Lost and Found: The Moth Radio Hour

Speaker 1 The holidays are just around the corner, and this year, my parents are coming to town, which means it's time to get my apartment parent-ready.

Speaker 1 Thank Adult who totally has it together, as evidenced by her impeccably decorated space.

Speaker 1 In this arena, Wayfair is a lifesaver, whether it's grabbing extra seating so everyone's comfortable, updating tired pillows, or brightening up my living room.

Speaker 1 The matching cabinets I got for mine really pull space together. I've noticed Wayfair's pieces have a style you just don't see anywhere else, which makes decorating feel more personal and fun.

Speaker 1 Plus, shipping was fast and hassle-free, so everything arrived ready to use. What I love about Wayfair is that they really have it all.
Sofas, kitchen gadgets, rugs, you name it.

Speaker 1 And their Black Friday sale is the perfect time to score huge deals with up to 70% off. Whether you're decorating, upgrading, or just adding little touches, Wayfair makes it easy.

Speaker 1 Don't miss out on early Black Friday deals. Head to Wayfair.com now to shop Wayfair's Black Friday deals for up to 70% off.
That's w-a-y-f-a-ir-r.com. Sale ends December 7th.

Speaker 1 The holidays are coming, the air is crisp, and there's nothing better than layers that feel as good as they look. That's why I'm loving Quince this season.

Speaker 1 Their sweaters, outerwear, and everyday essentials make holiday dressing and gifting so effortless. Quince has it all.

Speaker 1 $50 Mongolian cashmere sweaters, denim that never goes out of style, and down outerwear built to handle the season. all for 50% less than similar brands.
I've been living in their cashmere sweaters.

Speaker 1 So cozy and flattering. And the Italian suede shopper tote is perfect for holiday traveling.
It's become my go-to bag for flights.

Speaker 1 Step into the holiday season with layers made to feel good, look polished, and last. From Quince.
Perfect for gifting or keeping for yourself.

Speaker 1 Go to quince.com/slash moth for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada too.
That's q-u-in-ce-e.com/slash moth to get free shipping and 365-day returns.

Speaker 1 Quince.com slash moth.

Speaker 2 This is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Sarah Austin-Janess.
In this episode, Lost and Found Stories. Heirlooms lost, old ways of life gone, and what is found in their stead.

Speaker 2 Our curatorial producer, Suzanne Rust, found out about our first storyteller, Ross Jessup, through an article in a local Missoula, Montana newspaper, and she reached out.

Speaker 2 Ross later told us, I thought it was a scam, and so did my lieutenant. I told my wife about it, and she said, the moth? It's not a scam.
Call them. I listen all the time.

Speaker 2 So we begin this episode, Lost in the Woods of Lolo National Forest in Missoula, Montana, with Ross Jessup, a cop 10 years into the police force.

Speaker 2 He came to New York to tell his story outside in Greenwood Cemetery, so you may hear the occasional airplane. We partner with the Greenwood Historic Fund.

Speaker 2 And just a note, this story involves a crime, and there is some intensity. Here's Ross Jessup live at the Moth.

Speaker 3 It's July 7th,

Speaker 3 scorching hot, 95 degrees. I'm in a Dodge Durango driving on a dusty road.

Speaker 3 I'm a cop.

Speaker 3 I responded to a call where there was a man

Speaker 3 acting disorderly

Speaker 3 who was last seen running through a forest.

Speaker 3 This man

Speaker 3 had possibly crashed a blue car

Speaker 3 and he was caring for a baby.

Speaker 3 I'm at the end of the road.

Speaker 3 I'm depressed.

Speaker 3 I'm struggling. My marriage is falling apart.

Speaker 3 And in front of me there's nothing but large bushes and pine trees that had overgrown the road that I was on. Another Another dead end.

Speaker 3 I turned my patrol car around to continue the search.

Speaker 3 The area that I'm searching is Lolo National Forest.

Speaker 3 It's 2.1 million square miles.

Speaker 3 That's a little bit larger than Delaware, folks.

Speaker 3 I continue searching for hours.

Speaker 3 At approximately 10.30,

Speaker 3 my patrol radio breaks silence since my partner

Speaker 3 says to me,

Speaker 3 Ross, we know who the suspect is.

Speaker 3 He's a man, felon, wanted out of Oregon. He's a known drug user and he's violent.
He has guns and he's made threats towards law enforcement.

Speaker 3 I'm 20 miles away, so I go.

Speaker 3 I meet other officers,

Speaker 3 knowing that we have about a half a mile walk into the campsite that where he's staying at.

Speaker 3 I put on my night vision.

Speaker 3 I take out my long rifle, strap it over my chest.

Speaker 3 My heart's pounding. I'm nervous.

Speaker 3 I'm focused and I'm full of adrenaline. I'm ready for combat.

Speaker 3 Silently walking in to the pitch black forest. It's about 40 degrees now.

Speaker 3 And I see his tent.

Speaker 3 But it's empty.

Speaker 3 My partner finds the stash of guns that had been set out to ambush the cops when we got there.

Speaker 3 There's no people in the campsite.

Speaker 3 I open up the tent and I look around

Speaker 3 and I see diapers and dirty clothes and dirty dishes and baby toys.

Speaker 3 My heart sinks

Speaker 3 and I'm crushed.

Speaker 3 It wasn't until that time we were just speculating, but now I knew

Speaker 3 that we're looking for a five-month-old baby boy named

Speaker 3 Nobody knows where he's at.

Speaker 3 As I'm scrambling my brain

Speaker 3 to try to figure out what I'm going to do next,

Speaker 3 my portable radio breaks squelch

Speaker 3 and it's my dispatch center and it's a broken transmission.

Speaker 3 The suspect has been arrested.

Speaker 3 So I run back to my patrol car

Speaker 3 and I drive as fast as I can to where he's at.

Speaker 3 I see a man that

Speaker 3 is dirty. His hair is a mess.
He doesn't have any pants on. He's screaming wildly at everybody and just making no sense.

Speaker 3 He's more concerned about his telephone than anything else.

Speaker 3 All that pent-up adrenaline that I just had

Speaker 3 kind of went to the wayside, and I just became pissed.

Speaker 3 I tried interrogating him to no avail.

Speaker 3 I wanted to just

Speaker 3 strangle the truth out of this guy.

Speaker 6 But I didn't.

Speaker 3 I yelled at him, begging and pleading him

Speaker 3 to tell us where we could find Gris.

Speaker 3 And he says to me,

Speaker 3 Griffin's dead.

Speaker 3 I buried him alive. I crashed off of a cliff.

Speaker 3 You won't find him. I don't know where he's at.

Speaker 3 Enraged,

Speaker 3 I'm asking him for more information.

Speaker 3 And he tells me about

Speaker 3 he tells me about a bush that he had drove over

Speaker 3 and started to ramble on and on and on.

Speaker 3 And the bush

Speaker 3 in my head just kept echoing and echoing.

Speaker 3 I knew where I had to go.

Speaker 3 I got the help from the Forest Service with their four-wheeler, and I went up with a Forest Service officer back up to the same road that I had already been up earlier that night.

Speaker 3 And when we get to the bush, we drive around it and we continue driving for less than a quarter mile before

Speaker 3 what was left of that road completely disappears.

Speaker 3 Now we're just on a mountain slope about 30 degree slopes, no trails overgrown with bushes and trees.

Speaker 3 I'm devastated because

Speaker 3 there was supposed to be a car up here, but there wasn't.

Speaker 3 I want to scream and I'm walking downslope and I see an overturned boulder the size of a basketball.

Speaker 3 And I look where that boulder was and there was tread marks in the dirt.

Speaker 3 I continue to look and soon find a dome light

Speaker 3 very dim dome light of a car that had been crashed into a grove of pine trees

Speaker 3 I rush to the car and I find

Speaker 3 debris scattered all around it

Speaker 3 a chainsaw that had been stuck in the middle of the tree because our suspect had tried to cut himself out of the being stuck

Speaker 3 and I frantically get into the car

Speaker 3 but there's no baby

Speaker 3 I start to look around the crash site and I start following a trail of debris playing cards

Speaker 3 some diapers here and there And slowly and slowly, we walk down slope of the crash and about a hundred yards here and a hundred yards there.

Speaker 3 I'm still picking up traces of

Speaker 3 human

Speaker 3 until I come to the bottom of the ravine where it's just completely muddy.

Speaker 3 All signs stop.

Speaker 3 My partner had to go back to the crash site to meet the search and rescue people that had were on their way up.

Speaker 3 And here I was alone in the forest, and somewhere in Montana,

Speaker 3 not knowing

Speaker 3 what differences I make,

Speaker 3 not knowing why.

Speaker 3 But I do know one thing.

Speaker 7 I'm looking for the body of a baby,

Speaker 3 and it breaks my heart. I'm a father of three.
I have three beautiful little girls.

Speaker 3 I kneel down.

Speaker 3 And I just pray to God,

Speaker 3 God,

Speaker 3 please

Speaker 3 help me find this baby tonight.

Speaker 3 Help me find this baby so that nobody else has to.

Speaker 3 So that nobody else has to deal with the things that I'm about to see.

Speaker 3 I continue my search.

Speaker 3 A short time later, I find the suspect's pants

Speaker 3 in an easterly downslope direction from the crash

Speaker 3 and then I find a car seat and the car seat's empty

Speaker 3 my portable radio had died I didn't have any way to communicate with my dispatch center I'm now in charge of all of the volunteers who are looking for this baby and everything's pointing

Speaker 3 keep searching downslope that makes the most sense

Speaker 3 I tell my partner

Speaker 3 can I borrow your radio I'm gonna take a walk straight up this mountain

Speaker 3 he says no but I'll go with you

Speaker 3 so together

Speaker 3 we start walking straight up this mountain 30 degree slopes

Speaker 3 We're hot, we're sweaty, we're tired, and we're upset. I'm upset, maybe more upset than I've ever been in my life.

Speaker 3 And I'm exhausted,

Speaker 3 and I'm breathing hard.

Speaker 3 About 20 minutes straight uphill, I'm panting, trying to catch my breath,

Speaker 3 and in between pants,

Speaker 3 there's a moment of silence

Speaker 3 in a black forest.

Speaker 3 And in that moment, I hear this small,

Speaker 3 precious little baby whimper.

Speaker 3 At first, I couldn't believe it.

Speaker 3 And I heard it again.

Speaker 3 And if I was to describe this sound,

Speaker 3 it would be the sound of a baby that has cried and cried and cried and cried and cried until he couldn't cry anymore.

Speaker 3 I've never heard anything like it, and I hope I never have to hear anything again like it.

Speaker 3 I rush towards the sound.

Speaker 3 And it's pitch black, and my headlights are on, and my flashlights are on, and I can barely see anything.

Speaker 3 I'm about to step over this pile of debris,

Speaker 3 and uh

Speaker 4 there's

Speaker 3 buried underneath sticks and twigs, face down. down.

Speaker 3 He's wearing a onesie. He's soiled and he's wet.

Speaker 3 I remove all the sticks.

Speaker 3 And I wrap Grison up in a down coat.

Speaker 3 And I kiss his forehead. And I cry.

Speaker 6 And I hold Grison.

Speaker 3 And I walk him down the mountain. And the whole time he's

Speaker 3 coughing up sticks and twigs out of his mouth.

Speaker 3 I get to the ambulance

Speaker 3 and turn Grayson over to their care.

Speaker 3 In less than a minute and a half, Grayson drinks two bottles of infamil. He was that dehydrated.

Speaker 3 However, Grayson's a strong kid and he's alive today

Speaker 3 and healthy.

Speaker 3 I go back to my patrol car.

Speaker 3 I think I'd forgotten to mention this at the beginning of the story.

Speaker 3 But July 7th is my anniversary.

Speaker 3 And when I left that house that night, I left my wife angry because I chose not to take the time off,

Speaker 3 even though I could have.

Speaker 3 So when I got home at 7.30 in the morning, way into overtime,

Speaker 3 I walked into my kitchen where my beautiful wife was drinking coffee. And she asked me,

Speaker 3 How was your night?

Speaker 3 I smiled at her.

Speaker 3 I said, I made a difference last night.

Speaker 2 That was Ross Jessup.

Speaker 2 Ross is still a cop in Missoula, Montana, and a canine handler from Missoula County.

Speaker 2 And he's recently received the Department of Justice Attorney General's Award and the Charles Budd Meeks Award for Deputy Sheriff of the Year.

Speaker 2 Ross and the baby were both lost and found. And I asked Ross if all these years later he's still questioning everything or if this memory pulls him through the tough days.

Speaker 2 He said, some days are hard and I still have PTSD. This particular experience has changed me.

Speaker 2 Sometimes it haunts me, revealing the evil we face from time to time, and other times it shows me that we can all make a difference by acting together.

Speaker 2 To see a photo of Ross with his family and his medals, visit our website, themoth.org.

Speaker 2 After our break, a woman comes out of hiding and a Beatles fan falls in love. When the Moth Radio Hour continues,

Speaker 8 The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

Speaker 1 I've been on the hunt for a supplement routine that actually sticks, and Vital Vitamins age-defying bundle is at the top of my list.

Speaker 1 It's three capsules that pack a punch when it comes to looking good, feeling sharp, and aging gracefully. The Multi-Collagen Complex Plus is a simple beauty from within step.

Speaker 1 Five types of collagen plus biotin, hyaluronic acid, and vitamin C, supporting skin, hair, nails, and even joints. Brain Booster Plus is next, and it's like a mental reset button.

Speaker 1 It supports focus, memory, and mental clarity, without the jitters. And then there's NAD Plus.
This one's all about cellular energy and healthy aging.

Speaker 1 The most appealing thing is how easy it is to stay consistent. Six capsules, one habit, no messy powders, no blunder, no fuss.
It's simple and it can make your routine feel sustainable.

Speaker 1 Vital Vitamins is offering my listeners 20% off all orders with code Moth at myvitalvitamins.com. That's code Moth at myvitalvitamins.com for 20% off all orders.

Speaker 1 Have you ever noticed that purple shop pay button when you're checking out online? The one that makes buying something way too easy in the best way? That's the magic of Shopify.

Speaker 1 Shopify doesn't just make it easy to buy, they make it easy to sell. They're the commerce platform behind 10% of all e-commerce in the US.
With Shopify, you can tackle everything in one place.

Speaker 1 Inventory, payments, analytics, even marketing. Want to sell around the world? Shopify helps you reach over 150 countries.
Prefer in person?

Speaker 1 Their award-winning point-of-sale system connects your online and offline sales seamlessly. It's the best converting checkout on the planet.
Your customers already love it.

Speaker 1 Stop seeing carts going abandoned and turn those sales into.

Speaker 1 Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com slash moth. Go to shopify.com slash moth.
Shopify.com slash moth.

Speaker 2 I used to worry about break-ins until I installed Simply Safe.

Speaker 2 Traditional security systems only react react after something happens, but with Simply Safe, you can stop intruders before they get inside.

Speaker 2 The Active Guard Outdoor Protection uses AI-powered cameras to detect threats outside and alert real security agents immediately.

Speaker 2 These agents can confront intruders, sound a loud siren, flash a spotlight, and notify police all in real time. You don't have to be home and you don't have to lift a finger.

Speaker 2 With no long-term contracts, no hidden fees, and a 60-day money-back guarantee, it's no wonder SimplySafe has been named the best home security system by U.S.

Speaker 2 News and World Report for five years running. Don't miss out on SimplySafe's biggest sale of the year, 60% off.

Speaker 2 Right now, our listeners can save 60% off on a SimplySafe home security system at simplysafe.com/slash mothpod. That's simply safe.com/slash/mothpod.
There's no safe like SimplySafe.

Speaker 2 This is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Sarah Austin-Janes.

Speaker 2 This is an hour all about what you may find after loss. Our next story is from Christine Gentry.

Speaker 2 She told us at a moth grand slam in Boston where we partner with WBUR and PRX.

Speaker 2 Here's Christine live at the moth.

Speaker 9 So it's one of those first dates where you catch yourself getting way too excited because things are going way too well.

Speaker 9 Supposed to be just drinks that turn into dinner, more drinks.

Speaker 9 Then we were back at his place in Inwood in New York City, and we're just talking, talking, talking.

Speaker 9 And as it often does on first dates, the conversation sneaked around to our previous experiences on the app that we had met on.

Speaker 9 And he starts laughing and says, oh man, the last girl that I met on there, she seemed great. But then we went back to her house and get this, she was bald.

Speaker 9 Like something about her immune system. I don't know.
She had a wig and she took it off in front of me.

Speaker 1 Like, how crazy is that?

Speaker 9 I was so weirded out.

Speaker 9 And what this man did not know is that he was sitting across from someone who had the exact same condition.

Speaker 9 The odds of which I cannot even begin to imagine.

Speaker 9 My immune system attacked every hair follicle on my body when I was three years old, and then again when I was eight. And then again when I was 14.

Speaker 9 And I'd been wearing wigs since high school, but it was something very few people knew because I kept it locked, quarantined, you know, behind this thick door inside of me.

Speaker 9 And at that moment, it felt like I was floating above us, looking down at this conversation.

Speaker 9 And I thought about telling him, I thought about the bravery of the woman before me, and I thought about how fucking stupid he was going to feel if I did it.

Speaker 9 But I'm embarrassed to tell you, I chickened out. I said, you know what, it's late.
I have to work tomorrow, grab my stuff, and left.

Speaker 9 And I just sobbed that whole subway ride home.

Speaker 9 Because not six months before I had finally escaped this horribly abusive relationship and I had gone into therapy to figure out how did I get into this relationship?

Speaker 9 How is it that I stayed for so long?

Speaker 9 And we'd figured out that it was because I had let that man in that space, right?

Speaker 9 And I had let him see me at my most exposed, my most vulnerable, and what I thought was my most ugly. And he had loved me anyway

Speaker 9 and he had turned that love against me he would do things like snatch my hair off during fights because he knew that it would just break me

Speaker 9 and I left that relationship with these two very deep fears right the first was that if anyone ever got into that space again they would hurt me and the second was that no one would ever love me for who I really am anyway And that night on the train, I was like, this is proof.

Speaker 9 What just happened to me is proof that I'm right.

Speaker 9 And I resolved to make this my deepest, darkest secret. And when he emailed me the next day and asked to see me again, I said no.

Speaker 9 And I went on to date several people. I would date people for months and they would never know because I got really good at redirecting hands.

Speaker 9 And I got really good at sneaking out of beds to fix my eyebrows or my eyelashes while they were asleep.

Speaker 9 And I would ruin $3,000 wigs by sleeping in them night after night after night because I I felt so ugly without them.

Speaker 9 And if anyone ever found out, I would just bounce before they got a chance to leave me.

Speaker 9 And then last month, you guys,

Speaker 9 last month Ayana Presley.

Speaker 9 The congresswoman whose district we're in right now, she did something so incredible.

Speaker 9 She posted a video where she revealed that she'd been wearing wigs because of the same condition.

Speaker 9 And it was so brave.

Speaker 9 And it was so beautiful.

Speaker 9 And the next night, I sat across from this man I had been dating less than a month.

Speaker 9 And the street lamp was coming through the blinds, and the room glowed this beautiful bluish-purple.

Speaker 9 And I took everything off.

Speaker 9 And I asked him to see me,

Speaker 9 like all of me, the real me.

Speaker 9 And I knew that it was for me

Speaker 9 and that it was something I needed to do no matter how he responded.

Speaker 9 And he kissed my head and he told me I was beautiful.

Speaker 9 And this time, I believed it. Thank you.

Speaker 2 That was Christine Gentry. Christine taught English, creative writing, and storytelling in the public schools of Boston and New York City for 13 years.

Speaker 2 And she's now a professor at New York University, preparing secondary public school teachers.

Speaker 2 Christine and Henry, the man at the end of her story, decided to split when she moved back to New York from California a few years ago.

Speaker 2 She says, we knew better than to try a long-distance relationship, so we made the heartbreaking but right decision to break up when I left.

Speaker 2 But we stayed in touch and he's happy that this story is airing.

Speaker 2 Sometimes you have to clear out or lose your old way of life in order to find the next chapter.

Speaker 2 We met Gregory Pereira, our next storyteller, in a moth workshop with the College and Community Fellowship here in New York.

Speaker 2 He told this story with us in a moth showcase that explored the justice system.

Speaker 2 Here's Gregory Pereira live at the moth.

Speaker 5 My mother was a big Beatles fan. She loved the Beatles.

Speaker 5 And I ended up loving the Beatles because my mother loved the Beatles.

Speaker 5 And she would buy all these different beautiful records and we would have posters on the wall, Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, All You Need Is Love.

Speaker 5 And I felt that kind of sensation of happiness. And I remember my mother and I just dancing and dancing to these Beatles songs, and I felt filled with love.

Speaker 5 And for me, that was a great sense of family.

Speaker 5 Within a few years, shortly thereafter, it seemed like my community in the South Bronx was hit with a tidal wave of heroin.

Speaker 5 And in that devastation, people were caught up and my mother was one of the ones caught up in this typhoon, tidal wave of heroin. And she lost her ability to parent.

Speaker 5 My father there had moved to the West Coast.

Speaker 5 And in my search for family, because I was kind of left to my own devices, 10 years old, 11 years old,

Speaker 5 kind of pain attracts pain.

Speaker 5 And I gravitated to that street life. And at that time, they were indoctrinating young kids into the gangs.
And I remember my father talking about being in the gang when he was younger.

Speaker 5 My mother started dating somebody who was in the Hell's Angels. So that life was kind of there for me to embrace.

Speaker 5 And I remember wearing cut-off sleeves, jeans. MC boots, chains, patches, colors, and people would die for these colors.
I found a brotherhood.

Speaker 5 I looked for older men to kind of mentor me, to be my brothers. And I found guys like Apache, Wild Child, Crazy Mike, Crazy Phil.

Speaker 5 These guys became my protectors and my brothers, and they showed me the ropes. I remember us just hanging out,

Speaker 5 wearing bandanas,

Speaker 5 putting them on,

Speaker 5 standing in in the park.

Speaker 6 And you had to look like a warrior.

Speaker 5 You had to look like the Terminator.

Speaker 5 No feeling.

Speaker 5 Until we got drunk.

Speaker 5 And that lasted for quite a number of years.

Speaker 5 Well, my mother and my grandfather,

Speaker 5 They didn't want me in this lifestyle any longer, and they sent me to live in the West Coast with my father.

Speaker 5 In California, I went to East Los Angeles. It was like the frying pans of the fire.

Speaker 5 Because gangs were generational over there.

Speaker 5 It was great-grandfathers, grandfathers, fathers, brothers, sisters, mothers, cousins.

Speaker 5 And I had to be accepted and I had to do what they did.

Speaker 5 They used to wear these shiny shoes called Imperials.

Speaker 5 Iron your khakis, iron your t-shirt, or put your t-shirt over your arm and another bandana.

Speaker 5 And you always kept it low and you kept your eyes sharp. You were both predator and prey.

Speaker 6 And you looked fierce.

Speaker 3 You had to.

Speaker 5 Otherwise, you were a victim.

Speaker 5 My father said, no,

Speaker 5 back to New York, you go.

Speaker 5 So back to New York I went. My mother and my stepfather, both intoxicated, forgot forgot which airport I was going to land at

Speaker 5 and I had to find my way back into the city and back

Speaker 5 into pain because pain attracts pain the gang life one more time back with the cutoff sleeves the long t-shirt and the headband

Speaker 5 and I did that for some time

Speaker 5 I felt the brotherhood

Speaker 5 But then I felt a betrayal like I've never known before. They left me for dead.

Speaker 5 You know, there was a Beatles song when I was growing up that reminded me of family. It was a line inside that Beatles song, that magic feeling.

Speaker 5 And I had that with my mother, and I had that with the gang life, the culture. I had that for a little while.
But that magic feeling was no longer there and nowhere to go.

Speaker 5 Alcohol and drugs became my new friends.

Speaker 5 And that lasted for quite some time. But what happened was

Speaker 5 I ended up finally,

Speaker 5 I guess, through the big guy upstairs, changed my life.

Speaker 5 I hit bottom and it turned some stuff around for me. And I ended up

Speaker 5 even going back to school. I ended up with two different degrees.

Speaker 5 And with that,

Speaker 5 I taught gang awareness and prevention, substance abuse prevention, HIV prevention.

Speaker 5 And I was transformed, but didn't have that sense of family.

Speaker 5 I had some stuff but not family. But in my office one day there was this girl who came in and she was smiling, she was beaming, she lit up a room.

Speaker 5 When she came that smile was there. When she was leaving my head bobbed left and right with her.

Speaker 5 She used to come into my office to borrow a stapler and tape and folders and I would see her walk out and I could look at her desk and she had a stapler, tape and folders.

Speaker 5 So from our talking we got to walk and she was very athletic and she used to love to walk so I used to walk her home or close to home. So we started walking for

Speaker 5 about two, three weeks we were walking and she would always tell me after about two miles,

Speaker 6 okay,

Speaker 5 I'm gonna leave you here. And I was like, maybe she's doing me the favor.
You know, she has a lot more to go. But after two more times like this,

Speaker 5 I got very curious, you know, like, why isn't she allowing me to walk her home?

Speaker 6 Well,

Speaker 5 the following day, we must have had this psychic connection.

Speaker 5 It was the heart of February. It was freezing out.
And there was sun glaring on the snow that was still on the floor. And I was breathing smoke out of my nose, and I had these sunglasses on.

Speaker 5 And she stops and she says, Listen, I got to tell you something, I got to show you something. And she whips out these two pictures.

Speaker 5 And these two pictures, and I'm cold, I'm trembling,

Speaker 5 and I'm counting heads: two,

Speaker 4 four,

Speaker 6 five,

Speaker 5 seven, seven heads. And she says, These are my children.
I said, Man, she couldn't put them on one picture.

Speaker 5 And she said, are you okay with that?

Speaker 5 Now, I had a son of my own, and like, I wasn't a good parent. I don't know.
I could do this. You know,

Speaker 5 I'm still finding my way.

Speaker 5 Anyway,

Speaker 5 we left, and I figured out why she didn't allow me to walk her home. She was really trying to protect her children from whom they meet.

Speaker 6 Well,

Speaker 5 we talked the next day at work, and I was contemplating. I asked my friend Ronald, what do you think? And he says, well, she's very pretty.
And

Speaker 5 do you think you could handle it? Check yourself. And I said, okay.
And I get this phone call from her, and I'm home ironing clothes. You know, I got used to ironing my stuff.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 5 I'm thinking about, I can't do this.

Speaker 5 You know, it was nice knowing her.

Speaker 5 But when we talked,

Speaker 5 in the background, there was such laughter.

Speaker 7 Laughter I've never heard before.

Speaker 5 I remember dancing with my mother, and that was the last time we ever danced in 1967. We never danced again, and that magic feeling was dead.

Speaker 5 I heard all that beautiful laughter in the background. I said, wow, maybe there's something there

Speaker 5 for me too.

Speaker 5 And she says, you know, are we still going out on a date? And

Speaker 5 I was very thrilled because of the laughter in the background.

Speaker 5 Anyway, she says, it's on the date, we go on the date, and she says, I'm going to set up a time for you to meet my children.

Speaker 5 Okay, well, we'll work that out. Okay.

Speaker 5 So the kids had another way of meeting me.

Speaker 5 Because at my job,

Speaker 5 one of my coworkers came ghost-faced and scared and said, listen, there's some thugs outside waiting for you.

Speaker 5 And I said, who?

Speaker 5 And I confront stuff, so I went outside and there was these two young men across the street in the park.

Speaker 5 One with his hat cocked to the side. He was about 18 years old.

Speaker 5 The other one had a headband down low with a pit bull stare.

Speaker 6 And the older one called me over.

Speaker 5 And when he called me over, so I said, you know, like, what's up?

Speaker 5 And he says, what's your intention for our mother?

Speaker 6 I said, your mother? Who's your mother?

Speaker 5 I didn't recognize him from the picture.

Speaker 5 And they said that

Speaker 5 they wanted to check me out. After a small conversation,

Speaker 5 the older one, he was a seasoned veteran for being 17. He was a seasoned veteran, and I knew that life.

Speaker 5 And he called the younger one over,

Speaker 5 and the younger one did that bob towards him, but eyeballing me.

Speaker 5 And the older one told the younger one something.

Speaker 5 And the younger one, as they were walking away, the younger one glared back at me and he smiled.

Speaker 5 He winked his eye like everything's all right. And that magic feeling started to emerge because

Speaker 5 they became my angels with dirty faces. That's how I felt growing up.
And that was my modern family.

Speaker 5 So we've been together now 19 years.

Speaker 2 Gregory Ferreira is now an entrepreneur and community educator. He says, this once lonely man found a new start and now has 18 grandchildren.

Speaker 2 He says he wants his life's journey to help listeners understand that hope is possible for all.

Speaker 2 To see photos of Greg and his large modern family, go to themoth.org.

Speaker 2 After our break, a man gives his favorite book away and then tries desperately to find it again. And a lifelong New Yorker has to pick up and move when the Moth Radio Hour continues.

Speaker 3 But I don't need no other lover.

Speaker 8 The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

Speaker 2 Before Mint Mobile, my phone bill felt like a mystery. Overages, hidden fees, and strange extra charges every month.
But switching to Mint Mobile changed all of that.

Speaker 2 If you're still paying for wireless, it's time to say yes to saying no. At Mint Mobile, their favorite word is no.
No contracts, no monthly bills, no overages, no hidden fees, no BS.

Speaker 2 I made the switch and now enjoy premium wireless for just $15 a month. Mint Mobile plans come with high-speed data, unlimited talk and text, all on the nation's largest 5G network.

Speaker 2 I love getting high-quality coverage without paying a fortune. Finally, wireless that actually makes sense.
Ready to say yes to saying no? Make the switch at mintmobile.com/slash moth.

Speaker 2 That's mintmobile.com/slash moth. Upfront payment of $45 required, equivalent to $15 a month.
Limited time, new customer offer for the first three months only.

Speaker 2 Speeds may slow above 35 GB on unlimited plan. Taxes and fees extra.
See Mint Mobile for details.

Speaker 10 The Moth is supported by AstraZeneca. AstraZeneca is committed to spreading awareness of a condition called hereditary transthyroidin-mediated amyloidosis, or HATTR.

Speaker 10 This condition can cause polyneuropathy, like nerve pain or numbness, heart failure or irregular rhythm, and gastrointestinal issues.

Speaker 10 HATTR is often underdiagnosed and can be passed down to loved ones. Many of us have stories about family legacies passed down through generations.

Speaker 10 When I was five, my mother sewed me a classic clown costume, red and yellow with a pointy hat. It's since been worn by my sister, three cousins, and four of our children.

Speaker 10 I'm so happy this piece of my childhood lives on with no end in sight. Genetic conditions like HATTR shouldn't dominate our stories.

Speaker 10 Thanks to the efforts of AstraZeneca, there are treatment options so more patients can choose the legacies they share.

Speaker 10 This year, the Moth will partner with AstraZeneca to shine a light on the stories of those living with HATTR. Learn more at www.myattrroadmap.com.

Speaker 6 Truth or dare, how about both?

Speaker 7 This fall, the Moth is challenging challenging what it means to be daring. We're not just talking about jumping out of airplanes or quitting your job.

Speaker 7 We're talking about the quiet courage to be vulnerable. The bold decisions to reveal the secret that changed everything.

Speaker 7 This fall, the moth main stage season brings our most powerful stories to live audiences in 16 cities across the globe.

Speaker 7 Every one of those evenings will explore the singular theme of daring, but the stories and their tellers will never be the same. So here's our dare to you.
Experience the moth main stage live.

Speaker 7 Find a city near you at themoth.org slash daring. Come on, we dare you.

Speaker 2 You're listening to the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Sarah Austin-Janes.

Speaker 2 In this hour, all stories of the lost and found.

Speaker 2 I've always wanted to start a website where people can post single lost gloves they've found, like a national lost and found, but just to reunite gloves. A glove give back.

Speaker 2 I just have to get around to it.

Speaker 2 Joseph Gallo told this next story at Housing Works Bookstore in New York, where WNYC is a media partner of them all. Here's Joseph.

Speaker 11 When I was in college, I had a friend, his name was AJ, and the first time that we ever hung out, we went to see the movie Field of Dreams.

Speaker 11 And at the conclusion of the movie, we ended up on the roof deck of this parking garage in a mall in South Jersey. And the two of us are crying our eyes out.

Speaker 11 We barely knew each other, and we were doing circles around my car. We're refusing to look at each other.
We're going, are you okay? Yeah, I'm okay. Can you drive? Yeah, I can drive.

Speaker 11 And that's how the two of us became friends. We bonded over baseball.
And after we graduated from college, we moved to Hoboken and we became neighbors. And I had a TV, and AJ didn't have a TV.

Speaker 11 And he used to like to come over to my house and watch games. He liked the Yankees, I liked the Mets.

Speaker 11 But the one thing, the one thing that we both loved together was the Yankee announcer, Phil Rosuto. Now, Phil Rosuto had a Hall of Fame career as a shortstop.

Speaker 11 And when he retired, he became the voice of the Yankees, the Yankee broadcaster, for 40 years. And he was known for his catchphrases, holy cow, did you see that? Unbelievable.

Speaker 11 And he became immortalized in the meatloaf song, Paradise by the Dashboard Lights. He calls the game that takes place in the backseat of the car.

Speaker 11 And the thing, though, that AG and I loved the most about Phil Rosuto was his stream of consciousness storytelling. Stories used to spring from him out of seemingly nowhere.

Speaker 11 You never knew where they were going to go. You never knew where they were going to end.

Speaker 11 In fact, they were so epic that Rizzuto himself, in his own scorecard over a particular inning, would write the initials WW, which stood for wasn't watching.

Speaker 11 Anyway, one day, AJ invites me over to his house and he presents me with a gift. It's a book.
And the book is called Oh Holy Cow.

Speaker 11 And what these two writers have done, they've taken Rosuto's broadcast and they've transcribed them and they culled and edited them down to the stories that we both loved.

Speaker 11 And he said, he got the book because he saw it, he thought of me, he wanted me to have it. And he knew I collected books and love books and I'd appreciate it.

Speaker 11 And then he sat me down and he said I have something to tell you I've been to the doctors and I have been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor and a month later AJ dies

Speaker 11 so now fast forward 25 years and my mother who is a widow who lives alone in the house that I grew up in she suffers a massive stroke And she survives, but she ends up in a nursing home.

Speaker 11 And I am taxed with the job of breaking down my childhood home. Now anyone who's ever had to do this, it's a sad, emotionally exhausting, horrible experience.

Speaker 11 And one of the jobs that I have to do is I have to do something with boxes and boxes of books that I have accumulated over 25 years.

Speaker 11 I live in an apartment, I have no room for books, and I stored them in my mother's basement. And now I have to do something with them.

Speaker 11 And so one day I'm driving out to my mother's nursing home and I pass this used bookstore. And I think, I'm going donate them there.

Speaker 11 And so I drive back to my mother's house, I pack up the car and I take the books to the store and the woman who owns the store looks exactly like Angela Merkel, the German chancellor.

Speaker 11 And she is completely 100% delighted and she's going through the boxes, she's opening them all up and I look down and I see the copy of Oh Holy Cow.

Speaker 11 And I am so emotionally exhausted that I do nothing and I let the book go. And the book, I watch the boxes go to the back of the store and they disappear.
And a ritual begins.

Speaker 11 I go to visit my mother in the nursing home, I pass the bookstore and I think AJ's book's in there. I go to the nursing home, I pass the bookstore, I think AJ's book's in there.

Speaker 11 And I realize that the book is starting to take on this amazing power, certainly far more than it ever had when it was in a box in my mother's basement and I thought of it only once in a great while.

Speaker 11 And I realize that the power stems from the fact that my mother is still alive.

Speaker 11 And as long as my mother's alive,

Speaker 6 the book is alive.

Speaker 11 And if the book is alive, then in some abstract way, AJ is alive.

Speaker 11 And I want them to be alive.

Speaker 11 I want them alive.

Speaker 11 And so one day I'm driving to the bookstore, excuse me, to the nursing home. I see the bookstore, and I can't take it anymore.
I pull into the bookstore. Angela Merkel recognizes me right away.

Speaker 11 And I say, listen, you know, I gave you a book and I need it back. And she says, well, if we still have it.
And so we search the bookstore and we can't find it. And so she brings me into the basement.

Speaker 11 And the basement looks like a mini version of the warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. It's just aisles and aisles and aisles of books stacked from floor to ceiling.

Speaker 11 And Angela Merkel is checking the shelves for the book. And I tell her everything that I've just told you here tonight.

Speaker 11 And finally, she finds the book and she takes it off the shelf and she looks down at the cover, oh holy cow, and she smiles. And she opens it up and she reads the inscription inside aloud.

Speaker 11 To Joseph, Instant Stories from the Field of Dreams. I thought you would enjoy this.
Love AJ.

Speaker 11 And she closes the book and she hands it to me and she says, You should tell that story.

Speaker 11 And so I just did.

Speaker 11 Thank you for listening.

Speaker 2 Joseph Gallo has written and performed several solo plays, including My Italy Story and Long Gone Daddy, which was nominated by Broadway World as Best New Play.

Speaker 2 Our final story in this hour is also from our Boston Story Slam series. Here's Aaron Wolf live at the moth.

Speaker 4 So, my wife, Naomi, calls and she says, Aaron, I got the job. Can you believe it? I got the job, my dream job.
I got it. They offered it to me right in the middle of the interview.
I got it.

Speaker 4 And we just have to move to Boston. Isn't that amazing?

Speaker 4 And on the inside, I'm like, no.

Speaker 4 But on the outside, I'm like, no.

Speaker 4 because this isn't a job offer this is an existential crisis I have been a New Yorker for 38 years like even when I lived in New Jersey I totally told people I was a New Yorker my parents are New Yorkers my grandparents are New Yorkers my great grandparents Max and Minnie Goldfinger they were New Yorkers and my kids are gonna be New Yorkers too

Speaker 4 Also, we had a great apartment and you just don't give up a great apartment in New York at all.

Speaker 4 And then Naomi says, We have to let them know tomorrow afternoon. I love you.
Bye, and she hangs up.

Speaker 4 In the next 24 hours, we go through the first four stages of grief in like every conversation. Just like, I'm not going, I'm not going, I'm absolutely not going.

Speaker 11 How could you make me move?

Speaker 5 Maybe we should like try long distance.

Speaker 4 What am I going to do in Boston?

Speaker 6 Like over and over again.

Speaker 4 And then finally, at like 7:30 the next morning, I reach acceptance. I call her up at work and I say, Look, we've been treading water for so long in this city.
My job's not going anywhere.

Speaker 4 I'm not happy at work. You've worked so hard at your PhD.
This is finally, this finally could be the moment where we become adults. Let's do this.
And it's not just acceptance. It's relief.

Speaker 4 It feels good. It feels good to say it.

Speaker 4 And then two days before we're leaving, I'm sitting packing up our kitchen. I'm holding in the silverware and I'm sobbing.

Speaker 4 Because it's my Grandpa Bernie's silverware.

Speaker 4 And I look around the kitchen and everything in my apartment is my Grandpa Bernie's.

Speaker 4 The art on the walls from his house in Bayside, the furniture, his record collection, my dishes, my love of food, my love of music, my first cup of coffee, my first hot dog, my anger,

Speaker 4 my affection,

Speaker 4 my New York sensibility, it's his.

Speaker 4 And now I have to leave it. And I don't know how to say goodbye to it or to him.

Speaker 4 And then I see this clock on the wall in my living room. It's his clock from his store in the Lower East Side.
It says Forsyth Monuments established 1911.

Speaker 4 And now I know what I want to do for my last day in New York.

Speaker 4 The next day, Naomi and I pack our two-year-old son in the stroller, and we head out for a really long walk. And it's August in New York.

Speaker 4 Like everyone in their right mind is inside in air conditioning.

Speaker 4 But we're walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, through Chinatown, up East Broadway, then Delancey Orchard and then we stop at Stanton Street

Speaker 4 in front of Silver Monuments, the last Jewish monument store on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, my cousin Murray's shop.

Speaker 4 And when my Grandpa Bernie retired, he sold the business to Murray. So there in the window of Silver Monuments is this little sign that says Forsyth Monuments established 1911.

Speaker 4 It's the last shred of my Grandpa Bernie on the Lower East Side.

Speaker 4 And I don't want to go in, but I have to go in. Because Naomi's like, you have to go in.

Speaker 6 We walked all the way here.

Speaker 4 You're going in.

Speaker 4 This is ridiculous. And I'm like, you know, I also have to go in.
I have to. And Murray's not there, but his assistant is there.
And I can't remember his name, but he knows me.

Speaker 4 Because the last time he saw me, he was selling me and my mom a gravestone for my Grandpa Bernie. And he kind of squinches up his face and he's like, yeah, yeah, Beth David Cemetery, right?

Speaker 4 Yeah, yeah, buried near the Arbeiter ring. Yeah, yeah, how is your mother anyway?

Speaker 4 And I look at this guy. He could be 50 or like 250.

Speaker 6 Like,

Speaker 4 he's never touched an iPad, you know?

Speaker 4 And he looks like he's from, he's of this place, like he's stepped out of the fabric of this store, which is dusty and claustrophobic, and there's yellowing paper everywhere.

Speaker 4 And I reach out, I touch, I like sort of stabilize myself on a gravestone,

Speaker 4 and the granite is cold and smooth, and it feels exactly like it felt when I was eight years old in my Grandpa Bernie's shop.

Speaker 4 And I think, I can't, I can't do it. I can't leave this place.
Who am I going to be if I leave this place? This is my New York. This guy is my New York.

Speaker 4 And then he says, yeah, it's funny you should come in today of all days. It's really funny, because Murray just sold the building.
We're moving to Long Island tomorrow.

Speaker 4 It's funny of all days you're coming in today.

Speaker 4 And And I sort of like rock back on my heels in stunned silence.

Speaker 4 And all I could see is him and the gravestones and a clock that looks just like the one that's in a box in my house waiting to come up to Boston.

Speaker 4 And I look at him and I just say, well, I guess this is goodbye.

Speaker 6 And he says, yeah, I guess.

Speaker 4 And I leave.

Speaker 11 That clock, my grandpa Bernie's clock, it never worked.

Speaker 4 One night after like hours of Googling, I found these like rare clock fuses and I replaced the fuses in the clock and I plugged it in and the fluorescent light turned on and then it ran backwards

Speaker 4 like a frickin time machine.

Speaker 4 But also like a time machine.

Speaker 4 My New York, my Grandpa Bernie's New York, it's gone. It doesn't exist anymore.

Speaker 4 But I still see it here of all places. I see it in the Lebanese market in Watertown.
I I see it in me when I'm walking across Cambridge Common and I'm amazed by the history.

Speaker 4 I see it in my son's love of Chinese food and smoked fish, and in my daughter's laugh and her scream.

Speaker 4 But most of all, I see it in the stories we tell each other around the dinner table at home, my home, underneath the clock that says Forsythe Monuments established 1911.

Speaker 3 Thanks.

Speaker 2 That was Erin Wolf.

Speaker 2 Erin is a screenwriter and the chief creative director at a storytelling agency called Faculty New York.

Speaker 2 To see a photo of Cousin Murray's monument store and Grandpa Bernie's clock, which is now proudly displayed in Erin's Boston home, go to themoth.org.

Speaker 2 If you've lost something, take a breath. It may come back, or the loss may just make make space for a new chapter and you can tell a story about it.
That's it for this episode of The Moth Radio Hour.

Speaker 2 We hope you'll join us next time.

Speaker 8 This episode of The Moth Radio Hour was produced by me, Jay Allison, Katherine Burns, and Sarah Austin Janesse, who also hosted and directed the stories in the hour along with Janelle Pfeiffer.

Speaker 8 Co-producer is Vicki Merrick, associate producer Emily Couch. Additional Grand Slam coaching by Chloe Salmon.

Speaker 8 The rest of the Moss leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Jennifer Hickson, Meg Bowles, Kate Tellers, Jennifer Birmingham, Marina Cluche, Suzanne Rust, Brandon Grant, Inga Gladowski, Sarah Jane Johnson, and Aldi Casa.

Speaker 8 Moss Stories Are True is remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Our theme music is by The Drift, Other Music in This Hour from Stellwagon Sinfonet, The Beatles, Julian Lodge, and Anat Cohen.

Speaker 8 We receive funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

Speaker 8 Special thanks to our friends at Odyssey, including executive producer Leah Rhys-Dennis.

Speaker 8 For more about our podcast, for information on pitching us, your own story, and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.

Speaker 11 Hey, Fidelity.

Speaker 7 How can I remember to invest every month?

Speaker 12 With the Fidelity app, you can choose a schedule and set up recurring investments in stocks and ETFs.

Speaker 7 Huh, that sounds easier than I thought.

Speaker 12 You got this.

Speaker 6 Yeah, I do. Now, where did I put my keys?

Speaker 12 You will find them where you left them.

Speaker 7 Investing involves risk, including risk of loss.

Speaker 11 Fidelity Brokerage Services LLC member NYSE SIPC.