Host: Dan Kennedy

Dan: [00:00:01] Welcome to The Moth Podcast. I'm Dan Kennedy. And today, we have a special Valentine's edition of our show, and we're going to be bringing you three stories on the podcast. They all come from SLAMs, Moth StorySLAMs, all across the country. And I feel like no matter what your situation, we've of got you covered in this episode. We have stories of the well-adjusted, stories of the not so well adjusted, stories of joy, stories of pain. I like to think no matter what your situation, we've got something for you in this episode. 

Our first story comes to us from Kristy Hawkins, and she told it last year at a GrandSLAM in Denver, where the theme of the night was Fish Out of the Water. Here's Kristy Hawkins. 

[cheers and applause] 

Kristy: [00:00:50] I got divorced recently. My friends and family have decided that it's time for me to get back out there. One of them actually suggested that I should get on Tinder. I'm not so old and out of it that I don't know what Tinder is. I know what it is. Actually, when I first got divorced, I asked my 21-year-old niece if she thought I should sign up for Grindr. [audience laughter] She explained to me that Tinder and Grindr are not the same thing. [chuckles] But I don't really know how these sites work. I know what they are. But as my friend described it to me that night, and with the swiping left and the swiping right, it occurred to me this sounds so much like junior high.

I mean, in junior high, when you like somebody, you would write a note and ask them, "Do you like me back? Check one, yes, no, maybe." [audience chuckles] And then, you wait for a response. It's straightforward. But for me, that's terrifying. If this is how dating is going to be, I'm not sure I want in, because I have really traumatic experiences with these notes. 

See, when I was 13, I was in love with a boy named Ryan. Ryan was tall and blonde and blue eyed, and he was smart and quiet. He's what the kids today would call a hot nerd. [audience chuckles] And I was not a hot nerd. I was what the kids today would just call a nerd. [audience chuckles] I had a perm, and I had super thick glasses and I wore turtlenecks almost exclusively, [audience chuckles] like every day. [audience cheers] 

Ryan was way out of my league, and I knew that, but it didn't stop me from loving him. I just loved him. I was not at all subtle about my love for Ryan. [audience laughter] So, a couple of his friends caught on that I liked him. And these boys, Marcus and Adam, would just tease me about it. But I didn't care. I was in love. Well, this all came to a glorious, glorious head the Friday before spring break of my eighth-grade year. I went to my locker to get my books to go home, and there was a note stuck in my locker. And the note, I opened it up and read it, and it was from Ryan. And it said, "Dear Kristy, I really like you. Do you like me too? Check one. Yes, no, maybe. [audience chuckles] Love, Ryan." It said, love.

I mean, it was happening. Like, this is happening. [audience chuckles] I floated to the bus, and I read, and reread that note all the way home and imagining how Ryan and I were just going to be together forever. I knew that we would not be able to make our dreams come true until after spring break, because back in those days, we didn't have cell phones, so I would have to wait until we got back to school. 

But when I got home, we were ready to leave on vacation for spring break and the phone rang just as we were walking out the door. And my mom answered it. She called that it was for me. When I got closer, she stage-whispered to me, "It's a boy." [audience chuckles] Like, she's as surprised as I am, because I am not a kid that ever got called by boys, believe me.

And so, I just knew it was Ryan. He was ready to get the party started. Like, he could not [audience laughter] wait for spring break to be over. He wanted this to happen now. So, I was super cool. I was like, "Hey Ryan, what's up?" And he was like, "Hey Kristy, it's Ryan." And then, he took a big breath and he said, "You know that note you got in your locker? Well, I didn't write it. Marcus wrote it. It was just a big joke, and he thought it was really funny. But I didn't think it was funny. I just thought it was mean. So, I thought I had to call and tell you that I don't like you.” [audience aww] Oh, man. 

I felt all the feelings. Like, I was crushed. Beyond crushed. But I gathered my wits and I said, “Oh, God, Ryan. Like, I totally knew it was a joke the whole time.” Like, “I would never fall for that. Well, anyway, Ryan, my mom's calling me, so I have to go. I'll see you at school,” and I just fell apart. I cried and cried and cried. I cried for seven days straight at spring break. But when I got back to school, I hid my feelings. I never said a word about it to Ryan, I never said a word about it to Marcus, I just went on with my life. 

But fast forward 15 years, and I ran into Marcus in a bar. I asked him after a few drinks, [audience chuckles] "Why in the hell did you do that to me? That was so mean." And he said, "I had a huge crush on you, [audience aww] and that was my way of showing it." Okay, well, that sounds sweet. So, we got married. [audience laughter] [audience cheers and applause] 

Yeah, we got married, and we had three kids and we spent 10 years together. But wait, wait. You guys heard me at the beginning of the show say that I just got divorced, right? [audience laughter] So, [chuckles] I'll spare you the details. But when Marcus left, it was like getting that note all over again and then getting a call telling me that the whole thing was just a joke. So, here I am. I'm 40, I'm going on 14, [audience chuckles] and I have to start dating again and we have to do it with technology. 

When I was in my 20s, we just put on beer goggles and wrote a number on a napkin and hoped for the best. [audience chuckles] Like, that seems simple. This is going to be tough. But I'm trying to look on the bright side. I don't wear glasses anymore, and I don't perm my hair and I don't wear turtlenecks that often. [audience laughter] So, I'm liking my chances. I am liking my chances. So, I am here tonight to tell you that I am going to get on the Grindr, and I am going to find Ryan, and I am going to be swiping left and swiping right, and one of these days, I'm going to get swiped back. Thank you.

[cheers and applause] 

Dan: [00:07:14] Kristy Hawkins now lives in Colorado. She's the mother of three and spends her days working in HR for a healthcare company. She spends her afternoons and evenings driving around a car full of kids. 

After that night, Kristy was true to her word. She signed up for both Tinder and Bumble, and she started swiping like crazy. Although nothing serious has come out of that swiping, she says, “It's definitely entertaining, and it's really nice to get swiped back.”

Our next story is from Autumn Spencer. Autumn shared this story at a SLAM in Vermont in 2014. The theme of that night was Firsts. Here's Autumn.

[cheers and applause] 

Autumn: [00:07:56] Hey. I can tell you unequivocally that Valentine's Day is about love. Yes, it is. It is about love on the labor and delivery floor in the early morning hours of Valentine's Day 2004, where my first baby was born, a little girl. In the hours that are quiet and standing still in light that is fuzzy and lines that are blurred, and everything is otherworldly and everything is unbelievable like this slithery little baby. [chuckles] She was so lovely when she sucked air into her lungs, drying the watery beginnings and then heaved it out into the room with this electric howl, fierce and so alive, so bucking alive. She was here, a first baby, a first granddaughter. A true love. A Valentine. 

All my mother ever wanted to do was love. She wanted to love and love and love and love and support and courage and love. That's what she wanted to do. She loved Elena with reckless abandonment and Elena loved her Tootsie. Loved everything about her, never judged her, loved her without condition, loved her no matter what, loved her all the time. And what a gift that must have been for my mother, because we did not love her like that. My father didn't, my brother didn't, I didn't. We wanted to. We're good people. 

We wanted to love her, but we were so angry, because she was dying. We were angry at what Elena couldn't see. We were angry because she was dying from smoking and smoking was killing her, not quietly and subtly and as an afterthought of a life well lived. No, smoking was killing her in loud fits of coughing and hacking, and in coughed up wads of mucus from disintegrating lungs and in lost trains of thought, oxygen depleted and memories gone. We were angry and we judged her. And we saw that as her failure. Not as a life altering addiction, but as her failure.

But Elena, the Valentine's baby, Elena smiling up and up and up at my mother's face through her little baby teeth, smiling up and up, my mother must have felt forgiven and loved. My mother grew ill, ever more ill, and she moved in with us. It was always Elena who could find my mom. Elena, who found my mom when she was away in her sadness about my dad having died. Elena who found my mom after the appointment that said COPD and oxygen concentrators and, "Sorry, we can't really do anything for you." 

Elena, [sobs] who showed up the day after my mom had a stroke and had her hand curled in her lap, and picked up her hand and dropped it, and picked up her hand and dropped it, and declared it irrelevant to eating cookies and watching The Backyardigans. Stroke, no matter, Elena loved my mom. 

And one morning, my mom had come to live with us. She wouldn't wake up. I couldn't wake her up. I couldn't prod her awake, I couldn't whisper her awake, I couldn't get her to wake up. Elena was watching. I was sad, but I was so pissed, because see, I love Elena too. I wanted to protect her from this. I wanted to protect her from the ugliness of this disease, and dying, and falling apart and failing. 

Eventually, I couldn't care for my mom anymore, and so she went to the respite house, which is a hospice care facility and I said to her, "Mom, you have to go to the respite house." And she said, "Honey, that's where people go to die." And Elena said, "Yeah, Tootsie, you're going to die in the best place. [audience laughter] I went there, and they have donuts and fish in tanks. [audience laughter] And a piano. I think it's going to be awesome."

We had a birthday there for Elena, her eighth Valentine's Day birthday, a couple days before Valentine's Day. We partied, and we texted each other back and forth to make my mother nuts. She was there with her grandchildren, and she held everybody's head in her hands and she whispered things to them that were probably important about the end of life, but they all just asked for candy. We had a great time, and we partied. And two days later, on Valentine's Day, eight years after Elena was born, the nurse called me, and she said it was time that my mother wouldn't lift her head and that I should come.

So, I went to her bedside after sending Elena and her father [chuckles] off to Elena’s birthday party at school with balloons and cupcakes, because when you're born on Valentine's Day, you have to have the best school birthday party every year for the rest of your life. So, off they went. I went to my mother's bedside, and I saw my mom, and she wasn't diseased, and it wasn't gross. It was just my mama, just quiet and asleep and smelling good. 

I pulled back the covers, and I got in bed with her and I fell asleep. I woke up hours later with my brother, and he had arrived. I looked at him and we laughed, because we're always laughing. [chuckles] And I said, "She's been waiting for you." She had been. She'd been waiting for him. He was there and her breathing changed. It quickened. I put up my hand on her chest and I thought to myself, if she's going to go, I want to be there. If she's going to go, I want her to feel me there. If she's going to go, I need to love her like Elena would. Right now, this is it. 

And so, I put my hand on her chest and it fell away quickly and sharply. She puffed one last breath of air just like a wisp, and she left. She was gone. I went home to Elena to tell her on her Valentine's Day birthday what had happened with her Tootsie. She cried and she said, "Why?" And I said, "I don't know." She cried and said, "Why on my birthday?" And I said, "I don't know." She cried, she said, "What did the stars say?" And I said, "Damn it, I definitely don't know that. But what I do know is this, for sure. Valentine's Day is about love.” Thank you.

[cheers and applause] 

Dan: [00:14:21] Autumn Spencer is a freelance writer, editor and standup comic. She lives with her family in Burlington, Vermont, where she's a regular host of The Moth StorySLAM there. Autumn's daughter, Elena, will turn 13 this Valentine's Day. Autumn wrote us to say that “she's so much like her Tootsie. Smart, funny, empathetic, loving, thoughtful, independent, quick witted, and even a little mischievous.” Happy birthday, Elena. You can view photos of Elena and Tootsie by going to themoth.org. 

Okay, time for our final story on this Valentine's Day episode of The Moth Podcast. This one was told at a StorySLAM in 2014, where the theme of the night was Coincidence. Here's Lucy Huber, live from Detroit.

[applause] 

Lucy: [00:15:14] Hi. So, this May, I decided I was going to propose to my boyfriend. So, at work one day, I left during my lunch break and I got a ring. Proposing is really hard. How many of you guys have proposed in here? [audience holler] Not a lot. [laughs] It's hard, because you have to think about a lot of things. You have to think about like, is this location right, is this time right? But if you're a girl proposing to a guy, you have to think about a lot more other things. Like, do I have to get down on one knee, and is he going to be mad that I stole his thunder and is he going to think that it counts? [chuckles] But I knew that I wanted to marry my boyfriend. 

We had been dating for seven years. I really loved him, but the problem was he didn't seem quite as excited about getting [chuckles] married as I did. He kept saying like, "Yeah, yeah, someday, someday." But it seemed like if I waited for his someday, we would be getting married in an assisted living facility. [audience chuckles] It just didn't seem like it was going to happen. So, I bought this ring and I just couldn't think of a good way to do it. So, I kept the ring in my purse and I kept my purse with me all the time, all summer. I held it there, and I was just-- I kept thinking like some magical, perfect moment would happen and that it would just be the right time to do it. But it never, ever was.

Until about two weeks ago, we were about to go camping in Sleeping Bear Dunes, and I thought like, all right, that sounds good. And then, a few days before that, we were watching an episode of Lost. Of course, this is where all proposal stories start. [chuckles] I'm sorry if I ruined Lost for you. But there's an episode of Lost where Charlie knows he's going to die. 

So, he writes his five greatest hits on a piece of paper to give to his girlfriend Claire. And the five greatest hits are the five best things that have happened to him in his life. So, I think like, that's perfect. I'm going to write my boyfriend, Matt, I'm going to write him five notes and I'm going to give them to him throughout the weekend. Each of the notes is going to be a greatest hit from our relationship. That's cute, right? At the end of each of the notes, there's going to be a riddle. And if he solves the riddle, then he's going to get a little prize, like, I got some candy and some Cheez-Its and I wrapped them all up. 

And then if he puts all the riddles together in the fifth note, it's going to say, "Will you marry me?" I know. It was pretty good. [audience chuckles] And so, I sit down at a cafe in Ann Arbor to write these notes. And the weirdest thing happens. As I'm writing them outside, Matt walks by, [chuckles] and I just quickly throw everything in my bag, because I don't want him to see. He's carrying this big poster tube. We have the world's most awkward conversation, because I'm trying to keep him as far as possible away from me, because I don't want him to see what I'm doing. We sound like we've literally never met before. We're like, "Hey, [chuckles] what are you doing? Okay, see you later." And he's like, "I'm giving a presentation." And so, I don't think much of it. 

And then, the next day, we go on this trip. The note system is really good, because it's like a foolproof plan. It's like, once I start, I'm in. Like, I can't turn back. So, I give him the first note, he solves the clue, he gets a bag of peanut M&Ms. He's real psyched about it. [audience chuckles] And then, throughout the weekend, I keep giving him these notes, he keeps solving the clues. He's really into it. And the last day that we're camping, we have to hike out to our camp spot. So, we put on our backpacks, and we're in the car and we have to hike about a mile out to this beach. 

We're putting on our backpacks. I noticed that Matt has that weird tube that he had been carrying the day that I saw him, and I'm like, “That's of weird.” And I'm like, “Is there going to be a timeshare presentation on the beach?” [audience laughter] And he's like, "Yeah, maybe. Okay.” And so, I don't think a lot of it. Well, I do, but I'm just of like, “I'm not going to ask a lot of questions.” So, we hike out there, and Matt says, "Let's have dinner on the beach." And I'm like, "Oh, sure, this is perfect." Like, “I'm going to give him the last note, I'm going to take the ring.” So, I stuff the ring in my pocket, and we hike out to the beach. 

I'm hunching over, so he doesn't see that there's a bulge in my pocket. We get to the beach, and I shove the ring underneath the blanket, and he says, "Okay, close your eyes." I'm like, "Okay." When I open my eyes, he's laid out this whole picnic in front of us. There's like brie and champagne and salmon. I'm a little concerned, because we have been camping for two days, [audience laughter] so I'm not sure where this stuff came from. [audience laughter] But I don't question it too much. And then, he pulls out the poster, and it's a poster of pictures of us.

He pulls out two sharpies and he says, "Okay, it's weird that you wanted me to read those memories, because I want us to write down our best memories on this poster." So, we write down all of our best memories, and then all of a sudden, before I can give him the fifth note, he pulls out an engagement ring and he proposes to me. [audience cheers and applause] 

And before I say yes, I'm like, "Okay, well, you should probably read the last note." [audience laughter] And so, I give him the note, and he solves the puzzle and it says, "Will you marry me?" And I pull out my engagement ring [audience laughter] that I've been hiding underneath the blanket. And the rings are from the exact same jewelry store. [audience laughter] They're in the same box. [chuckles] We both say yes. Neither of the rings fit, [audience laughter] but not everything can be perfect. [chuckles] Thank you.

[cheers and applause] 

Dan: [00:21:21] That was Lucy Huber. Lucy works at the academic database JSTOR by day. She's a writer, podcaster and aspiring comedian by night. She has an MFA in creative writing from the University of North Carolina Wilmington and also volunteers with 826 Michigan, where she helps develop creative writing skills with students from Detroit and Ann Arbor. That is good work. 

Lucy and Matt were married in October 2016. Congratulations to both of you. They were kind enough to send over some photos of their rings, and also of the wedding and of Lucy telling that story on stage. So, to check out those photos, just visit our site, themoth.org. 

That's all for this week. Come back next week for another new episode of The Moth Podcast. And from all of us here at The Moth, we hope you have a story-worthy week.

Mooj: [00:22:13] Dan Kennedy is the author of the books, Loser Goes First, Rock On and American Spirit. He's also a regular host and performer with The Moth.

Dan: [00:22:23] Podcast production by Timothy Lou Ly. Moth events are recorded by Argo Studios in New York City, supervised by Paul Ruest. The Moth Podcast is presented by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange, helping make public radio more public at prx.org.