Host: Michelle Jalowski
[Uncanny Valley theme music by The Drift]
Michelle: [00:00:13] This is The Moth Radio Hour. I'm your host, Michelle Jalowski. In this hour, stories of eye-opening encounters.
I always feel like there's a special kind of magic that happens when a random encounter with a stranger or a chance conversation has the power to shift my whole perspective. It's so easy to live in an echo chamber, especially these days. And honestly, I love a reminder that I'm not always right or that things can be different than they initially seemed to me. All the storytellers in this hour have the opportunity to shift their perspectives in ways big and small, and they take it.
[cheers and applause]
Our first story comes from one of our open mic StorySLAMs in Asheville, where we partnered with Blue Ridge Public Radio. Live from the Grey Eagle in North Carolina, here's Mandy Gardner.
Mandy: [00:01:04] So, I'm walking through the cemetery, and I have been for quite some time. I just assumed that there would be a sign that would point me to where she lay. She was a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, but I found signs that pointed the way to Eugene O'Neill, but no Anne Sexton. I'd been walking around the cemetery for quite some time when I finally found a little guard shack. It was actually a little visitor center, but it was closed because it was Sunday, and the cemetery was mostly shut down that day. But I walked around the outside of the building. I had traveled all the way to Boston from my home in Atlanta and I really wanted to pay my respects, but I just couldn't find her.
So, I came upon the office and I found a door that was propped open by a mop bucket. I am not the kind of person who just breaks into places, [chuckles] I'd never done this before. But I'm staring at this mop bucket and I'm thinking about why I'm there. And why I'm there is because when I was in high school in the early 1990s in South Carolina, they didn't have a law that was about not talking about gay people, or the existence of queer or trans people, they just did it. The school board in my town actually banned the book The Grapes of Wrath, because it took the name of the Lord in vain. So, you can imagine there were no queer stories told at all.
So, when I was 15 years old and starting to realize that this was my life, I thought it meant that I was going to be lonely for the rest of my life, and then probably hell awaited me on the other side of that, because I had no other stories that told me anything different. So, like many other queer and trans kids, I had to go looking for my own stories that would give me some glimmer of what my future life might be like. Anne Sexton, who was not queer, she was a married lady, but she wrote poems about lesbian desire, about love. She wrote a poem called Song for a Lady, and put it in a book entitled Love Poems. And that little poem, that little scratch of a poem, was so beautiful. It gave me a little glimpse of intimacy, of actual happiness that I could aspire to one day.
So, yeah, in my early 20s, when I had the opportunity and the money, I went to Boston and I went to go visit her grave, but I could not find her. So, yeah, I stepped over that mop bucket and I went inside that little office. Luckily, no alarms went off, and I found a guidebook and I stole it. [audience laughter] I ran outside, and there was a map in there, and it told me how to get there. So, I get to the grave and I'm disappointed again, because she committed suicide in 1974, which was one year before I was born. Her husband had apparently-- She was a confessional poet, she wrote about all kinds of taboo subjects. So, he had not put a line of her poetry on her grave. It's her name and her date of birth and death, and that is it.
I recited some of her poetry and smoked a cigarette as a burnt offering to her, [audience chuckles] and then I was leaving. And just as I was leaving, an old sedan pulled up with four teenage boys inside of it. I immediately got tense, because I got bullied a lot by teenage boys and it's just a reaction that I still have. But the driver, he jumped out of the car, which made me a little more alarmed. I thought I was about to get mugged or gay-bashed, I wasn't sure which. But he just said, "Do you know the way to Sacco and Vanzetti's grave? We're here for a class project." [audience laughter]
I remembered that in this group, I was the thief, and I gave him the guidebook I had stolen in penance. [audience laughter] And then, he said, "Who are you here to see?" Anticipating a blank stare in response, I said, "Anne Sexton." And he said, "Anne Sexton? Is she here?" [audience laughter] He turns to the boys in the car, "Hey, guys, you remember those Anne Sexton poems we read in English class? [audience laughter] Anne Sexton, I fucking love her." [audience laughter] I remembered one of my favorite lines of Anne Sexton's poetry is, Live or die, just don't poison everything. [audience aww] I left there and I vowed to myself that I would always tell my story every opportunity that I got, because you never know whose life you might save, and you might even change the world.
[cheers and applause]
Michelle: [00:06:56] Mandy Gardner lives with her wife Bailey in Asheville, North Carolina. She's the associate director of marketing at an impact investment firm, and she's proud to be a multi StorySLAM-winning teller who has competed in two Moth GrandSLAMs in Asheville.
I asked Mandy if her relationship to teenage boys has changed in the intervening 24 years since this story took place. She told me she realized she wasn't afraid of teenage boys at all, she was afraid of bullies. She said, “And now, I understand that bullies are not born, they are cultivated.”
Our next story comes from an open mic StorySLAM in Chicago, where we partner with public-radio station WBEZ. Here's Caroline Brennan, live at The Moth.
[cheers and applause]
Caroline: [00:07:58] Growing up, my sisters and I would dare each other to run to the mailbox, and maybe even raise the flag if we had the nerve to show we were there. I know it doesn't sound that thrilling, but this was a no-go zone. Our mailbox was off limits to anyone but our dad, who was a career military officer. I think growing up we just thought that was the norm, that only soldiers got the mail, [audience laughter] because our lives were dictated by rule and order and fear. Our dad was a very intimidating, towering figure, which is why it really came out of nowhere when he was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and within three weeks, we were planning his funeral.
So, my four sisters and I were very fortunate to be able to go home to Austin, Texas, and be at his side and be able to say goodbye, which is a gift. Everything was just really new and unexpected, and so too was the revelation when our father told us from the hospice bed, all of his five girls around him and all of us well into our 30s, that we had a brother. He had a son in Germany. His son was German. He had his son two years before he met my mom. She knew about it before they got married, of course, we looked right at her. [audience chuckles] She knew, but she, like him, had always kept it a secret. And so, all I could think of we had always wanted a brother growing up. My dad would be made fun of by his Army buddies and they would say, "Oh, Pat, you can only shoot pink, look at all your girls.” [audience laughter] And so, all I could think of was, I just have to meet him, I have to meet this guy.
So, after the funeral, I learned that I was going to Germany for work, and so I reached out to him, to Michael, and I wrote him and I said, "I think I'm going to be in a town that's about three hours away by train from you. Would you want to meet?" And he wrote back right away, and he said, “Yes, my wife and our son, who was an adult son, would love to meet you. Please stay the weekend with us.” So, I was dying. So, we exchanged photos so we could find each other in the train station. On the train ride, I was just looking at his photos, my eyes were just locked because he looked so familiar. It was just transfixing.
When I got to this train station, it was huge, an industrial city, it wasn't a cute, quaint European station, it was massive. But I saw him right away. He was coming through the crowd, really I was seeing my dad coming through the crowd and towards me. He had this yellow rain parka, and we hugged, and he said in a really thick German accent, "Welcome home." He said, "It's raining outside, but there is sunshine in my heart." I just felt this instant connection. He grabbed my bags and he walked with the same heavy gait as my dad and the same sloped shoulders.
We went to his car and drove to his home. At some point, on the drive, he turned to me, we were both in the front seat, and he said, "I wrote you all those letters, all you girls." He said, "You never wrote back. Why?" All I could think about was that mailbox that we could never touch, [audience aww] and I just said, "I am so sorry." I said, "I didn't know. We didn't know. I am just so sorry." And that whole weekend, I found myself apologizing for things I had no idea were happening and things I couldn't answer for. And over dinner the last night, he was telling me about when he learned who his real dad was.
He grew up thinking his grandparents were his parents, and he was 16. And he said, "You know, your dad, our dad and I started writing, at that time," when he was 16. And he said, "I've kept all of Dad's letters.” He said, “Do you want to read them?" And I said, "Yes, of course, I do." My dad was such a quiet man, a man of few words. He was only quiet or he was yelling, I mean, there was no in-between. So, the idea of my dad sitting down to hand-write letters to his secret son in Germany, it was like, I would love to see these letters. And so, at the end of the night, as we were going up to the guest room, he handed me these binders. He was a proper German. I mean, these things were so organized. [audience laughter]
So, they were in chronological order starting in the late 1960s, early 1970s, each letter was in its own lamination or photos. It was like a This Is Your Life. It was like, "We're having twins," talking about me and my sister, "we're moving to Texas." There were all of these family photos I had never seen before. At some point in your life, you've seen every single childhood photo or family photo. I didn't even know these photos existed. At some point, it was like the middle of the night, 03:00 in the morning, I started to feel that something was just off. Because I was reading my dad's letters, and then I would read Michael's reply, and I'd flip it, read my dad's letter, Michael's reply, and at some point, I was thinking, well, how are Michael's letters here in this binder? They should be in our garage in Austin, Texas.
And so, the next morning, I asked Michael, I said, "How do you have your own letters? I mean, shouldn't they be in the US.?" And he said, "Well, every time I wrote Dad, he would always put my letter back in his envelope and send it back to me." And he said, "I just always figured he didn't want them to be found." I think he was right. Michael never met our dad. My dad went to Germany at some point, they set a time to meet, Michael was ready, my dad didn't show. I don't know why, I can't ask him. My father was a wonderful father to my sisters and me, but I think in my gut he was just afraid.
I've thought a lot about fear since meeting Michael and how it can just get in the way of connecting and of living your life. When I left Michael's home, I had a couple of days in Berlin to walk around, and my head was just spinning, and I just kept thinking, I never want fear to get in the way of living, especially in a city where people had torn down the walls to live. I just thought, I can't let anything get in between having connection and relationships and the opportunity to just raise my flag and say, "I am here." Thank you so much.
[cheers and applause]
Michelle: [00:14:13] Caroline Brennan grew up in a military family that eventually settled in Austin, Texas, and she has four sisters, including her twin. Now, she works with an international humanitarian organization where she embeds with local communities as they recover from emergencies and tell their stories to the world. After living in South Asia and East Africa and working across the Middle East, she is now based in America's Midwest.
Since recording this story, Caroline and her sisters had another reunion with Michael and his family in Germany, where they discovered how much they have in common, including a shared sense of humor that translates even through language barriers. They're hoping to have a reunion with his extended family in the US soon.
Do you have a story to tell us? You can pitch us your story by recording it right on our site or call 877-799-MOTH. That's 877-799-6684. The best pitches are developed for Moth shows all around the world.
Coming up next, a teacher wonders why he said yes to a student camping trip, and prom-dress shopping takes a turn, when The Moth Radio Hour returns.
Jay: [00:15:42] The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
Michelle: [00:15:52] You're listening to The Moth Radio Hour. I'm your host, Michelle Jalowski. In this hour, stories of eye-opening encounters. Our next story comes from Bryan Kett, who shared it at an open mic StorySLAM in Denver, where we partner with public-radio station KUNC. Here's Bryan, live at The Moth.
[cheers and applause]
Bryan: [00:16:11] Hi. I used to teach high school science in Chicago. And at first, I was really just energized and optimistic about everything. After a few years, I just got so burnt out. I'm not really proud of that, but I was just, I never felt appreciated, no one ever thanked me for anything. I know that's not the point of education, but I was young, I was just running very low. I would buy lab materials for my classes with my own money, and then they would refuse to participate. They'd just say, "This is dumb, we're not doing that." [audience chuckles] I would try to make the curriculum really engaging only for them just to call nucleic acids, nuclei acids, which is pretty clever. [audience laughter]
bI would even host these after-school study sessions that they would ask for in preparation for a test. I would bring snacks and then no one would show up. And then, during the test, kids would raise their hands to ask ridiculous questions. A kid once asked me, this is true, once asked me, "How do you spell DNA?” [audience laughter] And so, I was really just low, right? I knew that I had to get away, I had to recharge. But I didn't have any money to take a trip anywhere, spent it on lab supplies. [audience laughter] I told this to my co-worker, Shelby. And Shelby said, "Why don't you come camping with us this weekend? We're going to a state park in western Wisconsin, free trip." And I said, "I'm in." Time spent in the outdoors, nature, all that, this is going to rejuvenate me.
And Shelby said, "Great, we could use another chaperone." And I thought, “Well, what does that mean, Shelby?” Shelby explained that she was taking the school's ecology club, which she ran, on a weekend-long camping trip, a field trip. And just for reference, the ecology club was comprised of like a dozen very intense teenagers, all of whom wore these-- You've seen them like the airbrushed animal T-shirts at all times, [audience laughter] the pandas and the jaguars. They did this unironically. [audience laughter] Shelby could sense, this wasn't what I had in mind. Shelby gave me a look. It's a look that only Shelby can give, it's a very all-knowing look, and she said, "It'll really make a difference." [audience laughter] And I was about to tell her, "I don't care," but a free trip was too good to pass up, so I said, "Okay, I'll go, but I'm not going to help anyone. I'm going to rejuvenate, this is my time." And she said, "That's fine.”
And so, Friday, I got on a bus with like a dozen kids, many of whom were growing these very thin, wispy mustaches [audience laughter] they were just unaware of. About 10 minutes into the trip, they just started peppering me with questions. They would say, "Do you camp a lot? What kind of tent do you have? Do you like animals? What's your favorite animal? Have you seen any interesting animals lately?" [audience laughter] It was so much that I just said, "I'm sorry, I have to work now," and I just stared out the window [audience laughter] for the next four or five hours, because traffic was horrible.
So, we arrived at the campsite. It's pitch black. I'd say it's like 10:00 PM, and I stick to my plan. I sit in my seat and I watch all these kids gather up their gear to go off the bus and start setting up their tents. They all put on headlamps, because of course, all these kids had headlamps. [audience laughter] I sat on the bus and I just watched them as they were really struggling. I was feeling really good about my decision [audience laughter] until a raindrop just hit the window, and I thought, okay, that's not the best, but this is going to be fine. A few minutes later, there were a few more raindrops, and I thought, okay, still not going to do anything, they should hurry. [audience laughter]
And shortly thereafter, there was a little bit more rain. I looked out and all these kids were just kind of floundering, and I thought like, what am I doing? Like, of course, I should go help, assist however I can. So, I got off the bus, and I just started blindly sprinting from camper to camper, just helping them unfurl tent canvases and drive stakes into the ground and get the frames together. And every time I got a kid's tent set up and they got inside to avoid the rain, to beat the rain, they did so without a "Thank you." [audience laughter] I set up like a dozen tents. Everyone got settled, and everyone was cozy and warm.
And then, I went to the bus, and I got my gear, and I went to the far corner of the campsite. And right when I started setting up mine, the skies just opened up, and it was just torrential. I was in the dark, I couldn't see a thing, and I was just reeling because my hands were so wet and they were so cold, and I couldn't even get the tent frame together, and I just had a bit of a meltdown there by myself. I was so angry. I was angry at Shelby, I was angry at the kids, I was angry at the whole situation, with myself for thinking that this would somehow be restorative at all, because I was cold and I was wet and I was tired, and I was less appreciated than ever. [audience chuckles]
As I was just spinning out there in the corner by myself in the dark, couldn't see a thing, suddenly everything around me became illuminated. I turned around to find a dozen kids standing in the rain, smiling with their headlamps on. [audience chuckles] I was just so taken aback. They all just moved forward, and they all started working together to assemble my tent. I just watched this happen. I looked over at Shelby, and Shelby said, "This was all their idea.” [audience aww] And so, instead of staying warm and dry and everything, they had come to help, just out of the kindness of their hearts.
And that served as such a turning point for me. It served as such an important reminder that it's not important about getting the "Thank you," that's not what matters. What matters is behaving in a way rooted in kindness and in service, regardless of the response, because you don't know how it's going to be received. And so, that weekend, as we hiked and we fished and we cooked and we laughed, we did all that, it was just so restorative. I got a bit of my optimism back. As we were loading up the bus on Sunday, Shelby looked at me and she gave me this look, it's a look that only Shelby can give, maybe you've heard of it, it's an all-knowing look. [audience laughter] And she said, "I told you so." [audience laughter] And I said, "Told me what, Shelby?" And she said, "I told you it would make a difference." And she was absolutely right. Thanks.
[cheers and applause]
Michelle: [00:22:10] Bryan Kett. Bryan is a screenwriter and storyteller who splits his time between living in Los Angeles and thinking about Chicago. He likes mid-century design, fly-fishing, crossword puzzles, and hearing from you. You can find out how to reach him at themoth.org.
I asked Bryan if he ever went on another camping trip with students again. And he said that he actually ended up going on this trip a couple of times. He said he still gets emails from former students who are now adults with families and careers of their own, who want to reconnect and share fun memories. And every time one of those emails shows up in his inbox, he is the one who is so very appreciative.
Our next storyteller, [crowd noise] Shania Russell, comes from The Moth's Education Program, which works with young people and educators to build community through storytelling. We met Shania in 2016 when she was at Bronx Academy of Letters High School, and she joined a Moth workshop.
[cheers and applause]
We loved her story and asked if she'd like to tell it again, with a little bit more direction and a few more minutes to expand it. Here's Shania, live at The Moth Ball.
Shania: [00:23:33] I didn't always want to be an older sister. [audience chuckles] I was a younger sister for a while. I have an older brother and I really enjoyed the perks. [audience laughter] But I have this vivid memory of me lying on the floor of our apartment, I'm coloring in a picture, it's vibrant, it's beautiful, I'm in the lines, I'm doing my best five-year-old drawing. I'm like Michelangelo, this is my Sistine Chapel. I stand up to show the picture to my grandmother and my older brother. And just at that moment, the door opens and my mother and my father walk in and they're holding this little bundle. Everyone runs to the door to see the new baby, to see my baby sister.
I'm standing there with my Sistine Chapel and no one's looking at me, [audience laughter] and I'm like, “Oh my God, this is going to be the rest of my life.” [audience laughter] But then, this thing happens when your siblings get older, and it turns out they have personalities, and sometimes those personalities are pretty good and they grow on you. We spent summers together in Jamaica making up stories, going on adventures. We read the same books. We didn't always watch the same movies, but I realized that I could bring my sister to the movies I liked and make my sister like those movies if I tried.
Even though my artistic career peaked with my five-year-old coloring, my sister turned out to be this incredible artist who could paint and draw and weave baskets and crochet blankets. Okay, it was a little annoying, but it was still really cool. [audience chuckles] Just as I was realizing all this, I was graduating high school and I was moving 1,000 miles away. I had this fear that I was losing my chance to be the older sister I knew I could be. I had this ridiculous fear that my sister would forget me, or worse, that I hadn't done anything worth remembering for my sister yet.
But luckily, around this time that I was graduating high school, my sister was graduating middle school. So, middle-school prom was coming up and my mom was working, and my mom was like, well, someone needs to go dress shopping with my sister. I volunteered because I was like, “This is my chance. This is like our movie moment. I'm going to find the perfect dress, the one that our mom would never pick because she doesn't have style and I do.” [audience laughter] It's going to blow my sister's mind, and this is going to be our big moment, and she'll forever tell all her friends about this incredible moment with me. So, I make it a big affair. We're at Macy's. [audience laughter] We have like $100, we're in the mall, and I'm like, “This is going to be it.”
I'm running around, and I'm grabbing dresses, and I'm holding them up, and I'm getting these, like, shrugs and these head shakes, and I'm like, “That's fine.” I will not be thrown off. I'm not going to buy the dress that gets a shrug or a head shake. I need to blow my sister's mind. So, I'm running back and I'm grabbing more dresses, I'm holding them up, I'm getting shrugs, I'm getting head shakes, I'm running back, I'm getting more dresses. Around dress number 15, I'm realizing this isn't going so well. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Maybe I'm not as fashionable as I thought, but the Macy's isn't that big and we are running out of dresses. [audience laughter]
So, I'm looking at my sister and I realize that my sister is looking across the aisle, not at the dresses, but at the suits and at the blazers. And I'm like, “Oh, shit, I have to-- I'm doing the wrong thing.” So, I put down the dress I'm holding, and I walk over, and I'm like, "Do you want a suit?" And finally, I see this little glimmer in my sister's eyes, and I get a nod. A nod, finally. So, I'm thinking about it. I'm having a little dilemma, because I know that our mom gave us money for a dress, and our mom's expecting a dress, and our mom is very traditional. And so, if we don't go home with the dress, who knows what can of worms that'll open or what conversations we'll have to have. But this is still my big moment. So, I get to thinking.
We run to the discount rack, and we find this very simple, plain dress that's white at the top, black at the bottom. It looks exactly like a suit, almost like it was put here for us. It costs, like, very little money. So, I pick that up, and I'm like, "How's this?" and I finally get a nod. And so, then, we run across the aisle to the suits and the blazers. And now, we're having fun. We're trying on blazers, and I'm brushing off the shoulders, and I'm giving all this advice that's based on nothing where I'm like, "Oh, your shoulders can't look like that. They have to look like this." [audience laughter] I sound really smart, even though I'm not. We find the perfect suit, we find the perfect blazer.
And then, we aren't done yet, because we need to accessorize. And so, we start looking at pocket squares, we start looking at bow ties, because my sister's really into bow ties, not regular ties. I don't know how to tie a bow tie, but I figure we'll figure that part out. So, we find a bow tie that matches a handkerchief, and they're little blue dots, it's very decorative, it's a very good, pop of color. We go to the register. I've been doing the math, and we are a little over. But I'm in high school, and I have my first debit card, and I don't have a job, but I do have Christmas money, [audience laughter] and I'm really excited to use my Christmas money.
So, I'm really excited when I get to pull out my wallet, pull out my debit card, slide it across like I'm in a movie, and it's like $13. It's not that big a deal. [audience laughter] And so, we leave and we're so excited, and we go home and we're prepping for the big day. I'm watching a YouTube video on how to tie a bow tie. That is not how you tie a bow-- They make it look so easy, but I didn't really figure it out. But I figured close enough. The big day comes, we have this plan where my sister goes in, and then I'm like, "Oh no, they forgot the purse.” And so, I go in and I have my backpack on with the blazer and the bow tie and handkerchief. And so, we're in the lobby of the prom venue, and we're putting the suit, we're putting the jacket over the dress that looks like a suit. I'm buttoning it, and I'm tying the tie, and I'm putting the handkerchief in.
I'm not tying the tie super well. This isn't like a perfect movie moment, because the tie is crooked and that's not what a bow tie is supposed to look like. But for whatever reason, we are still having the time of our lives. I'm beaming, and he's flushed with joy, and he's ready to run in, and I'm like, "Wait, no, I have to take pictures." So, I step back and I'm snapping pictures. I'm kind of tearing up, but I'm still trying to be the cool sister, so I'm like, “This is fine.” And I'm like, "We have to get some pictures with your friends." And then, I realize I'm actually being the lame mom, so I have to stop. [audience laughter] So, I back up, I try not to cry, and I watch my brother walk in. Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
Michelle: [00:30:58] Shania is a Bronx-born writer who says her love of storytelling emerged somewhere between The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Twilight. Since then, that passion has evolved from book reports and fan fiction to filmmaking and journalism. She's currently a news writer for Entertainment Weekly.
I asked Shania what her relationship with her brother is like now, and she told me that her college fears didn't come true at all. Now, her brother is one of her best friends in the world, but he's way too cool and stylish to go shopping with her these days. She said, “It's probably time for him to return the favor and improve my sense of fashion.”
To see a photo of Shania and her brother and find out more about Shania and the other storytellers you heard in this hour, you can visit our website, themoth.org. While you're there, have you ever felt like you have a story you'd like to share? Did this hour of stories remind you of an eye-opening encounter of your own? If so, you can pitch us a story right on our site, or call 877-799-MOTH. That's 877-799-MOTH.
You can share these stories or others from The Moth archive and buy tickets to Moth storytelling events in your area through our website, themoth.org. There are Moth events year-round. Find a show near you and come out to tell a story. You can find us on social media, too. Just search for The Moth.
Coming up next, a young woman goes on a long-walk in search of answers, when The Moth Radio Hour continues.
Jay: [00:32:49] The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
Michelle: [00:32:57] You're listening to The Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Michelle Jalowski.
Our next storyteller came to us through our Community Program, where we partner with local community organizations, cultural institutions, and nonprofits to teach storytelling.
We first met Connie Shin at a workshop with I'll Go First, a New York-based nonprofit that uses storytelling to help people access mental healthcare. Over the past few years, she has told this story on Moth stages from Massachusetts to Oregon. Live at The Moth in Chicago, where we partner with public-radio station WBEZ, here's Connie.
[cheers and applause]
Connie: [00:33:37] It's 1991. [audience laughter] I'm living in Baltimore with my mom and my dad. I'm this cute little kid with blunt bangs, and I don't speak any English. Most days, I get dropped off at daycare or I get left with my grandma, my dad's mom, because my parents, they work full time between a laundromat and this restaurant that my dad just opened. The restaurant was called The Lunchbox. It was a cafeteria in downtown Baltimore, right across the street from the courthouse.
I have vague memories of The Lunchbox. I've seen a lot of photos. There's this one photo of me, and in it, you can see that I'm running between the buffet stations. And right off to the side you see my dad, and he's wearing green sweatpants and he's grinning so big. You can tell from this one photograph that I, as a toddler, am very comfortable and at ease in this space. You can tell from this one photograph that my dad was so proud of his place.
On November 6th, 1991, just a month after I turned three, two of my dad's teenaged employees, along with two other people, robbed The Lunchbox. And in the process of the robbery, one of them killed my dad. [audience aww] My dad's name was Myungjin. He chose to go by Mike when he immigrated to the States when he was 25. And Mike was only 32 years old when he died. After my dad died, nobody talked about him. We never went to the grave, we didn't celebrate birthdays, we didn't note the passing of death anniversaries, because my family and our community acted as if he never existed, I didn't grow up having the words to describe his absence.
It was weird growing up knowing that there was this big thing missing in my life, but not having any language for it. I remember when I was a kid, my friends would eventually ask me, like, "Hey, where is your dad?" I never knew what to say to them. So, most times, I just started to cry. Or, other times, I would get angry at them for even asking such a thing, and I would say, "I don't have a dad." And that felt like a true statement to me, because I didn't have memories of my dad. I wanted to know things, I wish people said, "Wow, you look just like your dad, you smile like your dad, you run like your dad," but nobody ever said anything, so I didn't say anything. And the silence went on for decades.
But then, in March of 2020, completely out of the blue, I received a phone call from the Baltimore City State's Attorney's Office informing me that the man who killed my dad was appealing his sentence, and that somebody in my family could write a victim impact statement and read it at his hearing. Also in 2020, I was turning 32, and it was messing with my head big time. I could not wrap my head around the fact that I was turning the age my dad was when he died. I became fixated on this idea of turning 32, but completely dreading it. I was so obsessed with the number 32 that I had a friend tattoo it on me that year.
Turning 32 just felt so symbolic. I mean, the same year I'm turning this age that my dad was when he died, I might meet the man who killed him. I knew I needed to do something big to acknowledge this birthday. So, in October, on my actual birthday, I decided that I'd walk the entire perimeter of Manhattan in one day, because somebody told me it's actually 32 miles long. I wrote this essay, and I sent it to all my friends and family explaining the significance of this birthday, and I invited people to walk with me. I was floored by people's responses.
My mom immediately went out and bought a pair of Hokas and said she would walk with me. [audience laughter] Some of my mom's siblings, apart from apologizing to me for never talking about my dad. I had friends who didn't live in New York who said, "I'm going to go on a 32-minute walk in honor of you and your dad." I set up this tracker on Google Maps, so that anyone anywhere could see my path throughout the day. I started walking at 07:00 AM from the base of Manhattan from South Ferry Station. As I began to walk along the West Side, various people from my life started to show up. A roommate from grad school came and she walked with me for a few miles. Some cousins on my mom's side of the family came and they brought their three kids and we kicked a soccer ball through Battery Park.
As I continued to just cruise up the West Side Highway, more and more people started to show up. Even this guy that I recently matched with on Hinge came and walked with me for a few miles. [audience laughter] And then, my cousin Andrew showed up. Andrew is the son of my dad's younger brother. He's just a year younger than me, so he was almost two when my dad was killed. My uncle had told his kids that my dad had died in a car crash. And it wasn't until Andrew was in his 20s that he learned how my dad really died. I invited my uncle to do the walk, and I even finally asked him to tell me stories about my dad.
When I told him about the hearing, because I was just curious what he thought about it, all he said in an email was, "Don't say any of this to your grandma, and this guy needs to serve the remainder of his sentence." I wasn't surprised by his response, but it was hard to sit with, because I had started to feel differently that year. In my mind I was thinking, my dad's been dead for nearly three decades, why should this guy remain in prison? There were moments of the walk that felt equally mentally fatiguing. I remember as we were coming down Harlem River Drive and I was thinking to myself, like, “What am I doing? Why did I tell all these people about my dad?” Like, “What am I trying to prove with this walk?”
But even with moments of self-doubt, I couldn't stop walking. One, I'm a pretty competitive person and too many people knew I was doing this walk, so I couldn't quit. [audience laughter] And two, I was trying to make sense of my life through this walk. I had somehow linked in my mind that walking 32 miles would help me process my dad's death, as if every mile I walked would give me a year back where nobody talked about him. Doing this walk was my way of forcing the people in my life to acknowledge that he had existed. And in my mind, turning 32 felt like something that I could share with just my dad. I'd always wanted to do some sort of a legacy project in order to get to know my dad better, but I never knew what questions to ask, I didn't know what medium to use, so I chose to walk.
I walked because I wanted to talk about my dad, I walked because I didn't know how to talk about my dad, and I walked because I had no idea how to write a victim impact statement, like, what do you say about someone that you don't even know? And in the lead-up to the hearing and in writing this statement, it was really important for me to be able to answer two questions, do I hate this person who killed my dad? Can I forgive the person who killed my dad? Is it possible within one's own soul to hate and forgive at the same time?
And during this year, I had begun to learn just a little bit about transformative justice. And I realized that the answer to my dad's violent death is not more violence, that there's this collective responsibility that we all have to practice the things that we want to see change in this world. And this framework of transformative justice aligned with a personal motto of mine, which is to ask myself, what is a life well lived? Like, what did it mean for me, as I was turning 32, to live a life well lived? What did it mean for my dad, who died at 32, to have lived a life well lived? And now, I couldn't help but wonder, what does it mean for this person who killed my dad to also have a life well lived?
The end of the walk, it got very cold, it was very dark. The people who were still walking with me were all falling apart. One person sprained their ankle. We had moleskin for blisters. We're all hobbling towards that last mile. I'm so tired, I'm not even thinking about my dad. And in the end, we actually walked 33.5 miles because of construction. [audience laughter] At about 10:00 PM, we reached the bottom of Manhattan. Some people were there to congratulate us, to celebrate my birthday. And the next morning when I woke up, I remember feeling disappointed. I thought that by doing this big, bold, brave thing, I would know myself better, I would feel closer to my dad, and through that process I would have the words for this victim impact statement. But the walk didn't change anything. But now, I realize that it was the start of me thinking about my life being beyond 32. Like, I've obviously surpassed my dad's age. I've realized that planning a future for myself is its own form of a legacy. Like, I am my dad's legacy. My very aliveness is a testament to that legacy, because every day I get to live the life that he never got to.
A couple of months after the walk, December 2020, I did attend the hearing, and it was over Zoom. And there was no amount of walking or talking or thinking that could have prepared me for that experience. Nothing could have prepared me for the experience of being in my own home, logging onto Zoom, and just waiting for his face to appear. Nothing could have prepared me for the experience of hearing his voice and listening to him talk about the events that led him to kill my dad. Nothing could have prepared me for the experience of learning he has a daughter and we are the same age and we have both worked in education.
When his face finally did appear, I didn't know where to look. I remember thinking like, oh, my God, can he see me? When it was my turn, I read my statement directly to his face in his square, and I explained what it was like growing up without a father because of something he did when he was 21, and yet still believing that he should be released from prison. But the judge denied his appeal. But about a year after that, I wrote a second statement, this time to a parole board, and I explained that my feelings had not changed since the hearing, and I was still advocating that he be released from prison, so that he can go home and explore what it is to live a life well lived for him. And just last year, I received an online notification from the state of Maryland letting me know that he was released. I think that all of this, I think that this honors my dad, and that is a legacy that I am very proud of. Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
Michelle: [00:47:14] Connie Shin lives in Brooklyn with her husband, aka the guy she met on Hinge. She loves to play euchre and do things that scare her, like telling a story at The Moth.
I asked Connie how telling her story on stage has impacted her grieving process. She said, "I've learned that there is no roadmap or timeline to processing grief. I thought by doing this story that it would reach its conclusion and that the chapter would close. But I'm realizing the story keeps unfolding."
Thank you to all the storytellers in this hour for sharing their stories of revelations and to you for listening. That's it for this episode of The Moth Radio Hour. We hope you'll join us next time. And that's the story from The Moth.
[Uncanny Valley theme music by The Drift]
Jay: [00:48:45] This episode of The Moth Radio Hour was produced by me, Jay Allison, and Michelle Jalowski, who also hosted and directed the stories in the show. Coproducer is Viki Merrick, associate producer Emily Couch.
The rest of The Moth's leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Christina Norman, Sarah Austin Jenness, Jenifer Hixson, Kate Tellers, Marina Klutse, Lee Ann Gullie, Suzanne Rust, Sarah Jane Johnson, and Patricia Ureña.
Moth stories are true, as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Our theme music is by The Drift. Other music in this hour from Quincy Jones, The Westerlies, Vulfpeck, Duke Levine, and Keith Jarrett. We receive funding from the National Endowment for the Arts.
The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Special thanks to our friends at Audacy, including executive producer Leah-Reis-Dennis. For more about our podcast, for information on pitching us your own story, and to learn all about The Moth, go to our website, themoth.org.