Host: Kate Tellers
Kate: [00:00:03] Welcome to The Moth Podcast. I'm Kate Tellers, your host for this week.
Sometimes faith or a belief in some higher power can help people to accept things they can't fully explain. Religious teachings and rituals guide those who believe in them through difficult moments, especially moments of loss. But what happens when customs are questioned and traditions are at odds with the expectations of modern life?
This week, we hear two stories from storytellers who confronted the dichotomy of old and new head on. Our first storyteller this week is Iman Ahmed. Iman told this at a showcase in New York City, where theme of the night was Across the Divide. Here's Iman, live at The Moth.
[cheers and applause]
Iman: [00:00:59] So, I'm standing in the parking lot of a mosque in Long Island, and I'm watching my mom debate taking one or two blood pressure pills. She cranes her neck down the street looking for a hearse, but it doesn't show. She takes both the pills. I'm at my dad's funeral. He's not there and I don't know where he is, which is weird, because for the past three years, I've always been by his side.
My daddy had polycythemia vera. It's a type of blood cancer where your body makes too many red blood cells and your blood can clot. He struggled with his illness for way more years than his doctors expected. I didn't realize how bad it was until one day I came home from a fashion magazine internship and I walked down the hallway. My stilettos click clacking down the hall, and I found him, my protector in this life, who taught me how to box and who held my hand when I crossed the street. He was lying on the kitchen floor, unable to get up. Seeing him like that, so defenseless and alone, it traumatized me. So, I exchanged my high heels for sneakers. At 23, I became his caregiver.
On the days when we didn't go to the hematologist and remove a half liter of his blood, we'd go take walks. I would walk behind him like a paranoid shadow, waiting to catch his thin frame if he fell. When it was too cold out, we'd go to the gym and I'd strap his feet into the bike pedal and give him some space and I'd go walk on the treadmill. But I had to choose the one with the mirror in front of it, so that I could watch him behind me. My neighbors, especially the elderly ones, told my dad he was so lucky to have such a good daughter and that was something I wrapped myself with that title.
It was hard, especially when I saw my friends get married and go to grad school, their lives moving forward while I stood still. I couldn't take the looks of pity on their faces. So, I avoided contact with them and just saw them less and less, went out less and less. [sighs] Months passed without incident. My dad, he wasn't really thrilled, like my neighbors, about me being such a good daughter. He was the head of the house and what he said goes, so, “The street lights are on, you better be home. You got a 95 on the test. Go study. Skirt too short. Don't even think about going.”
He was a social, charismatic guy and he had this thick head of gray, fluffy hair that women would literally stop him on the street to touch. [audience laughter] And me falling behind him was kind of cramping his style. [audience laughter] This life isn't really what he wanted for me. There was like a power shift that happened, because he was always in control. But as he got sicker, he didn't really want to accept his decline. There were canes and walkers in my house that just went untouched in the closet. So, I became even more paranoid. I realized there were so many things that I had taken for granted, like playing music on my headphones, or closing my bedroom door or just leaving him alone. Months passed without incident, and I just like was fed up watching all the family reruns on Tuesday afternoons.
So, I got a part time job at a real estate company as a receptionist. My first day, I put on my high heels once again and I just-- I felt normal. I was so happy when I got back, because I actually had a day to talk about. I get to my building. And my doorman, he sees me and he's like, “Oh, your dad just left.” I looked at him like-- He was new. So, I was like, I think he's mistaking me for somebody else. He doesn't know who my dad actually is. He's like, “No. The ambulance just took him.”
My family, they didn't want to ruin my day by telling me my dad had a mini stroke. He was fine. We were eating sushi the next day, but I felt like somebody ripped that good daughter wrap right off of me. He never actually told me that he wanted me around. I didn't really realize that he appreciated me until we had kind of a hard day where we saw a nephrologist, a hematologist and worst of all, a mechanic. [audience laughter] I was helping him into bed and his weight was leaning on me. He was surprised at how securely I held him. I was pulling up the comforter over him, and he looks at me and he says, “Iman, you're strong.” I knew in that moment that he appreciated that I was there. I didn't say anything except, I love you, after, I ran my hands through his soft hair.
Two more years had passed, and we kept taking walks and going to the gym and watching Archie Bunker, berate the meathead. Until one day, a few months before my 26th birthday, my dad fell and I wasn't there to catch him. He was in a coma for three weeks. My family, we broke up the day into shifts and I took the night shift. So, I would put my headphones in his ear and play Frank Sinatra's My Way, which was his favorite song, hoping the lyrics would wake him up. It didn't work. The doctors, they called the time of death at 07:52 AM. And at 07:53, the countdown for his funeral began, because Muslims have to be buried the same day they die.
The hospital didn't really understand the urgency of the situation and I really didn't either, until my mom looked at my dad and was like, “Don't let him be put in the fridge.” I knew that it didn't matter that we didn't plan, he had to be buried today, this had to get done. Muslim Funerals 101, “Don't wait till your dad dies to plan the funeral.” So, what do you need for a funeral? You need a Muslim funeral home to prepare the body for burial, you need a Muslim cemetery space to be buried in, you need friends who will pray for your dad and to hug you when you cry. So, we spent time just trying to get all these things done.
Eight hours later, there I am back in the parking lot, no idea where my dad is, calling the driver. Calls are going straight to voicemail. My mom and I are just like, heartbroken. I'm watching her with these blood pressure pills. I have no idea where my dad is in the 60 miles between my queen's apartment and the only Muslim cemetery in New York. He has to be buried today, but it turns out that cemeteries have hours of operation. The cemetery closes at 05:00. It's 4 o'clock. The cemetery director is like, “You know, I think we need to do this another day.” [chuckles] Just one look at my mom, I knew she couldn't take another day of burying her husband for 30 years.
So, I tell her, “You know what? We're on the way. We're so close.” I guess I'm not a good liar, because she's like, “You know, I think we need to cancel your father's funeral.” I'm like, “No, before you do that, I will pay $500 to keep the men there who will bury my father another hour.” She talks to them and they agree to my bribe. [audience laughter] The hearse finally arrives. And after a quick service where I pray that everything works out in my father's favor when he meets his maker, we head over to the cemetery. The call to prayer, the same one that he whispered in my ear when I was born, is being recited. Once again, for one last time, I'm walking behind my dad.
[cheers and applause]
Kate [00:10:45] That was Iman Ahmed. Iman is an Egyptian-American writer. Her play, Banned premiered off Broadway in September 2021 at Theatre Row. She has participated in multiple writing fellowships, including the Writers Guild Initiative, where she was selected to have her one-act plays read at their annual star-studded gala. In addition to her writing, Iman created the first ever database of Arab-American screenwriters. To see a photo of Iman at The Moth Ball, head to the Extras for this episode on our website, themoth.org/extras.
Our next storyteller is William Nour. William told this at a StorySLAM in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis St. Paul, where theme of the night was Mama Rules. Here's William, live at The Moth.
[cheers and applause]
William: [00:11:43] Good evening. [audience greet back] So, I was in third grade at Sisters of Nazareth Catholic School in Haifa in Palestine. We were preparing for first communion. And our father, Augustine, our parish priest, came to see us at the school, and he told me that I was not ready to go through first communion, maybe next year. I went home and told mom. She was livid. [audience laughter] Next Sunday after church, she cornered him in the office. I was standing by her side as her deputy. [audience laughter] And she said, “Father Augustine, why is my son not going through first communion with the rest of his classmates?”
I'm a little nervous. [chuckles] Looked at me and he said, “Oh, he's not ready. Not all fruit ripens at the same time.” [audience laughter] And she said, “Oh, but all fruit equally are nourished by the same tree at the same time.” [audience laughter] And then, he looked at her and said, “Well, you give your baby milk. And then, when it gets teeth, you give it bread.” She said, “Teeth? You should see the way he eats at home. I can't keep up with him. [audience laughter] He is ready.” I stood there wondering why they were talking about me but talking about food. [audience laughter] And she said, “Well, tell me, Father, why is he not ready?” He said, “He does not understand the mystery of transubstantiation. He doesn't know what communion is.” He looked at me with a piercing look and he said, “Who puts Jesus in the bread, my son? Who puts Jesus in the bread?” I was going, “Who puts Jesus in the bread?”
I looked at mom, she said, “God puts Jesus in the bread. Who else?” He looked at her and he said, “The priest, my daughter, puts Jesus in the bread when he prays over it.” She mumbled something about, “God has nothing to do with it, of course.” And then, she looked at me and she goes, “Oh, okay.” Ruffled my hair and said, “He knows it. Don't you know it, honey? He knows it. Can he go through first communion?”
So, two Sundays later, I was at church, kneeling there, all scrubbed up, angelic looking with a bow tie that I had hated. She had loved it. [audience laughter] I was so excited and scared, like everybody else. All my friends around me and we were like, “Oh, we're going to eat the blood and-- drink the blood and eat the-- drink the wine of Jesus.” [audience laughter] And then, we were so scared like I'm scared right now. [audience laughter]
[cheers and applause]
So, we had it. And it's like, “Oh my God, what's all the fuss? It's like cardboard.” [audience laughter] So, then I start to think, if Father Augustine could put Jesus in the bread just by praying over it for a few seconds, how much more was mother doing in the kitchen for hours on end?” [audience laughter] So, I started to sneak into the kitchen just to see what she was up to. One day, I was tiptoeing in there and I tripped on this box. It had hairy legs with hooves and a jumbled mess of intestines. I think it still had some shit in them. And so, I look on the stove, there was a big vat bubbling steam coming out.
There's mother. Her hair tied up. I must have startled her, because she turned around with a big kitchen knife and screamed, “Aahhh.” And then, I started to scream because I saw right when she moved, there was a head of animal on the counter. She must have skinned it. The teeth were showing, and ears were cut off and she was gouging the eyes. I thought, what kind of sorcery is this woman into? [audience laughter] And I'm like, “Father Augustine was praying Jesus into the bread. Who was she praying into that food? [audience laughter] Whose body and blood have we been lapping up at the table all these years?” [audience laugher] I'm like, “What is that book on the table? Is it magic?” Remember, I was eight. I'm like, “And wait, wait. Was she working for the dark side? [audience laughter] Where is that part of the animal that normal people eat?”
So, flash forward 50 some odd years, I'm at home here in Minneapolis, digging the back of the freezer, and I find this bag and I look at it, it's like, “Oh, my God, Easter date cookies. Oh, my God, these are the ones mom made.” Like, brought it to me two years before she died. They put it in the freezer and I thought, oh, I'm not going to eat them. I'll take them to my brother's house. I won't tell him. At my brother's house, he's making Arabic coffee. I take the bag out, put it on the table. He goes, “You made Easter cookies? Oh, my God, Easter cookies, I love these.” And he goes, “Oh. Hmm. Mom, mom. Mom. You made these? Mom. Tastes like Mom.” I said, “Yeah.” And then, he started to cry and I started to cry and I thought, oh my God, that's what first communion should feel like and taste like.
And still teary eyed. Well, after two years in the freezer, remember, still tastes like her cookies. What magic is that? [audience laughter] So, he takes two cookies and he walks to his unsuspecting boys, two of them slouched on the couch watching cartoons, nine and eight-year-old Tarek and Melek, and he says, “Boys. Take these. Eat them. Tita made them. Remember her?” Tarek shot off the couch, he's like, “Tita's dead.” [audience laughter] “So, yes, Tita is dead. But every year at Easter time, we resurrect her memory and we bring down her recipes and pray her into her favorite cookies.”
[cheers and applause]
Kate: [00:18:02] That was William Nour. William is a Palestinian-Arab born in Nazareth. He grew up in Haifa, where he attended Sisters of Nazareth Catholic School. He moved to the US and graduated with a BA in English at Augustana University in South Dakota. William is an actor, poet, doombeck drummer, birdwatcher and gardener. He lives in Minneapolis with his husband of 26 years. His father taught him to read and to love his mother everything else. To see some photos of William from his first communion, head to the Extras for this episode on our website themoth.org/extras.
That's all for this episode. As we enter a month full of traditions for many of us, I hope yours bring you comfort, renewal and connection. I'm off to dust off my Christmas sheet music, as my father has just sent out the part assignments for our caroling and once again, I'm the alto. [clears throat]
[sings]
All is calm, all is bright.
From all of us here at The Moth, have a story worthy week.
Davy: [00:19:14] Kate Tellers is the storyteller host and director of MothWorks at The Moth. Her story, But Also Bring Cheese, is featured in The Moth's All These Wonders: True Stories about Facing the Unknown, and her writing has appeared on McSweeney's and in The New Yorker.
This episode of The Moth Podcast was produced by Sarah Austin Jenness, Sarah Jane Johnson, Julia Purcell and me, Davy Sumner, with assistance from Jason Richards.
The rest of The Moth’s leadership team includes Catherine Burns, Sarah Haberman, Jenifer Hixson, Meg Bowles, Kate Tellers, Jennifer Birmingham, Marina Klutse, Suzanne Rust, Brandon Grant, Inga Glodowski and Aldi Kaza. All Moth stories are true, as remembered by storytellers.
For more about our podcast, information on pitching your own story and everything else, visit our website, themoth.org. The Moth Podcast is presented by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange, helping make public radio more public at prx.org.