Host: Sarah Austin Jenness
[overture music]
Sarah: [00:00:13] From PRX, this is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Sarah Austin Jenness. In this episode, lost and found stories, heirlooms lost, old ways of life gone and what is found in their stead.
Our curatorial producer, Suzanne Rust, found out about our first storyteller, Ross Jessop, through an article in a local Missoula, Montana newspaper. And she reached out. 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.’”
So, we begin this episode lost in the woods of Lolo National Forest in Missoula, Montana, with Ross Jessop, a cop 10 years into the police force. 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. And just a note, this story involves a crime and there is some intensity. Here's Ross Jessop, live at The Moth.
[cheers and applause]
Ross: [00:01:23] It's July 7th, scorching hot, 95 degrees. I'm in a Dodge Durango driving on a dusty road. I'm a cop. I responded to a call where there was a man acting disorderly who was last seen running through a forest. This man had possibly crashed a blue car and he was caring for a baby.
I'm at the end of the road. I'm depressed. I'm struggling. My marriage is falling apart. And in front of me, there's nothing but large bushes and pine trees that had overgrown the road that I was on. Another dead end. I turned my patrol car around to continue the search. The area that I'm searching is Lolo National Forest. It's 2.1 million square miles. That's a little bit larger than Delaware, folks.
I continue searching for hours. At approximately 10:30, my patrol radio breaks silence, since my partner, he says to me, “Ross, we know who the suspect is. 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.”
I'm 20 miles away, so I go. I meet other officers, knowing that we have about a half a mile walk into the campsite that where he's staying at. I put on my night vision. I take out my long rifle, strap it over my chest. My heart's pounding. I'm nervous, I'm focused and I'm full of adrenaline. I'm ready for combat.
Silently walking in to the pitch-black forest. It's about 40 degrees now. And I see his tent, but it's empty. My partner finds the stash of guns that had been set out to ambush the cops. When we got there, there's no people in the campsite. I open up the tent, and I look around, and I see diapers and dirty clothes and dirty dishes and baby toys. My heart sinks and I'm crushed. It wasn't until that time we were just speculating, but now I knew that we're looking for a five-month-old baby boy named [audio cut] Nobody knows where he's at.
As I'm scrambling my brain to try to figure out what I'm going to do next, my portable radio breaks squelch. It's my dispatch center and it's a broken transmission, “The suspect has been arrested.” So, I run back to my patrol car and I drive as fast as I can to where he's at. I see a man that 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. He's more concerned about his telephone than anything else.
All that pent up adrenaline that I just had went to the wayside and I just became pissed. I tried interrogating him to no avail. I wanted to just strangle the truth out of this guy, but I didn't. I yelled at him, begging and pleading him to tell us where we could find [audio cut] And he says to me, “[audio cut] is dead. I buried him alive. I crashed off of a cliff. You won't find him. I don't know where he's at.”
Enraged, I'm asking him for more information. He tells me about a bush that he had drove over and started to ramble on and on and on. And the bush in my head just kept echoing and echoing. I knew where I had to go.
I got the help from the forest service with their four-wheeler, and I went up with a forest service officer back up the same road that I had already been up earlier that night. When we get to the bush, we drive around it and we continue driving for less than a quarter mile before what was left of that road completely disappears. Now, we're just on a mountain slope, about 30-degree slopes, no trails, overgrown with bushes and trees.
I'm devastated, because there was supposed to be a car up here, but there wasn't. I want to scream. I'm walking down slope, and I see an overturned boulder the size of a basketball. And I look where that boulder was and there was tread marks in the dirt. I continue to look and soon find a dome light, very dim dome light of a car that had been crashed into a grove of pine trees. I rush to the car and I find debris scattered all around it. 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.
I frantically get into the car, but there's no baby. I start to look around the crash site and I start following a trail of debris, playing cards. Some diapers here and there. And slowly and slowly, we walk down slope of the crash. And about 100 yards here and 100 yards there, I'm still picking up traces of human until I come to the bottom of the ravine where it's just completely muddy. All signs stop.
My partner had to go back to the crash site to meet the search and rescue people that were on their way up. And here I was, alone in the forest and somewhere in Montana, not knowing what differences I make, not knowing why. But I do know one thing. I'm looking for the body of a baby. And it breaks my heart. I'm a father of three. I have three beautiful little girls. I kneel down and I just pray to God, “God, please help me find this baby tonight. Help me find this baby, so that nobody else has to, so that nobody else has to deal with the things that I'm about to see.” I continue my search.
A short time later, I find the suspect's pants in an easterly downslope direction from the crash, and then I find a car seat and the car seat's empty. 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, keep searching down slope that makes the most sense.
I tell my partner, “Can I borrow your radio? I'm going to take a walk straight up this mountain.” He says, “No, but I'll go with you.” So, together, we start walking straight up this mountain. 30-degree slopes. We're hot, we're sweaty, we're tired and I'm upset. Maybe more upset than I've ever been in my life. I'm exhausted and I'm breathing hard. About 20 minutes straight uphill, I'm panting, trying to catch my breath. And in between pants, there's a moment of silence in a black forest. And in that moment, I hear this small, precious little baby whimper.
At first, I couldn't believe it. And I heard it again. And if I was to describe this sound, 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. I've never heard anything like it and I hope I never have to hear anything again like it. I rush towards the sound. And it's pitch black. My headlights on and my flashlights are on and I can barely see anything. I'm about to step over this pile of debris, and there's [audio cut] buried underneath sticks and twigs, face down. He's wearing a onesie. He's soiled and he's wet.
I remove all the sticks, and I wrap [audio cut] up in a down coat and I kiss his forehead and I cry. I hold [audio cut] and I walk him down the mountain. And the whole time he's coughing up sticks and twigs out of his mouth. I get to the ambulance and turn [audio cut] over to their care. In less than a minute and a half, [audio cut] drinks two bottles of Enfamil, he was that dehydrated. However, [audio cut] a strong kid and he's alive today and healthy.
I go back to my patrol car. I think I'd forgotten to mention this at the beginning of the story, but July 7th is my anniversary. When I left that house that night, I left my wife angry, because I chose not to take the time off, even though I could have. So, when I got home at 07:30 in the morning, way into overtime, I walk into my kitchen where my beautiful wife was drinking coffee, and she asked me, “How was your night?” I smiled at her. I said, “I made a difference last night.”
[cheers and applause]
Sarah: [00:15:31] That was Ross Jessop. Ross is still a cop in Missoula, Montana, and a canine handler from Missoula County. He's recently received the Department of Justice Attorney General's Award and the Charles “Bud” Meeks Award for Deputy Sheriff of the Year.
Ross and the baby were both lost and found. I asked Ross if all these years later he's still questioning everything or if this memory pulls him through the tough days. He said, “Some days are hard and I still have PTSD. This particular experience has changed me. 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.”
To see a photo of Ross with his family and his medals, visit our website, themoth.org.
After our break, a woman comes out of hiding and a Beatles fan falls in love, when The Moth Radio Hour continues.
[light hearted music]
Jay: [00:17:00] The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. And presented by PRX.
Sarah: [00:17:11] This is the Moth Radio hour from PRX. I'm Sarah Austin Jenness. This is an hour all about what you may find after loss.
Our next story is from Christine Gentry. She told us at a Moth GrandSLAM in Boston, where we partner with WBUR and PRX. Here's Christine, live at The Moth.
[cheers and applause]
Christine: [00:17:37] So, it's one of those first dates where you catch yourself getting way too excited, because things are going way too well. [chuckles] Supposed to be just drinks that turn into dinner, more drinks. And then, we were back at his place in Inwood in New York City, and we were just talking, talking, talking. And as it often does on first dates, the conversation snaked around to our previous experiences on the app that we had met on. He starts laughing and says, “Oh, man, the last girl that I met on there, she seemed great.” But then when went back to her house and get this, she was bald. Like, something about her immune system. I don't know, she had a wig. She took it off in front of me. How crazy is that? I was so weirded out.
And what this man did not know, is that he was sitting across from someone who had the exact same condition, the odds of which I cannot even begin to imagine. [audience laughter] My immune system attacked every hair follicle on my body when I was 3 years old, and then again when I was 8 and then again when I was 14. I'd been wearing wigs since high school. But it was something very few people knew, because I kept it locked, quarantined, behind this thick door inside of me. And at that moment, it felt like I was floating above us, looking down at this conversation. I thought the bravery of the woman before me and I thought about how fucking stupid he was going to feel if I did it. [audience laughter]
But I'm embarrassed to tell you, I chickened out. I said, “You know what? It's late. I have to work tomorrow.” Grabbed my stuff and left. I just sobbed that whole subway ride home, 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, how is it that I stayed for so long? We'd figured out that it was because I had let that man in that space. 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.
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. I left that relationship with these two very deep fears. 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. What just happened to me is proof that I'm right.” I resolved to make this my deepest, darkest secret.
When he emailed me the next day and asked to see me again, I said no. 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, and I got really good at sneaking out of beds to fix my eyebrows or my eyelashes while they were asleep and I would ruin $3,000 wigs by sleeping in them night after night after night, because I felt so ugly without them. And if anyone ever found out, I would just bounce before they got a chance to leave me.
And then last month, you guys, last month, Ayanna Pressley,- [audience cheers and applause] -the congresswoman whose district we're in right now, she did something so incredible. She posted a video where she revealed that she'd been wearing wigs because of the same condition. And it was so brave and it was so beautiful. And the next night, I sat across from this man I had been dating less than a month, and the street lamp was coming through the blinds and the room glowed this beautiful bluish purple. I took everything off and I asked him to see me. Like, all of me, the real me. I knew that it was for me and that it was something I needed to do, no matter how he responded. He kissed my head and he told me I was beautiful. And this time, I believed it. Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
Sarah: [00:22:10] That was Christine Gentry. Christine taught English, creative writing and storytelling in the public schools of Boston and New York City for 13 years. And she's now a professor at New York University, preparing secondary public-school teachers. 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.She says, “We knew better than to try a long-distance relationship. So, he made the heartbreaking but right decision to break up when I left. But we stayed in touch, and he's happy that this story is airing.”
[whimsical music]
Sometimes, you have to clear out or lose your old way of life in order to find the next chapter. We met Gregory Pereira, our next storyteller, in a Moth workshop with the College and Community Fellowship here in New York. He told this story with us in a Moth showcase that explored the justice system. Here's Gregory Pereira, live at The Moth.
[cheers and applause]
Gregory Pereira: [00:23:32] My mother was a big Beatles fan. She loved the Beatles. And I ended up loving the Beatles, because my mother loved the Beatles. She would buy all these different beautiful records and we would have posters on the wall, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, all you need is love. I felt that sensation of happiness. I remember my mother and I just dancing and dancing to these Beatles songs, and I felt filled with love. And for me, that was a great sense of family.
Within a few years, shortly thereafter, it seemed like my community in the South Bronx was hit with a tidal wave of heroin. 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. She lost her ability to parent. My father there had moved to the West Coast.
And in my search for family, because was left to my own devices, 10 years old, 11 years old, pain attracts pain. I gravitated to that street life. And at that time, they were indoctrinating young kids into the gangs. I remember my father talking about being in a gang when he was younger. My mother started dating somebody who was in the Hell's Angels. So, that life was there for me to embrace.
I remember wearing cut off sleeves, jeans, MC boots, chains, patches, colors. And people would die for these colors. I found a brotherhood. I looked for older men to mentor me to be my brothers. And I found guys like Apache, Wild Child, Crazy Mike, Crazy Phil. These guys became my protectors and my brothers, and they showed me the ropes.
I remember us just hanging out, wearing bandanas, putting them on, standing in the park. You had to look like a warrior. You had to look like the Terminator. [audience laughter] No feeling until we got drunk. [audience laughter] That lasted for quite a number of years.
Well, my mother and my grandfather, they didn't want me in this lifestyle any longer and they sent me to live in the West Coast with my father. In California, I went to East Los Angeles. It was like the frying pans of the fire. [audience laughter] Because gangs were generational over there. There was great grandfathers, grandfathers, fathers, brothers, sisters, mothers, cousins. And I had to be accepted and I had to do what they did.
They used to wear these shiny shoes called Imperials, iron your khakis, iron your T-shirt, or put your T-shirt over your arm and another bandana. [audience laughter] And you always kept it low and you kept your eyes sharp. You were both predator and prey. And you looked fierce. You had to. Otherwise, you were a victim. My father said, “No, back to New York, you go.” So, back to New York I went. My mother and my stepfather, both intoxicated, forgot which airport I was going to land at. I had to find my way back into the city and back into pain, because pain attracts pain. The gang in life one more time, back with the cutoff sleeves, the long T-shirt, and the headband.
I did that for some time. I felt a brotherhood, but then I felt a betrayal, like I've never known before. They left me for dead. 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. And I had that with my mother. 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.
Alcohol and drugs became my new friends. And that lasted for quite some time. But what happened was I ended up finally, I guess, through the big guy upstairs, changed my life. I hit bottom, and it turned some stuff around for me and I ended up. I ended up even going back to school. I ended up with two different degrees. And with that, I taught gang awareness and prevention, substance abuse prevention, HIV prevention.
I was transformed, but didn't have that sense of family. I had some stuff, but not family. But in my office one day, there was this girl who came in. She was smiling, she was beaming, she lit up a room. [audience laughter] When she came, that smile was there. When she was leaving, my head bobbed left and right with her. [audience laughter] She used to come into my office to borrow a stapler, tape and folders. I would see her walk out, and I could look at her desk and she had a stapler, tape, and folders. [audience laughter]
So, from our talking, we got to walk. 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 about two, three weeks we were walking, and she would always tell me after about two miles,
“Okay, I'm going to leave you here.” And I was like, “Maybe she's doing me the favor.” She has a lot more to go. But after two more times like this, I got very curious like, “Why isn't she allowing me to walk her home?”
Well, the following day, we must have had this psychic connection. It was the heart of February, was freezing out and there was sun glaring on the snow that was still on the floor. I was breathing smoke out of my nose and I had these sunglasses on. 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 and. These two pictures, and I'm cold, I'm trembling and I'm counting heads, “Two, four, five, seven, seven heads.” And she says, “These are my children.” I said, “Man, she couldn't put them one picture.” [audience laughter]
And she said, “Are you okay with that?” Now, I had a son of my own. I wasn't a good parent. I don't know, do this. I'm still finding my way. Anyway, we left, and I figured out why she didn't allow me to walk home. She was really trying to protect her children from whom they meet.
Well, we talked the next day at work, and I was contemplating and I asked my friend Ronald, “What do you think?” And he says, “Well, she's very pretty. Do you think you can handle it? Check yourself.” And I said, “Okay.” I get this phone call from her, and I'm home ironing clothes. I got used to ironing my stuff. And I'm thinking about, I can't do this. It was nice knowing her. But when we talked in the background, there was such laughter, laughter I've never heard before. 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.
I heard all that beautiful laughter in the background. I said, “Wow, maybe there's something there for me too.” And she says, “Are we still going out on a date?” I was very thrilled because of the laughter in the background. Anyway, we go on a date and she says, “I'm going to set up a time for you to meet my children.” “Okay. Well, we'll work that out. Okay.”
So, the kids had another way of meeting me, because at my job, one of my co-workers came, ghost face and scared and said, “Listen, there's some thugs outside waiting for you.” [audience laughter] And I said, “Who?” And I confront stuff. So, I went outside, and there was these two young men across the street in the park, one with his hat cocked to the side. He was about 18 years old.
The other one had a headband down low with a pit bull stare. And the older one called me over. And when he called me over, so I said, “What's up?” And he says, “What's your intention for our mother?” [audience laughter] I said, “Your mother? Who's your mother?” [audience laughter] I didn't recognize him from the picture. And they said that they wanted to check me out.
After a small conversation, the older one, he was a seasoned veteran for being 17, he was a seasoned-- And I knew that life. He called the younger one over, and the younger one did that bop towards him, eyeballing me. And the older one told the younger one something. And the younger one, as they were walking away, the younger one glared back at me and he smiled. He winked his eye like everything's all right. And that magic feeling started to emerge, because they became my angels with dirty faces. That's how I felt growing up. And that was my modern family. So, we've been together now 19 years.
[cheers and applause]
Sarah: [00:34:30] Gregory Pereira is now an entrepreneur, community educator. He says, “This once lonely man found a new start and now has 18 grandchildren.” He says he wants his life's journey to help listeners understand that hope is possible for all. To see photos of Greg and his large modern family, go to themoth.org.
[Beatle song playing]
I don't want to leave her now. You know, I believe in how.
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.
[Beatle song playing]
But I don't need no other lover. Something in the style that shows me. I don't want to leave her now. You know, I believe in how.
Jay: [00:35:37] The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. And presented by the Public Radio Exchange, prx.org.
Sarah: [00:35:51] You're listening to The Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Sarah Austin Jenness. In this hour, all stories of the lost and found.
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. I just have to get around to it. Joseph Gallo told this next story at Housing Works Bookstore in New York, where WNYC is a media partner of The Moth. Here's Joseph.
[cheers and applause]
Joseph: [00:36:29] 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. 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. We barely knew each other and we’re doing circles around my car, refusing to look at each other. We're going. “Are you okay?” “I'm okay.” “Can you drive?” “Yeah, I can drive.” And that's how the two of us became friends. We bonded over baseball.
After we graduated from college, we moved to Hoboken and we became neighbors. I had a TV and AJ didn't have a TV. He used to like to come over to my house and watch games. He liked the Yankees, I liked the Mets. But the one thing, the one thing that we both loved together was the Yankee announcer, Phil Rizzuto.
Now, Phil Rizzuto had a Hall of Fame career as a shortstop. When he retired, he became the voice of the Yankees, or the Yankee broadcaster for 40 years. He was known for his catchphrases, “Holy cow, did you see that? Unbelievable.” And he became immortalized in the meatloaf song, Paradise by the Dashboard Light. He calls the game that takes place in the backseat of the car.
And the thing though that AJ and I love the most about Phil Rizzuto was his stream of consciousness storytelling. Stories used to spring from him out of seemingly nowhere. You never knew where they were going to go. You never knew where they were going to end. In fact, they were so epic that Rizzuto himself, in his own scorecard over a particular inning, would write the initials W.W. which stood for Wasn't Watching. [audience laughter]
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 O Holy Cow! And what these two writers have done, they've taken Rizzuto's broadcasts, and they transcribed them, and they culled and edited them down to the stories that we both loved. He said he got the book because he saw it, he thought of me, he wanted me to have it. He knew I collected books and loved books and I'd appreciate it. 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.
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. She survives, but she ends up in a nursing home. 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. 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. 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.
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 to donate them there. 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. [audience laughter] She is completely 100% delighted. She's going through the boxes, she's opening them all up. I look down and I see the copy of O Holy Cow! I am so emotionally exhausted that I do nothing and I let the book go. I watch the boxes go to the back of the store and they disappear.
A ritual begins. 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. I realized 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 I thought of it only once in a great while. And I realize that the power stems from the fact that my mother is still alive. And as long as my mother is alive, the book is alive. And if the book is alive, then in some abstract way, AJ is alive. And I want them to be alive. I want them alive.
And so, one day, I'm driving 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, [audience laughter] and I say, “Listen, 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. 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. And Angela Merkel is checking the shelves for the book, and I tell her everything that I've just told you here tonight.
And finally, she finds the book, and she takes it off the shelf and she looks down at the cover O, Holy Cow! and she smiles. She opens it up, and she reads the inscription inside aloud. “To Joseph, instant stories from the field of dreams. I thought you would enjoy this. Love, AJ.” She closes the book, and she hands it to me and she says, “You should tell that story.” And so, I just did. Thank you for listening.
[cheers and applause]
Sarah: [00:42:13] 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.
Our final story in this hour is also from our Boston StorySLAM series. Here's Aaron Wolfe, live at The Moth.
[cheers and applause]
Aaron: [00:42:42] 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.” We just have to move to Boston. Isn't that amazing? And on the inside, I'm like, “No.” But on the outside, I'm like, “No.” [audience laughter] Because this isn't a job offer. This is an existential crisis.
I have been a New Yorker for 38 years. Even when I lived in New Jersey, I totally told people I was a New Yorker. [Audience laughter] 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 going to be New Yorkers too. Also, we had a great apartment, and you just don't give up a great apartment in New York at all.
And then, Naomi says, “We have to let them know tomorrow afternoon. I love you. Bye” and she hangs up. [audience laughter] In the next 24 hours, we go through the first four stages of grief in every conversation, just like, “I'm not going. I'm not going. I'm absolutely not going. How could you make me move? Maybe we should try long distance. What am I going to do in Boston?” Like, over and over again. [audience laughter]
And then finally at 07:30 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. I'm not happy at work. You've worked so hard at your PhD. This finally could be the moment where we become adults. Let's do this.” It's not just acceptance. It's relief. It feels good. It feels good to say it.
And then, two days before we're leaving, I'm sitting, packing up our kitchen, I'm holding the silverware and I'm sobbing, [audience laughter] because it's my Grandpa Bernie's silverware. I look around the kitchen, and everything in my apartment is my Grandpa Bernie's. 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, my affection, my New York sensibility, it's his. And now, I have to leave it. I don't know how to say goodbye to it or to him.
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.” And now, I know what I want to do for my last day in New York. The next day, Naomi and I pack our two-year-old son in the stroller and we head out for a really long walk. It's August in New York. Everyone in their right mind is inside in air conditioning, but we're walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, through Chinatown, up East Broadway, then Delancey Orchard and then we stop at Stanton Street in front of Silver Monuments, the last Jewish monument store on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, my cousin Murray's shop.
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.” It's the last shred of my Grandpa Bernie on the Lower East Side. And I don't want to go in, but I have to go in because Naomi's like, “You have to go in. We walked all the way here, you're going in.” [audience laughter] This is ridiculous. And I'm like, “I also have to go in.” I have to.
Murray's not there, but his assistant is there. I can't remember his name, but he knows me because the last time he saw me, he was selling me and my mom a gravestone for my Grandpa Bernie. He squinches up his face and he's like, “Yeah, yeah, Beth David Cemetery, right? Yeah, yeah, buried near the Arbeter Ring. Yeah, yeah, how is your mother anyway?” I look at this guy, he could be 50 or 250. [audience laughter] He's never touched an iPad. He looks like he's of this place.
He stepped out of the fabric of this store, which is dusty and claustrophobic. And there's yellowing paper everywhere. I reach out, I touch, I stabilize myself on a gravestone. The granite is cold and smooth. It feels exactly like it felt when I was 8 years old in my Grandpa Bernie's shop. I think, 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 Yorker. 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. It's funny of all days, you're coming in today.” [audience laughter]
And I rock back on my heels in stunned silence. 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. I look at him and I just say, “Well, I guess this is goodbye.” And he says, “Yeah, I guess.” [audience laughter] And I leave. That clock, my Grandpa Bernie's clock, it never worked. One night, after hours of googling, I found these 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, [audience laughter] like a fricking time machine, but also like a time machine.
My New York, my grandpa, Bernie’s, New York, it's gone. It doesn't exist anymore. But I still see it. Here of all places, I see it in the Lebanese market in Watertown. I see it in me when I'm walking across Cambridge Common and I'm amazed by the history. I see it in my son's love of Chinese food and smoked fish, and in my daughter's laugh and her scream. 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, “Forsyth monuments established 1911.” Thanks.
[cheers and applause]
Sarah: [00:49:01] That was Aaron Wolfe. Aaron is a screenwriter and the chief creative director at a storytelling agency called Faculty, New York. To see a photo of Cousin Murray's Monument store and Grandpa Bernie's clock, which is now proudly displayed in Aaron’s Boston home, go to themoth.org.
If you've lost something, take a breath. It may come back or the loss may just 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. We hope you'll join us next time.
[overture music]
Jay: [00:49:50] This episode of The Moth Radio Hour was produced by me, Jay Allison, Catherine Burns and Sarah Austin Jenness, who also hosted and directed the stories in the show along with Jenelle Pifer. Coproducer is Viki Merrick. Associate producer, Emily Couch. Additional GrandSLAM coaching by Chloe Salmon.
The rest of The Moth's leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Jenifer Hixson, Meg Bowles, Kate Tellers, Jennifer Birmingham, Marina Klutse, Suzanne Rust, Brandon Grant, Inga Glodowski, Sarah Jane Johnson and Aldi Kaza. Moth stories are true is remembered and affirmed by the storytellers.
Our theme music is by the Drift. Other music in this hour from Stellwagen Symphonette, The Beatles, Julian Lage and Anat Cohen. We receive funding from the National Endowment for the Arts.
The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. And presented by PRX. For more about our podcast, for information on pitching us your own story and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.