Love and Transition, a story from The Moth

Hey Pod Squad, we're excited to share something a little different with you today.

It's a beautiful story from the Moth Podcast, which I love and I think you're really going to enjoy.

You are probably familiar with The Moth.

It's just the long-standing critically acclaimed event series where storytellers stand alone under a spotlight with just a microphone in a room full of strangers.

Every week, the Moths podcast feed presents stories that are funny, strange, and heartbreaking, and above all, true.

So, today you're going to hear a story from storyteller Teak Milan.

Teak is a writer, speaker, activist, and beloved moth storyteller.

This is an abridged version of a favorite Teak story, which explores themes of love and transition.

If you like what you hear, you can find the expanded version of this story and many more beautiful, funny human stories from The Moth right now, everywhere you get your podcasts.

Take a listen.

I was my mother's fourth daughter,

and when I was 15, I sat my mother down and I said, mommy, I got something to tell you.

And she said, oh, shit.

And I said, mom, I'm gay.

Now, she was shocked, but she became my fiercest ally.

And when I moved to New York City, we talked daily.

And one day she called me and she said, Tiggaboo, why you got to be so mannish?

Why can't you be a soft butcher like Ellen DeGeneres?

Now, as a transgender person, what we know is that we may lose everybody that we thought loved us.

And I was scared that i was going to lose her

but a few days before i was to have my top surgery i called my mother and i said mommy

i'm having a double mastectomy a chest reconstruction i'm a man she said what the

but on the day of surgery there she was miss mary at the hospital and she had this ralph lorraine robe and a blue teddy bear for me

And afterwards, she cried and she said, it felt like her daughter died.

You know, because my transition wasn't just mine alone.

And I said, Mommy, I'm still yours.

And I think it was in that moment that she started to accept me as her son.

And she would call me and she would say, Oh, Tika Bill, you'd be so proud of me.

I've been practicing my pronouns and your name.

You'd be so proud of me.

And I said, Mommy, I'm always so proud of you.

Now, the years passed, and mom got cancer and it metastasized.

And so I rushed to hospice to see her.

And she was in and out of consciousness.

And my sister was there.

And my sister says, here, Tik is, here she is.

She finally got here.

And my mother opened up her eyes and she whispered, he.

And that was one of the last words that she spoke.

My family had it set up to where she wasn't alone.

So we all had a shift.

And I had the morning shift.

And I went in that morning and I climbed in bed with her just like I used to do when I was a little kid.

And I put my lips right up to her ear and I said, mommy, you could go.

You've done such a good job raising me.

You could go.

And I fell asleep.

And when I woke up, my champion had died right there in my arms.

My mother was my guiding light.

And I realized that she was raising me to live in this world without her.

And not only am I living, but I am thriving because I am the man that she raised.

That was Tik Milan telling an abridged version of one of our favorite stories.

Catch the full version told before a live audience and many more stories on the Moth podcast.

New episodes every week.