Host: Jay Allison
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Jay: [00:00:12] From PRX, this is The Moth Radio Hour. I'm Jay Allison, producer of this show. In this episode, family secrets from dark pasts to childhood pranks, stories from Nigeria, India, Greece and the US all about the truths that can bind kin together or the truths we keep even from our own blood.
Our first story is from Anagha Mahajan. Anagha told this story at one of our open-mic SLAMs in Chicago, where we partnered with public radio station WBEZ. Here's Anagha.
[applause]
Anagha: [00:00:52] So, my grandfather is the biggest miser that I have ever known in my entire life. [audience laughter] Don't get me wrong, he's a good guy and I loved him. But that was after I really got to know him. But up until my early years, I thought he was quite the penny pincher, to put it nicely.
So, my brother, Anand and I, we are two years apart, we both spent most of our childhood with our grandparents, because my father had a transferable job and they made the wise parenting decision of just dropping us off at our grandparents’ place. [audience laughter]
So, my grandparents lived in this small town, almost a village in India in the state of Maharashtra called Chikhli. So, it was a little village where my grandfather was a lawyer. He was well respected, well feared as well. [audience laughter] His father before him was also a lawyer and a landlord. So, all that put together, ours was a well-educated and pretty well to do family in the otherwise poor and not so well to do neighborhood. So, my brother and I grew up in a neighborhood filled with lots of kids. And all the kids were scared of my grandfather as was everybody else.
Now, I say my grandfather was a miser, because I noticed a lot of things about him growing up. When I was 10 or 12, one peculiar thing he used to do was he used to turn off the main power supply to our house before al he left to work, [audience laughter] before he went to court. “Why do you need electricity in the day?” he would say. [audience laughter] “Read a book.” [audience laughter] He would turn it back only after he was back and after it was dark and still we would just turn on little lights like that and never the big tube lights what we had in our house.
This was all right during the school year, but it was particularly difficult in the summer vacation when all of us were home for three months straight. This was one particular summer when I was 10, my brother was 12, and it was also very hot in the part of the country where we grew up. So, it could be like 120 degrees on some days. So, it was not possible for us to play outside all the time. And without electricity, we had to come up with very innovative ways to keep ourselves busy.
And one way was the kids these days may not know, but it was to play outside. [audience laughter] We used to play outside, but like I said, sometimes there was this fear of getting burned because of the sun. So, we had to play inside. We had this big house built by the British back in the day, it's 100-year-old. So, our house has this large lobby right outside, rectangular. So, the kids, our friends and my brother and I came up with this novel game. It was called indoor cricket. [audience laughter] So, just like cricket, which is just like baseball, not really. [audience laughter]
So, we came up with this really intricate game where there was a pitcher, the batsman, there was a-- No, the pitcher is the bowler, right? Yeah. So, there was a bowler, there's a batsman and things like that. We came up with really detailed rules, like you couldn't do overarm bowling, you had to do only underarm, you could be out even if it is one toss catch, you could score certain runs when hits the wall, when it hit something else. So, it was a very intricate game.
One afternoon, we were playing this game and I was batting whatever it's called in baseball terms, and I was feeling particularly heroic that afternoon. When my friend pitched it underarm, I swung my bat and I was-- The moment it hit the bat, you know, fuck. [audience laughter] I realized something's going to go wrong. The ball just went in top speed. I still remember, I see the ball flying away and it went straight for the wall in front of me and there was a tube light on the wall and it just hit it right in the center and splat. The tube light just broke into millions of pieces and came shattering down. And that was that. We were just panicking and we were all frozen in our feet.
One of my friends, he was so scared that he ran away and we never saw him for rest of the summer. [audience laughter] But my brother and I, we had to do something, because the whole indoor cricket worked like a clockwork only, because we knew that my grandfather left at 10:00 AM in the morning and he was back at 04:00 PM in the afternoon. So, we had to get order in that particular room before 04:00.
So, we put on our best problem-solving hat, and we cleaned the mess right there and then we wanted to find out what to do about the tube light. We couldn't buy a new one. We didn't have the resources to go get one. Not the money, obviously, because he never gave us anything. [audience laughter] But then, it struck in that moment that because we grew up in this household where head of household is my grandfather, Azoba, as we called him, we never threw away anything. Even if it didn't work, we always kept it. So, I knew there were some tube lights lying around in the house. I quickly grabbed one. So, it didn't work, but it wasn't broken.
So, we put it back up into the slot, wherever the now broken tube light was and we put it there. We were very confident that we wouldn't be caught, because my grandfather never turns on the tube light in the night. So, yeah. He came back, he saw the tube light, he didn't find anything fishy. That day went by. Three months went by and the tube light never got turned on. One night, he was reluctant, it was winter, so he had to turn it on. I was right there and he goes like, “What happened to the tube light?” But I was ready, for three months I have been practicing when this moment comes, [audience laughter] what I'm going to do.
So, he goes like, “What happened?” I just put my best practice shrug and I go like, “I don't know.” [audience laughter] And that was that. So, the tube light got replaced and it was never spoken of again. It's been years since that incident. My grandfather passed away, and I was back in the house few years after that. I was sitting in the same lobby and very fondly was looking at the slot where the broken tube light was, remembering my grandfather very fondly at that time. I realized that I've been sitting in a very low-lit room. The tube light was still not on. And in that moment, I realized that I am my miser grandfather now. Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
Jay: [00:07:45] That was Anagha Mahajan. Anagha was born and raised in a small town in India. She lives in California now with her husband, her baby, Augie, and their Akita Radley. She loves telling stories about growing up in the 1990s in India. She said, this story in particular is a favorite of hers and her brother's. We asked Anagha, in what ways she's like her miserly grandfather. And she said, “In so many ways. The most reliable of which is her making her husband get up from the dinner table when he forgets to switch off the lights upstairs.”
Anagha also tells us that in his later years, her grandfather became a big softie and that they were friends, although, he never found out about the light. She imagines that if he did, he would have enjoyed knowing and done his best to absolve Anagha and her brother of the crime.
Our next story is from Okeoma Erojikwe. In the fall of 2020, when the world was collectively quarantined by the pandemic, The Moth brought people together virtually for a global community showcase. People from around the world tuned in over Zoom to hear stories celebrating women and girls.
The audio will sound a little different than our usual live audience, because the tellers were not on stage. They were sharing from their homes. And with no clapping at the end. We encourage you to give Okeoma a hand when she's done. Here she is live from her living room in Abuja, Nigeria.
Okeoma: [00:09:23] My grandmom and my grandpa were such a beautiful couple. Their home in the rural part of eastern Nigeria held fond memories for me as a child. Their home was the spot where I and my cousins-- I mean, we gather over Christmas and long vacation to spend our holidays. It was really fun. I remember how we could dance and jump the stairs and have so much fun shouting and nobody ever told us to keep quiet. The highlights of my vacation would be remembering how we sat around my granddad as he told us stories about the animal kingdom and how the turtles were the wisest of all animals.
And my grandmom, on the other hand, loved cooking and would always prepare special delicacies of our traditional meal and serve us after the session. My grandmom was a lovely person. She loved having people around her. And I loved her personality. We were quite close. She taught me most of the important things I knew today. Taught me to cook, taught me to clean, taught me life values, taught me to always stand by the truth and speak the truth at all times, to be kind and to be patient as well.
Then, when I turned 16, my granddad had a fall on our famous place stairs and he broke a limb. He was transferred from the village where he was to the town where I stayed with my parents. I stayed with my parents to receive better health care. My grandmom had visited a couple of times to check on him and perhaps wished he could come home earlier and went back to the village.
But sadly, towards the end of that year, my granddad died, away from my grandmom. My father was quite devastated, so was the rest of my siblings and the entire family. My dad had called me and said, I should go stay with my grandmom to give her company for some time. I was delighted to do so. She was my friend, so I looked forward to that. But then, my dad told me that the custom, the part of the country where I come from that my grandmom is not meant to hear about my grandfather's death, until certain elders and relatives are gathered to give her comfort before this news gets to her. He emphasized that I should make sure my grandmom doesn't have a hint of what happened. And I agreed on this.
Few days later, I traveled to see my grandmom. She was quite delighted to see me, asking me how everybody was, how the husband was, how my siblings were. I quickly told her everyone was fine. We had a lovely meal that day and we talked deep into the night. It was later that night, when I had retired to my bedroom that I realized the enormity of the task ahead of me. It meant I was going to keep a vital information from someone that was so close to me and so dear to me. I had to deal with this.
Days later, I went shopping with my grandmom, did our chores, cooked, did massages, which she taught me how to. There were awesome moments I hold there. But in the midst of this, I was in a battle, a constant conflict with myself, and I kept thinking, why would my dad tell me not to tell my grandmom? I remembered I had promised to keep it to myself. Then I'm like, “How will she even react when she knows her husband is dead?”
I mean, we continued this way. It even got worse when one morning, my grandmom wakes up and tells me, “Oh, Okeoma, I had a horrible dream last night.” And I'm like, “What happened?” And she said, “Something terrible had happened to your grandpa.” And I said, “No, mama, he's fine. Grandpa is fine.” I had lied to her. I had lied to someone that taught me the value of speaking the truth at all times.
Then shortly after that, we had woken up one morning to the sound of cars coming into the house and we quickly went to know what happened. We met my parents and some other elders. And my grandmom welcomed them. Yes. She was quite apprehensive and wondered why they would come so early in the morning. And in the midst of it all, I noticed the women were going around her, trying to comfort, just stay around her. Then the men walked in, all sat down. Then she was just looking around, and someone told her that my grandfather had died.
As soon as she heard this, she just stand up from where she was and she started pacing around. Then she screamed, then she continued screaming and she kept on saying, “I knew it, I knew it, I knew it.” And in that same moment, she turned to me in the corner where I was and she said to me, “Okeoma, you too? You knew about this?” I could clearly remember the look of disappointment in her eyes. I felt that betrayal from her voice. And in that moment, I was frozen and I felt like my world came crashing on me. I sneaked away, shaking into the room. I didn't share this with anyone. I rather withdrew myself from her. I avoided everywhere she was. I didn't bother trying to do things like we did before. There were moments where she sent me on errands I could go, but it wasn't the same anymore and this went on for some time.
Then at some point, I realized I was missing a great part of my grandmom. I was missing the home I found in her. We were decades apart, yes, but she's someone that shared and understood my world. So, I decided to go have a conversation with her. I decided to just say something, perhaps she would open up a conversation and I could apologize because I felt so guilty I had done something so wrong. But when I spoke to her, I was amazed. Nothing had changed. She was her normal, warm self. She was happy. She was quick to tell me, “Oh, come let's cook. Oh, come to massage.” And I'm like, “What really happened? Was it I wasn't that serious, or was it that it was all in my head, or is it that time had healed her of the disappointment she felt with me?”
But then, I was glad I confronted this fear. I was glad I was able to gain so many more years of friendship with her. And I was happy. We didn't allow a custom to come between what we held so dear. I realized in all this that in confronting our fears and facing our truths, we find peace. Thank you.
Jay: [00:17:18] That was Okeoma Erojikwe. She grew up in Nsukka, a small but beautiful university town in the eastern part of Nigeria. She was the fourth child and the first girl in a close-knit family of seven. She says, the kids in her family always spent their summer vacations with their grandparents in the countryside, which is how she formed the strong bond she had with her grandmother.
Okeoma told us that keeping the death of a loved one for so long from her grandmother had untold effects on her as a child. And that although she doesn't believe in keeping such information for so long from the spouse, the one part of the culture that she embraces is that it allows the bereaved to come together to mourn at the time the news is delivered. She says, “The relatives gathering gives a sense of community comfort and cohesion during the mourning period.” To see photos of Okeoma and her grandmother, you can visit our website, themoth.org.
When we return, a 12-year-old girl is sworn to secrecy by family members.
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The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. And presented by PRX.
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This is The Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Jay Allison. We're exploring stories about the mysteries in families from all around the world. The next secret has its roots in Greece and spans not only continents, but generations. Angela Derecas Taylor told this story in Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York, where we were presented by the Greenwood Historic Fund.
The show took place amid the historical graves, and the small live audience was socially distanced. Because of the venue, you may hear some city noises, including sirens, which will give you a feeling of verisimilitude, perhaps helping you picture a warm September evening in the grass at Greenwood. A quick caution that this story contains graphic descriptions of violence. Here's Angela.
[applause]
Angela: [00:20:54] I never knew my Greek grandmother, a person I would have called Yaya, because she got very sick and died when my dad was only five years old. He didn't remember anything about her, and there were no photos, no mementos. So, I just didn't know anything, except that her name was Maria, which was my middle name. But other than that, no one ever talked about her. It was almost like she didn't exist.
I did know my grandfather though, a man I called Papu. And I loved him very much. My dad used to tell me stories about how he came from Greece in the early 1900s, and how he worked really hard and tried to make a better life. But things didn't work out for Papu. By the time I was born in 1961, Papu was a sickly old man living by himself in a tenement apartment in the South Bronx.
My dad used to bring me to visit him all the time. I loved to go and visit him because he made my favorite dish, chicken rice pilaf. I can picture it now as a little girl sitting on his lap, and eating that warm creamy rice with a little bit of that cool strained yogurt on top. He'd bounce me on his knee, and he'd pat me on my head and he'd tell me I was kaló korítsi, a good girl. And I love that man very much.
Papu died when I was 12. And the funeral was terrible. The Greek tradition is that the casket is open during the mass. At the end of the mass you're supposed to go up and kiss the body and say goodbye. I had never seen a dead body before and I really did not want to go up and do that. But my dad took my hand, and we went up together to the coffin and we said goodbye to Papu.
When we got home from the funeral, my dad told me that he needed to tell me something about our family. But that what he was going to tell me was a secret and that I could never tell anyone. And then, he told me the truth about the way his mother had died. The truth was that she didn't get sick and die when he was five years old. The truth was that my grandfather killed my grandmother. Supposedly, she had a boyfriend, they had an argument, they were in the kitchen, my grandfather went crazy, he picked up a knife and he stabbed her to death.
After my dad told me this, I was in shock. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I mean, who wants to hear that [chuckles] your grandfather killed your grandmother. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to say. I was like, “Why isn't he in prison? Why didn't he never go to prison?” And my dad said, “Well, he did go to prison for a little while.” And then, my dad got all teary and then I felt so bad. I loved my dad too. I didn't want to upset him. So, I just gave him a hug and promised him that I would keep the family secret.
I did a pretty good job keeping the secret for most of my life. I mean, there were a few times in my crazy years, one of those 04:00 AM drunken stupor, bet you can't top this story kind of times. But other than that, I kept the secret. I put it out of my mind. I buried it. Several years after the funeral, my aunt, my dad's sister, went to Greece. She had found her mother's family. When she came back from that trip, she brought a single photograph. It was a black and white 8x10 studio portrait. It was the first time that I had ever seen what my grandmother looked like.
After my dad showed me the picture, he took it and he put it back in a manila envelope and stuck it in a drawer. And I was thinking, gee, why didn't he frame it and put it up on the family picture wall? And then, I realized that it was still a secret, that she was still a secret.
So, life goes on. I am married, I'm middle aged, I've got two kids of my own. I'm sitting on the computer and I'm googling my last name. And up pops this article. The headline says, kills wife tries suicide. It was in the New York Times. It was dated February 8th, 1935, teeny tiny. So, I start to read this article. And it says, “In a jealous rage, Peter Derecas stabbed his wife.” Peter Derecas, that's my grandfather, that's Papu. And then, my grandmother's named, and my dad is named and my aunt is named. After I read this article, I'm like, “Wow, this really happened. She really existed. These are my people.”
And suddenly, my lifelong secret became an obsession. I just wanted to know everything that I possibly could about my grandmother. I tried to talk to my dad. He was not happy. He was like, “Look, this is a secret. I don't want to talk about this. You know how upsetting this is.” He's like, “Please don't resurrect my mother.” So, on my own, I decided to do some research. I found her death certificate and I also found some court documents. When I read these documents, I learned that my grandmother had been stabbed 43 times. In her hands, neck, arms, chest and back.
After I read this, I was in shock again. My grandfather, he actually was convicted of first-degree manslaughter and served only three and a half years in prison before he was paroled. I found that pretty unbelievable how someone could stab someone 43 times and only go to prison for three and a half years. But I thought, well, I don't know, maybe in 1935, if you thought your wife had a boyfriend, it was okay to kill her. And then I thought, well, things have changed for women, but maybe not that much. I started to get this visceral anger towards my once beloved grandfather. At the same time, I felt this abundance of love in my heart for my grandmother, for this person that I never knew. I wanted to know everything about her. I wanted to go to Greece. I wanted to visit her grave.
And so, I spoke to my aunt. My aunt told me that my grandmother's body never made it back to Greece. In fact, she was buried in an unmarked grave in a cemetery in Queens. So, I went to the cemetery to find her grave. I'm following the groundskeeper, and we're driving through a very beautiful cemetery like this and I'm thinking, all right. Not so bad. Beautiful place. And then, we approached this area called the Hillside. It got really dingy and desolate. And the next thing I know, we're out of the car, and I'm following this man and he points this headstone and he says, “Okay, this is where she is.” And I'm like, “No, no, no, there is no headstone. It's unmarked. That's a man's name. This can't be it.”
He explains to me that in this particular area, the bodies are buried six people, one on top of the other, and my grandmother is at the very bottom. This man's name on the headstone is the body on top of hers, and then there are four other unnamed bodies on top of that. I just felt so sad, like how could somebody live their life and then there be nothing to ever show that they ever existed? My knees buckled, and I got down and I had my hands on the earth. I don't know what I was doing. I was trying to get close to her, to feel her. I wanted to have her exhumed and give her a proper burial. After 75 years, there was nothing to exhume.
So, I talked to the cemetery people and I'm like, “Look, I'd like to get her a headstone. Can I do that?” They're like, “You can, but you got to put that man's name on it too.” I'm like, “Fine, I’ll put everybody's name on it.” So, I get permission and I go home and I'm really feeling good. I'm like, “Okay, this is good. We're going to give my grandmother her rightful place in our family again. We're going to get her a headstone. We can go visit.” I felt good about it. And then, I get there and I'm doing some posting on my social media and I talked to my family and they were not happy. I really didn't expect the backlash that I was going to get.
I had cousins, my aunt's kids, most, not all of them, but some of them really angry and talking about me behind my back and saying I was trying to do something for my own personal gain, exploit the family. And then, I get this Facebook message from some 24-year-old guy in Greece who, I don't know, telling me that he's my fourth cousin. He starts telling me that I don't know the truth. My grandfather was a really good man and she was bad, she was loose, she dishonored the family. He warned her and he told her to stop, and she didn't listen and he just did what he had to do and I should just forgive him. And I was like, “Forgive him?”
I don't know. From what I knew from my dad, my grandfather never expressed any remorse at all. As a matter of fact, he said she deserved it. And I was like, “Here's this poor woman, 29 years old. Imagine the terror fighting off her husband, stabbing her.” What about two little kids, a five-year-old boy and a six-year-old girl. My dad and my aunt losing their mother. And I was like, “Forgive him? What about her? Can we forgive her? I don't care what she did.” I question the whole boyfriend thing, but whatever. I don't care what she did. She didn't deserve that. Nobody deserves that.
And I was like “You know what? I don't care what you people say. I just was going to go on and do my own thing.” Except for my dad. I did care about what my dad had to say. And he was really upset. “Look, Angela,” he said, “This is not your story to tell. This is very personal. This is my story. You don't know what it was like growing up without a mom. It's really not your place. Leave it alone.” And I said, “Dad, I understand and I feel what you're saying, but it is my story. That was my grandmother too. She was killed at 29 years old. If she had lived, I would have known her. I would have had a relationship with her.” I said, “I just want to give her rightful place in our family.” And after that, my dad gave his blessing. He and my aunt were actually very helpful in getting the headstone made.
And on a beautiful day in May of 2010, a dozen of us family members gathered around a brand-new headstone with my grandmother's name on it. We represented four generations of my grandmother's descendants. My aunt, who was 81 at the time, she brought seashells and she scattered them around the headstone just like she might have done as that little six-year-old girl. My dad was 80. He brought that photograph which he had framed and he put it on an easel next to the headstone. My cousins who were there brought flowers and read poems. My sons, my older son held the music while my younger son played Amazing Grace on the saxophone.
Some people thought it wasn't wise to have an 11-year-old and a 12-year-old boy involved in all this, but I did. I thought it was important for my boys to know that what happened in our family was not okay and I also wanted to alleviate them of the burden of this 75-year family secret. After our family did all their things Father Nick started with the incense and going around the headstone and he was chanting and praying in Greek. It was beautiful. It was intoxicating. And my dad took my hand and he leaned over and he whispered, “Thank you daughter. Now, I don't have to feel shame anymore.”
I felt my grandmother's spirit all around us. I felt like she was bursting out of the bottom of that grave and just free from this 75-year secret. I felt all of her love all around us. I looked at my dad and my aunt so happy that they could say goodbye to their mother. And then, I looked at the headstone and my dad said to me, “You're a good girl, Angela. Kaló korítsi. Your grandmother would be proud of you.” I don't know if that was true, but what I did know that on that day I wasn't saying goodbye to my grandmother. I was just getting to know my Yaya, this woman Maria Anastasio Derecas.
[cheers and applause]
Jay: [00:33:51] Angela Derecas Taylor is an award-winning writer and performer. She says that in the beginning, her father only acquiesced to what he called her demands, but that he was too touched at the memorial and seemed to find peace. She says, in the 11 years since he has gone back and forth between emotions, sometimes upset that Angela is talking about the family secret and at others thanking her for being a good granddaughter.
She told us, she now thinks her grandmother most likely had no one she could turn to for help. Her family was back home in Greece and domestic violence wasn't acknowledged. Learning more about her grandmother and this long held family secret inspired Angela to become an advocate with an organization called My Sister's Place that helps victims of domestic violence. She wonders if there had been an organization like this around back in the 1930s, perhaps things would have turned out differently for her grandmother.
If you are experiencing domestic violence, you can get help. The Domestic Violence helpline is available 24/7 at thehotline.org or 1800-799-SAFE.
[00:35:07] By the way, Angela sent us this story via The Moth pitch line. And if she's inspired you to pitch us a story of your own, you can record it right on our website or call 877-799-MOTH. You may be contacted to tell a story.
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Coming up, discovering family histories with the help of Dan Rather and the CBS Evening News.
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The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. And presented by PRX.
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You're listening to The Moth Radio Hour. And I'm Jay Allison, producer of this show. Our last story in this episode, exploring the secrets that families keep from others or each other, comes from Graham Shelby. Graham told this story in New York City, where we partnered with POV. Here's Graham Shelby.
[applause]
Graham: [00:37:29] When I was a kid, I loved TV. I really loved TV. I was an only child, and other children made me nervous. The people I trusted most tended to be on TV. I especially enjoyed detective shows like The Rockford Files, and Murder, She Wrote and Magnum, P.I., because they were so smart. You know, you'd start off with a mystery, and there'd be some suspense and drama and then at the end, they worked it all out. It was great.
Life was pretty suspense free. But there was this one mystery I wanted to solve. It was my father. I'd never met him. I didn't know where he was. I didn't really know what had happened to him. I grew up with my mom and my stepfather. He was the one who picked me up at kindergarten, and grounded me sometimes and taught me how to tell a joke, and catch football and stuff like that. But I was always curious about this other father I'd had, especially because nobody wanted to talk about him.
Now, over the years, I had put together a few pieces of information I'd asked or overheard. I knew his name was Jimmy. I knew he was tall. I knew he liked barbecue. I knew that when he would get really tickled about something, he would fall on the ground and grab himself and kick his feet in the air. I knew that because apparently, I did that too. I also knew that he had been a Green Beret in Vietnam. When I was still a baby, my mom left him, took me and we didn't come back.
And at some point, after she remarried, Jimmy signed some papers, so that my stepfather could adopt me. But I wanted to know why all that had happened. It was hard to get a straight answer out of anybody. And so, I did what the TV detectives did, which is take the facts you have and then try to come up with a story that explains them. And so, I just went to my mom one day and said, “Mom, was Jimmy a bad guy?” And she said, “What do you mean?” I said, “Well, was he a bad guy? Was he mean? Was that why we left?” She said, “No. No, he wasn't a bad guy. He was just messed up by the war.” And that was all she really said.
I’m like “What does that mean? Why would the war make it so he couldn't be my dad?” I was secretly mad at all of them. I was mad at Jimmy for screwing up whatever he'd done to make my mom want to leave him and I was secretly mad at my parents for not leveling with me about what was going on. I didn't know how I was ever going to get any answers until I was 12. And that's when Jimmy showed up. But he didn't show up in person. He showed up on TV. Apparently, how it all happened was in Vietnam, he had this friend. And the friend asked him, “If something happens to me, write a letter to my mom, okay?” And Jimmy said, “Sure.” And the friend didn't make it home.
It took Jimmy 13 years to write the letter to his friend's mother. But when this lady got it, she was so moved that she contacted this reporter she knew and somehow there was going to be a story about the two of them on Memorial Day on the CBS Evening News. Jimmy called my mother, first time in years to tell her all this. My mom's explaining this to me and inside, I'm going, “What the heck? This is crazy. This is really cool. This is crazy.” But I'm also like, “I'm finally going to get some answers.” And mom says, “So, do you think you want to watch it?” And I'm 12, so I say, “Yeah, I guess.”
But as we get closer to the broadcast, I realize I do not want to watch this with my parents. That would be really, really awkward. So, I go over to my grandparents’ house and actually sneak into this little room in the back of the house. I turn on the TV. It's like this little black and white knob. I'm listening. There comes Dan Rather. He says, “The story of two soldiers who fought side by side in Vietnam. Only one came home. And now, their families find peace of mind years after the agony of war.” And then, there's this footage of men running around in a compound, and there's explosions and then I hear this voice. It's Jimmy's voice. He has this deep, raspy voice. He's talking about his friend and he says, “The real battle was after I came back.” And then, they show his face right there on the TV.
I've never watched a moment of TV more closely than I watched that. I leaned in. I was inches from the screen. I can barely process what he's saying. But I'm just looking at his eyes, his nose and the shape of his chin, because I want to see if I can see myself in there. There's something, but it's not 100% clear. And then, the scene changes, and the lady he wrote to, she comes on and she talks about how this letter that she got from Jimmy really helped her, really solve this mystery that she'd been struggling with of what had really happened to her son. She says, “I feel peaceful now. I can put that at rest.”
It shows the two of them, they go to a church service, they go to a picnic and then they're standing in this graveyard next to a headstone, their arms on each other. Jimmy says, “You know, writing that letter was one of the hardest things I've ever done. But I'm really glad I did, because I helped this lady who really had been searching.” And then, they hug and they smile and they disappear. And I'm like, “What was that?” It was like the emotional equivalent of sensory overload. I couldn't really put it all together in my head, but I would try to just pull chunks out and was like, “What did I just see?” I felt like I got an impression.
For one thing, Jimmy was impressive. He came off looking impressive. He was strong and noble, reached out to help this lady. So, he was good. But I was also jealous and confused. He reached out to help somebody from his past. It wasn't me. So, if Jimmy's not a bad guy, maybe I'm bad. Maybe it's me. Maybe he saw that and that's why he let me go. He fought for his country, he fought for his friend, but he didn't fight for me.
Time passed. We didn't hear from Jimmy. Then about three years later, I hear about this movie called Platoon, which is supposed to show a realistic vision of what the war was like. I go see it, and it's amazing and horrible and confusing and I decide, I'm just going to write to Jimmy. I'm just going to do it. I get the address from my mom and I write him a note. I just introduced myself, I think, like I said, I'd taken karate. I was trying to sound impressive. [audience laughter] I write him. He writes me back. So, he says, he glad to hear from me and we can meet sometime. We keep writing for a while, and we send each other mixtapes. Eventually, we start talking on the phone. He has this voice, he talks like, “Hey, kid. How you doing?” Eventually, we meet in person.
When I'm 18, I say, “All right. I'm ready. Let's meet in person.” It's like when you meet somebody you've only seen on TV, only it was my father. We're in this parking lot, halfway between his house Indiana and my house in Kentucky. I can tell he's staring at my face the way I stared at his on TV, looking for himself. We have a little awkward hug, and we go sit down in the hotel room and he says, “Is there anything you'd like to ask me?” And I freeze. All the questions that I've had, “Where you been?” I can't think of any of those. Partly, I think I'm afraid of hurting his feelings, afraid he might disappear again. So, he talks.
Then he tells me some stories, and I learn a few things. He takes out this picture album, and he opens it up. I don't really get much out of any of the pictures, his family and sometime of the war, till I see the very last one. It's a picture of him in his soldier uniform. He's about 21, and he looks exactly like me. I know this is my father. So, after that, I go home, talk to my mom about this. She opens up, tells me some stories. Jimmy and I keep talking. He tells me some stories. And eventually, I learned the truth about us.
The truth was there was nothing wrong with me. The fake stories that I had made up to tell myself were worse than the real story my parents were trying to keep from me, to protect me from. The real story is that Jimmy grew up with an alcoholic father who beat him up and then Jimmy went to war. And one night in the war, he asked his three best friends to go wait for him in this one part of the camp until he got off duty. The last thing he said to these guys was, “I'll be there in 10 minutes.” Two minutes later, the mortar started dropping. 10 minutes later, Jimmy found their bodies. He said, it was like walking into a butcher shop.
And the truth is also that in the brief time Jimmy was my father. He changed my diapers. He sang songs to me like blackbirds singing in the dead of night and Rockabye, Sweet Baby James. He drank a lot and he smoked a lot of weed. When my mom asked him to stop, he said “No.” He said, “This baby is not going to change my life.” When she said, “We were leaving,” he cried. When she asked him to stay away while I was growing up, he agreed.
So, knowing all this, I asked myself like, “Should Jimmy have fought for me?” But when I think about it, he was already in a fight inside himself. I still though would have liked it if maybe at some point he would have said, “I'm sorry kid, it wasn't your fault.” But he didn't say that. He did one time say, “You were better off with your mom, stepdad than you would have been with me. But I missed you kid, every day of your life.” I knew Jimmy the rest of his life, and he always thought of his moment on CBS as one of the proudest times of his life.
When he died, we showed it at his funeral. I have three sons now. And someday, I'm going to show that video to them and I'll tell them about Jimmy, even though I know that for them he'll always just be a face on TV. But I won't. For my kids, I'm not mysterious. I'm dad. I'd like to better at that than I am, but I'm decent. I'm flawed, but well intentioned and loving like my parents, including the man who let me go. If I could say one thing tonight to Jimmy that I never said, it would be thank you. Thank you for letting me go.
[cheers and applause]
Jay: [00:50:20] That was Graham Shelby. After he told this story, Graham contacted his director, Jenifer Hixson, and shared this.
Graham: [00:50:29] I don't think good stepfathers get enough credit. We tend to tell stories about reunions with long lost birth fathers. That's what my story is. But we don't talk enough about the men who step in do the hard, daily, often thankless work of raising children who were sired by other men. Good stepfathers are incredibly important and so are good stepmothers too.
Jay: [00:50:53] Graham is a writer and documentary filmmaker in Louisville, Kentucky. His debut film was City of Ali. We first met Graham at a StorySLAM in Louisville, where Graham now serves as one of our regular SLAM hosts. To see the original video of Jimmy's appearance on CBS News in 1983, visit our website, themoth.org. While you're there, you can share these stories maybe with your own family.
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.
[overture music]
This episode of The Moth Radio Hour was produced by me, Jay Allison and Catherine Burns with help from Meg Bowles and Emily Couch. Coproducer is Viki Merrick. The stories were directed by Jenifer Hixson, Michelle Jalowski and Jodi Powell.
The rest of The Moth's leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Sarah Austin Jenness, Kate Tellers, Jennifer Birmingham, Marina Klutse, Suzanne Rust, Brandon Grant, Inga Glodowski, Sarah Jane Johnson and Aldi Kaza.
Special thanks to the Kate Spade New York Foundation, which provided sponsorship for the Women and Girls showcase, Moxie and Might, for which Okeoma told her story. Moth stories are true, as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers.
Our theme music is by the Drift. Other music in this hour from Ry Cooder and VM Bhatt, Yasmin Williams, The Westerlies and Rat-Tat-Tat. 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.