because that hurts to hear that someone is calling your friendship fake. And I say, it's not my mom, we don't have the stationery in the house.

Speaker 9 And I keep writing for a little while from extra responses here and there. My mom is is working, it gets a little bit iffy.
And eventually, I did realize that the tooth fairy wasn't real.

Speaker 9 I don't know when, but the other important thing that I realized is that if the tooth fairy looks like my mom who cares about me like my mom does, then that makes me just as joyful.

Speaker 3 Thank you.

Speaker 4 That was Lou Levin. Lou lives in Brooklyn, New York, where they're learning how to rollerblade.
Lou is a program coordinator at NYU Law and loves to hunt down tooth-rotting baked goods.

Speaker 4 And if you're wondering about Lou's mom, she's now retired and spends her days birdwatching and playing pickleball. And she kept the letters from this tooth fairy exchange.
They are just the cutest.

Speaker 4 To read all of them, visit themoth.org.

Speaker 4 When we return, rejection letters from the heart and a special message from the other side. When the moth radio hour continues.

Speaker 6 The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts and presented by the Public Radio Exchange, PRX.com.

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Speaker 4 You're listening to the Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Sarah Austin-Janess.
We've been hearing all about letters in this hour. This next story takes it up a notch.

Speaker 4 It includes hundreds of handcrafted letters. Otis Gray told this at a Moth Grand Slam in Brooklyn, New York.
Here's Otis.

Speaker 3 On paper,

Speaker 3 you'd think that you'd hit rock bottom when you just answered a Craigslist ad for a job wrapping a naked guy in duct tape in South Philadelphia.

Speaker 3 But you'd be wrong. Rock bottom is not getting that job.

Speaker 3 Yeah, he turned me away at the door when he opened it and was visibly shocked that Otis was not a girl's name

Speaker 3 Which is both stupid and sexist

Speaker 3 But I had just spent four years at art school as a sculptor and had an absent father, so I was accustomed to rejection to that point

Speaker 3 But at least with the duct tape man, you know, there was there was a reason why I got turned away shortly after When I got rejected for the Fulbright scholarship, there was not a reason.

Speaker 3 I got a form email saying,

Speaker 3 you have not received the Fulbright Scholarship. It is not our policy to explain the reasons for this outcome.
Please do not contact us.

Speaker 3 I had spent nearly a year pouring my entire soul into this application, and you submit like your entire person.

Speaker 3 You have letters of recommendation, your entire body of work, your grades, a personal statement that defines you to your core, everything.

Speaker 3 And I know that the normal response to rejection is generally sadness and disappointment. My whole life, I've dealt with it like, okay, tell me, you know, how can I fix this? What can I do? Why?

Speaker 3 And now I was so,

Speaker 3 so mad. Like, you can't tell me

Speaker 3 which part of me wasn't good enough.

Speaker 3 Which was not a unique feeling because while I do joke about... my daddy issues, it was not his policy to explain the reasons for that outcome either.

Speaker 3 About a month later, after I got rejected, a former professor who knew I wasn't doing so hot called me and said, hey, you seem desperate.

Speaker 3 How do you want a job writing personalized rejection letters to high school students?

Speaker 3 have never been so good at something so quickly in my entire life. So this foundation, what they did was they gave money to high school students pursuing summer programs in the arts.

Speaker 3 My job was to take the judge's feedback and craft it into these little personalized rejection letters. I was impartial.
I didn't see them or their work, just the critique of it.

Speaker 3 That year, I wrote 160 letters and these things were Shakespearean.

Speaker 3 I was taking all this untethered rage I felt from being ambiguously rejected and making them into these poetic little compliment sandwiches.

Speaker 3 Like, dear Layla, you know, your use of lights and dark in your charcoal is phenomenal, and you have a really unique grasp of composition for your age, but you got to get out there and explore, girl.

Speaker 3 Get out of your comfort zone. Relentlessly follow your curiosity into the darkness.
You owe this to yourself, Layla.

Speaker 3 I was like the general patton to this little brigade of art marines all over the country.

Speaker 3 And the more that I wrote, the more they started coming out, like, dear Patrick, your passion at 14 shines through. And you play the oboe, like you sold your soul to the goddamn devil, boy.

Speaker 4 You don't even need this scholarship, you know.

Speaker 3 You get that oboe money, Patrick.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 like doing this, I felt so whole

Speaker 3 because these kids were putting themselves out there, like open to judgment, and I had the opportunity to give them the feedback that I never got.

Speaker 3 But then I had to write one letter. It was a young dancer.
I'm going to call her Sarah. And Sarah was applying for one of the best ballet programs in the entire country.

Speaker 3 And the judges said that she was really talented.

Speaker 3 But they were afraid that if she went to this program, they were afraid that her spirit would be beaten down by the judgment implicit in the ballet world around body image, and that she might be better off doing a program in contemporary dance instead.

Speaker 3 So now I knew that this girl Sarah probably didn't look like your stereotypical ballerina and it was my job to tell her that a factor in why she wasn't accepted was a part of her that

Speaker 3 she maybe couldn't change.

Speaker 3 And I had spent all my time up till then searching for reason and answers and asking why.

Speaker 3 But this

Speaker 3 was a bad reason.

Speaker 3 I thought about my dad, and like, you know, if the answer is just you,

Speaker 3 what do you do with that?

Speaker 3 So I reckoned with this and I agonized over it for days. And then

Speaker 3 I sat down and I wrote, Dear Sarah,

Speaker 3 in the future, you would greatly benefit from an intensive ballet program.

Speaker 3 But

Speaker 3 a program in contemporary dance might be exactly what you need as well. The choice is yours.

Speaker 3 You have the passion and the drive and the talent to just thrive in any environment you choose to go into, so just go and do it.

Speaker 3 And after four years of this job and over 700 personally crushed dreams,

Speaker 3 I could confidently say that that wholeness that I felt was not writing well-reasoned rejections.

Speaker 3 It was learning that it just didn't always matter.

Speaker 3 And it didn't matter which part of me wasn't good enough. Especially if it was a reason that I couldn't change or a reason that I would never change.

Speaker 3 And I hope that if these beautiful little weirdos take anything from these letters, it's that you

Speaker 3 should never, ever beg someone to tell you why you aren't good enough. You go and you show them how fucking wrong they were.
Thank you.

Speaker 4 That was Otis Gray. Otis is a Vermont native who just moved to Brooklyn, New York, where he's a radio producer and a podcast host.

Speaker 4 He recently produced Sesame Street's bedtime podcast, Goodnight World, and he has his own show called Sleepy, where he reads old books to help you get to sleep.

Speaker 4 He just wrapped his eighth year of writing these letters. He says he's written over 800 personalized rejections to date and about 100 acceptance letters, and he still really loves doing it.

Speaker 4 Our final story about letters is from the beyond. If you believe in that kind of stuff, and I do.

Speaker 4 Live from our Story Slams in Boston, here's Stacey Perlman.

Speaker 7 So I am the type of person that believes in spirits and that there are people that can speak to spirits.

Speaker 7 So a few years ago when a family friend recommends that I meet with a medium named Tish, I naturally jumped at the chance.

Speaker 7 And I'm really excited about this because I've never done this before, but I'm also a bit of a cynic about basically everything in life.

Speaker 7 And I knew that I was at risk for hearing what I wanted to hear.

Speaker 7 So I promised myself on the drive to her home that I wouldn't wouldn't read too much into what she was saying and that I would watch my body language. I didn't want to feed into whatever she told me.

Speaker 7 But I'm surprised when I get there because Tisha's this 40-something year old woman and she's got short cropped hair. She's wearing jeans and a t-shirt.

Speaker 7 It's really casual and I don't know exactly what it was I was expecting, but it definitely wasn't a soccer mom.

Speaker 7 So she starts to tell me about my career and my relationships and I'm keeping this promise that I made to myself in the back of my head.

Speaker 7 I know I need to give her some information to work with, but I keep my answers really short and I put on my best poker face.

Speaker 7 She tells me I'm going to meet this strong female mentor at this job I'm about to start and that the man that broke my heart a few years ago is going to reappear into my life.

Speaker 7 And I internally roll my eyes at this because I know the odds of this happening are just nil like it's not going to happen

Speaker 7 but it doesn't matter because I'm waiting for her to get to the good stuff. I'm waiting for her to dramatically announce to me that there's some other presence in the room with us.

Speaker 7 This is how it always happens on all these ghost shows that I watch on TV. Well, she instead just asks me if there's anybody I want to connect with.
Like she's giving me the option today.

Speaker 7 If there's anybody I want her to pick up on in the room, it's my friend Eric.

Speaker 7 We met when we were 16 and we dated in that really limited way that two teenagers from neighboring small towns with learner's permits can date.

Speaker 7 But after a few months, I broke things off with him. And we agreed, though, that we were going to remain friends.
And he kept his word. I, on the other hand, had a much harder time.

Speaker 7 I did not know how to deal with how awkward I now felt in front of him. So when he'd call or message me, I would always just shut the conversation down.
I'd just end it as quickly as possible.

Speaker 7 And this went on for a few months, and we didn't see each other for a while. And we both got our driver's licenses.

Speaker 7 When one day, my mom tells me that she saw on the news Eric lost control of his car, he slammed into a tree. and he didn't make it.

Speaker 7 And at 16, I did not know how to handle the guilt I was feeling because two weeks before that, he reached out to me and he said, you should give me a call sometime. We should hang out.

Speaker 7 And I agreed, but I never actually planned on calling him. And now with this news, I don't remember why it was so difficult for me to be his friend.
But I don't tell Tish any of this.

Speaker 7 I just vaguely respond to her that I had a friend in mind.

Speaker 7 And I'm using this as a bit of a test for her because I don't know if all those predictions she mentioned earlier are really ever going to happen, but if she can tell me anything in this moment about Eric, then I will know she is the real deal.

Speaker 7 So she starts to tell me a few different things about him, but nothing's really resonating with me.

Speaker 7 She mentions a car accident, so she gets that, but I'm not convinced. And I'm actually starting to lose a lot of hope in this whole situation.
I kind of feel foolish for being there.

Speaker 7 And then she looks at me and tells me he says thank you for the letters.

Speaker 7 And all that energy I'd been putting into maintaining my body language just completely dissolves and tears are streaming down my face.

Speaker 7 And I'm crying because I had never told anybody that I used to write letters to Eric. I used to write to him apologizing for being such a bad friend and asking for his forgiveness.

Speaker 7 And I did this for almost two years and I would lead these on his grave. And then I went off to college.

Speaker 7 And as time went on, the years passed, I would tell myself, you were only 16, you need to give yourself a break. And so my life basically went on.

Speaker 7 But now it's nine years later after his death, and I'm sitting in front of Tish who has just acknowledged for the very first time the existence of these letters.

Speaker 7 And I sheepishly ask her what the teenager in me had always wanted to know. Does he forgive me?

Speaker 7 And she tells me that he says there's nothing to be forgiven for because our paths in life cross when they're supposed to. And your path with him just happened to be a short one.

Speaker 7 He wants you to know that's okay.

Speaker 7 Now I don't know if that was really Eric speaking to me through Tish or if Tish is telling me what I want to hear because I'm basically a stranger crying in her home right now.

Speaker 7 But it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if I believe in all this.

Speaker 7 It doesn't matter if Tish has proven herself to me or if she's telling me what I want to hear because, more than anything, it's what I needed to hear.

Speaker 7 I just didn't know that after all these years, I still needed to hear it. And so I left that day not necessarily with his forgiveness, but I did finally leave with my own.
Thank you.

Speaker 4 That was Stacey Perlman. Stacy is a clinical social worker who just started her own private practice.

Speaker 4 She's lived in Revere, Massachusetts for seven years with her rescue dog named Faye, and she still goes back to Tish the Medium from time to time.

Speaker 4 Eric died in 2001 when they were both sophomores in high school. Stacy has only one photo of herself and Eric.

Speaker 4 They went to his winter ball together, and his mom gave her a copy of the photo from that dance. The photo still sits in a frame in Stacy's home all these years later.

Speaker 4 To see that photo of Stacy and Eric, go to themoth.org.

Speaker 4 The stories in this hour were told at our open mic nights, but remember, you can pitch us your story about a letter you wrote or received or any other story about an important turning point.

Speaker 4 Record right on our site or call 877-799-MOTH. That's 877-799-6684.
The best pitches are developed for moth shows all around the world. Here's a letter-related pitch that we loved.

Speaker 10 I'd like to tell you the story about my grandfather's foot.

Speaker 10 Some years ago, my grandfather, James Scott, had a really terrible bout of angina. It meant that he couldn't do his walking in the Scottish Highlands that he had done all his life.

Speaker 10 But rather than give up, what James did was he started to write to his family and for some reason he decided to write to me more than anyone else.

Speaker 10 And for the best part of 30 years he wrote to me every week about what was happening in his living room, in his town, in the family.

Speaker 10 And in the end, once he did pass when he was 86, I was left with a foot-deep, thick pack of letters. And that's why I call it my grandfather's foot.

Speaker 10 It was an amazing experience for me because I'm not particularly a letter writer, but Jimmy wrote to me every week, and I wrote back.

Speaker 10 And looking back on those letters, and I still have these letters, it's a beautiful record. It's like

Speaker 10 the archaeology of my life, and it's there, mirrored by him coming back to me.

Speaker 10 So thanks, James Scott. I love you, man.

Speaker 4 Remember, you can pitch us at 877-799-Moth or online at themoth.org, where you can also share these stories or others from the Moth Archive.

Speaker 4 That's it for this episode of the Moth Radio Hour. Write a letter to someone you care about, and we hope you'll join us next time.

Speaker 6 This episode of the Moth Radio Hour was produced by me, Jay Allison, Katherine Burns, and Sarah Austin Janess, who also hosted the show. Co-producer is Vicki Merrick, associate producer Emily Couch.

Speaker 6 The rest of the Moth's leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Jennifer Hickson, Meg Bowles, Kate Tellers, Jennifer Birmingham, Marina Cluche, Leigh Ann Gulley, Suzanne Rust, Brandon Grant, Sarah Jane Johnson, and Aldi Casa.

Speaker 6 Our pitch came from Scott MacArthur of Morton in Marsh, England. Moth stories are true, as remembered, and affirmed by the storytellers.
Our theme music is by the drift.

Speaker 6 Other music in this hour from Khaki King, Stellwagon Symphonet, Jackie Terrison, Blue Dot Sessions, Corey Wong, and Fergus McGready.

Speaker 6 We receive funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by PRX.

Speaker 6 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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