Mortality: The Moth Radio Hour

This week, an episode about our relationship with death: stories from the great beyond and back again. Body transport, mysterious disappearances, and life-or-death crushes. Hosted and produced by Moth Director, Chloe Salmon. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by The Moth and Jay Allison of Atlantic Public Media. Storytellers: Maxie Jones puts his superstitions aside for an unusual side gig. Following a near-fatal car accident, Zainab Johnson develops a powerful crush. After her grandfather's funeral, Jillian Sousley’s grandmother gets creative with the burial. Eileen O'Brien reopens the case of her sister, who has been missing for 30 years. Podcast # 1006

• 0:13Speaker 00

  This is The Moth Radio Hour. I'm your host, Chloé Salmon.

• 0:19Speaker 00

  One of my favorite shows we do at The Moth takes place in a cemetery. The Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn, to be exact. I think it's one of the most beautiful places in the city. Almost 500 acres of trees, winding paths, and a quiet that is rarely found here. I sometimes get raised eyebrows when I tell people about the show, and I get it. Most folks aren't super comfortable talking or even thinking about death. And yet, our show at Greenwood is one of our fastest-selling events of the year. And I wonder if it's because the setting offers a chance to engage with mortality in a way that bypasses that discomfort. Every June, over 700 people enter the enormous gates,

• 1:02Speaker 00

  walk through the grounds to the stage, and find a seat. The sun sets, the fireflies come out, and we're all ready to gather among the dead to listen to stories full of life. I like to imagine that Greenwood's permanent residents also enjoy the show, and the company most of all. So in this episode, stories that embrace, rebuff, outsmart, and make peace with death.

• 1:29Speaker 00

  Our first story is from Maxie Jones. Here he is, live at The Moth.

• 1:44Speaker 01

  It's February 1988. I had just recently graduated from college, came back home to New York, and just started my first job as a teacher.

• 1:56Speaker 01

  One of my coworkers lost a family member really, really close to him, so to show support, I decided to go to the funeral.

• 2:04Speaker 01

  I got to the funeral home really early, and no one was there except the funeral director, Anthony. And I looked at him, and I said, "Dude, you look familiar. I think I went to another funeral home recently, and you were the funeral director there." He said, "I probably was." He said, "Because I don't work at just one funeral home, I work at several funeral homes around Queens, and I contract myself out."

• 2:29Speaker 01

  He said, "But you know what? I could do so much better if I just didn't have to go into Manhattan every day to pick up those bodies." I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "You familiar with the chief medical examiner's office?"

• 2:44Speaker 01

  He said, "If I could just get somebody..." He was pointing at me.

• 2:51Speaker 01

  "If I could just get somebody to go there every day and pick up those bodies, I could do so much better." I said, "Shh, pick up bodies. I don't want nothing to do with death or dead people. I'm too superstitious for that." He said, "Well, I'll tell you what. In case you change your mind, I'll pay you $100 a body." I said, "Shut up."

• 3:20Speaker 01

  Because I was broke. So I just pushed those superstitions aside.

• 3:27Speaker 01

  You see, I had just recently graduated from college, just started a new teaching job, and because I wasn't certified, I was making like minimum wage as a teacher. I was sleeping on my sister's couch and still driving my old car from college. I needed myself a good hustle. And in 1988, $100 a body was some good money. So I turned to him, and I said, "100 dollars a body?" He said, "Yeah." And he said, "You know what? Since I know that you don't like to mess with bodies, I'll make sure that when you go to get them, someone will bring them out and put them in the car. And then when you bring them back to me,

• 4:11Speaker 01

  I'll have someone come out and get them. And all you have to do is drive."

• 4:19Speaker 01

  I said, "When do I start?"

• 4:22Speaker 01

  He said, "You can start tomorrow." So the next day, I got off work. I went to the funeral home. Anthony met me. He handed me a set of keys. And I was like, "This dude's got his own hearse." He said, "I want you to take that car, go to the chief medical examiner's office, tell them I sent you, and they know what to do." I went. I got in the hearse. And the thing is, I had a Cadillac before, so I was used to driving a Cadillac. But I'd never had a Cadillac that just had front seats.

• 4:52Speaker 01

  And it had a window right here, like in a taxi cab. So I'm driving into Manhattan, and I'm driving fast so I could get it done real quickly. And I notice people keep staring at me. And I'm like, "Why do people keep..." "Oh, I'm driving a hearse. You don't drive a hearse fast.

• 5:15Speaker 01

  It's the visual."

• 5:20Speaker 01

  So I started driving slowly. Not slowly like I was leading a funeral procession, but slowly.

• 5:30Speaker 01

  And the more slowly I drove, the more time I had to realize what it was I was about to do. I was like, "I'm getting ready to do what? Pick up a dead body? Am I crazy or something? What was I thinking? Man, let me turn this thing around." Then I was like, "No, I can't do that. Because if I go back without a body, I'm not going to get paid."

• 5:55Speaker 01

  So the closer I got to the chief medical examiner's office, the more and more and more I became engulfed with fear.

• 6:06Speaker 01

  When I got there, just like he said. I said, "Anthony sent me." The guys came out. They brought the body out, fully covered in the body bag, slid it into the back of the car. The guy tapped the side of the car and said, "She's all set." I looked in the rearview mirror just to make sure everything was okay back there.

• 6:24Speaker 01

  And it was then that I noticed I saw that the feet were way to the back, which meant that the head was right here behind my seat.

• 6:35Speaker 01

  I said, "Okay.

• 6:38Speaker 01

  I could do this. Come on, Maxie. You could do this." So I started driving. I'm driving. I'm talking to myself. I'm like, "See, man, that wasn't too bad. You could do this."

• 6:51Speaker 01

  And after a while, when I realized everything was all right, I had turned up the radio, and I was like, "I just got paid."

• 7:02Speaker 01

  I got to the Queensborough Bridge. It's starting to get dark out.

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  I'm still driving like I'm driving a hearse. It's rush hour. Cars are driving past me. I turned the radio down to a nice level because it is a hearse.

• 7:22Speaker 01

  I got halfway over the bridge, and boom, I hit a pothole. Car went up. Everything went up. Body came back down, whoo.

• 7:35Speaker 01

  And as soon as the body landed, I heard a woman's voice right over my shoulder said, "Ah."

• 7:53Speaker 01

  I froze.

• 7:56Speaker 01

  Fear shot straight through my body.

• 8:00Speaker 01

  I looked in the rearview mirror. I said, "Huh?

• 8:05Speaker 01

  What?

• 8:08Speaker 01

  Did you say something?"

• 8:14Speaker 01

  I didn't get an answer. I didn't know if that was good or bad.

• 8:20Speaker 01

  I said, "Okay, maybe they're trying to prank me. Maybe this was a prank." So I was like, "All right, that's it. The prank is over. This ain't funny. The prank is over." Still no answer.

• 8:33Speaker 01

  And I said to myself, "All right, this ain't no prank. That's really a dead body back there." I was like, "Okay, maybe I got a zombie in the back of the car."

• 8:46Speaker 01

  And I was just so scared, and I'm on this bridge. And since I'm on the bridge, I can't pull over because if I could have, I would have pulled over and just left that car right there.

• 8:58Speaker 01

  And then I remembered something my mother told me when I was a kid. My mother said, "Maxie, if you ever find yourself afraid of the dead, curse at them." She said, "You gotta curse the dead."

• 9:13Speaker 01

  So I looked in the rearview mirror, and I was like, "Are you dead, motherfucker?

• 9:18Speaker 01

  Huh? Are you dead? You better be dead, motherfucker, because if you're not, I'm gonna kill you myself."

• 9:30Speaker 01

  When I got off the bridge, I stepped on it, and I drove all the way back to the funeral home. Speeding. I didn't care I was driving a hearse. So what? Speeding, staring in the rearview mirror, and cursing.

• 9:48Speaker 01

  I got back to the funeral home. I pulled in the parking lot, blew the horn, and just like he said, two guys came out to greet me. So one guy came. He started trying to back me in. And as soon as I saw him in my rearview mirror, I said, "Nope." Threw the car in park, hopped out, and I was like, "Nope. You take it. I'm out of here." The guys were like, "What?" I was like, "No, forget it. I'm out of here. You take it." And I got in my car, and I headed home. And on my way home, I was like, "See? See, Maxie? Ain't nothing wrong with this car. You don't need a new car.

• 10:25Speaker 01

  You can sleep on your sister's couch, but no big deal."

• 10:32Speaker 01

  When I got home, there was a message on my answering machine. "Maxie, this is Anthony. Give me a call when you get this message." I called him. He said, "Maxie, what happened?" I said, "She talked."

• 10:48Speaker 01

  The body in the back of the car, it talked.

• 10:53Speaker 01

  "What did it say?" "I don't know. It said something like, 'Ah,' something like that. I don't know."

• 11:00Speaker 01

  "Maxie, by any chance, did you like slam on the brakes or hit a bump?" I was like, "Yeah, I hit a pothole." He said, "Well, you know, Maxie, sometimes the bodies still have air in it. And if you hit a bump or something like that, it pushes the air out. And if it comes out of the mouth, then you hear a voice."

• 11:18Speaker 01

  I said, "If it comes out of the mouth, you hear a voice?

• 11:22Speaker 01

  You say that before."

• 11:29Speaker 01

  He said, "So you want to come back tomorrow?" I was like, "Oh, no, over my dead body."

• 11:38Speaker 01

  I was so through with him, he asked me next, "So what about the money?" I was like, "What money?" He said, "A hundred dollars." I was like, "Oh, I don't need no hundred dollars."

• 11:49Speaker 01

  I refused to go to that same funeral home after that for years, because any time I would go, I would think that that same body is waiting in the back to talk to me again.

• 12:01Speaker 01

  A few years later, I lived in Harlem. And in Harlem, I got to know a few hustlers. And this one guy, he came up to me. He said, "Hey, man, you know, I see you working real hard, man. You know, maybe you want to make a little extra money? He said, "I got a way you could make some nice money." I was like, "Really? How?" He said, "All you gotta do is drive."

• 12:22Speaker 01

  I said, "No, no, man, that sounds scary already. I'll take a pass. Thank you."

• 12:34Speaker 00

  That was Maxie Jones. He's a native of the Bronx, New York, who first started telling stories at moth slams in Detroit and Ann Arbor. He's told over 125 stories and counting since then, one of which was published in Reader's Digest. At a Mothmate stage, we ask each storyteller the same question before the show starts and use their answer to introduce them to the stage. For the Greenwood Cemetery Show I mentioned earlier, it's a bit of a moth tradition for the question to be, "What do you want written on your tombstone?" So I asked each storyteller in this episode the same question. Maxie's answer? He did it his way.

• 13:16Speaker 00

  In a moment, a hospital romance and a resting place that isn't so final, when The Moth Radio Hour continues.

• 13:37Speaker 02

  The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

• 13:43Speaker 03

  The Moth is sponsored by the 75 Million Campaign, a national movement fighting for the 75 million women in America's workforce to have fair wages, paid sick leave, and freedom from discrimination. Recently, the 75 Million Campaign introduced the Working Women's Bill of Rights Resolution to Congress. This is a national women's policy agenda that calls for paid sick leave, modern labor laws that value women's work, increased wages for women, and ending workplace discrimination. The project is co-led by the National Partnership for Women and Families and the National Women's Law Center, which have convened a broad coalition of organizations with proven track records of advancing the rights and economic security of women workers across the country. To learn more about the 75 Million Campaign

• 14:27Speaker 03

  and working women's rights in America, visit the75million.org. That's T-H-E-7-5-M-I-L-L-I-O-N dot O-R-G.

• 14:37Speaker 00

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• 15:22Speaker 00

  From a great deal today to a great value tomorrow, a Toyota is right for you. Shoptoyota.com for deals and details or stop by your local Toyota dealer today. Toyota, let's go places.

• 15:35Speaker 00

  This is The Moth Radio Hour. I'm Chloee Salmon, and in this episode, we're hearing stories about two-stepping with the great beyond. Zainab Johnson told this story at a main stage at Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in Portland, Oregon, where we were presented by Literary Arts. Here's Zainab, live at The Moth.

• 15:57Speaker 04

  I have never been a good multitasker. If you're talking to me and I'm texting, just know I haven't heard a word you've said. I find that I work the same way emotionally. I can only handle one major emotional event at a time, which is why I never really understood, like, end-of-the-world movies where the main characters decide to make passionate love, knowing the zombies are right outside the door.

• 16:28Speaker 04

  A major emotional event happened for me when I was 17 years old. I was a senior in high school. I was succeeding as a student athlete. I just found out I was cute.

• 16:44Speaker 04

  I was filled with nothing but optimism for the future. And then I got hit by a truck. Unexpectedly.

• 16:59Speaker 04

  You can't plan for these things.

• 17:05Speaker 04

  The last thing that I remember is I was in a car with my friend. We were laughing, and then the car shut off. And then I got out and to push the back of the car. And then I woke up in an ambulance. Briefly. Long enough to see that I was covered in blood. And then I woke up days later in a hospital. And just like that, my annoying hopefulness turned into fear and despair. I was told that I was hit by a drunk driver. I had broken legs. I had skin damage, nerve damage, and I did not know if I'd walk again.

• 17:46Speaker 04

  This is tough for anybody, but especially for a teenager. But I had my sister. I had my older sister. She was there for me. Now, here's the thing. I am one of 13. Here's the thing about being one of 13. You always have somebody that's there for you. Now, if this was like a TV show or a movie, I would have woken up in a hospital with my parents by my side. But that's also the thing about being one of so many siblings, especially younger ones. My parents are always juggling multiple emotional events. But my sister, my sister, she came to my rescue so fast.

• 18:31Speaker 04

  My sister, she's a natural nurturer. She's also the shortest of us all, so she has an extra desire to feel useful.

• 18:45Speaker 04

  This really worked in my favor because immediately, my sister showed up to that hospital. She took care of me. She made sure that the nurses and doctors didn't neglect me. She fed me. She cleaned me. I mean, she literally wiped my ass, you guys. She was the reason that my mom was able to stay at home with my younger siblings. She was the reason why my father didn't have to miss too much work. During that time in my life, my sister, she wasn't just my sister. She was my guardian. She was my protector. She was my advocate. She was my friend. She was my audience when I would wake up out of my morphine comas

• 19:29Speaker 04

  with a spirited opinion.

• 19:37Speaker 04

  During that time, I also had a friend come visit me. He would come by most days. Let's call this friend M. And this is something that I never told anyone, but I had the biggest crush on M. He was funny. He was jovial. He was cute. He smelled good. He was a little bit older than me. He always knew stuff about stuff.

• 20:03Speaker 04

  I was always, when he came around, I was completely charmed. Like, really smitten. It's quite embarrassing, actually. But that was a really tough time for me, and he always gave me something to look forward to. Now, he didn't see me the same way. He saw me as a friend, at best, a younger sister. But in my mind, I was gonna get a little bit older and then confess to him, like, "I've had this crush on you." And he was gonna tell me he loved me all along. And then we were gonna ride off in the sunset and live happily ever after. You guys have seen Clueless.

• 20:42Speaker 04

  He was the Paul Rudd to my Cher.

• 20:47Speaker 04

  Also, I figured, like, at this point, he's seen me at my worst, right? It only is uphill from here.

• 20:56Speaker 04

  So I'm in a hospital for about four weeks at this point. I'm doing better. I'm no longer in ICU, but I still can't walk, and I still don't know if I'll ever be able to walk. But I'm really excited today because I know that M is coming by, and I finally look, like, better. I finally look cute. Earlier that day, the nurse had finally cleaned the blood out of my scalp and gave me new braids. It wasn't glamorous, but I still felt like new hair, hootis.

• 21:30Speaker 04

  M walks in the room, and to my surprise, he has two women with him. And I was like, "New girls, hootis." I wanted to pull him to the side and be like, "Harpo, hootis women?

• 21:49Speaker 04

  None of y'all seen Color Purple? Okay."

• 21:56Speaker 04

  I checked them out, you know, they were polite, they were nice, they were beautiful. They were like that effortless beautiful that you take for granted when you're like 22 years old. You know, M said that he was having car trouble and that they gave him a ride to the hospital that day, but I looked at them, they were just like me, they were charmed. If he would have said that he needed to get to China, they would have figured out a way across the Indian Ocean.

• 22:25Speaker 04

  I really didn't want them to be there, I wanted him all to myself, but what was I going to do, get up and walk out?

• 22:33Speaker 04

  So I just invited them in and I let the M show begin. I noticed that the more comfortable everybody got, the more uncomfortable my sister got. And I was like, oh, hmm, ah, we got some sister telepathy happening. She's being slightly rude, you know, because she knows I don't want them around my man.

• 22:58Speaker 04

  I'm thinking that we had silently decided to play good cop, bad cop, in service of my happily ever after, right?

• 23:08Speaker 04

  Then I noticed it got a little bit more awkward and I was like, oh, wait, maybe, maybe she really is mad. So after a while, you know, M and his ride leaves, and I asked my sister, I was like, is everything okay, like, did, did mom and dad call you, or did the doctor say something? Like, you seem really bothered. And she told me that her and M had been seeing each other for the past few weeks. First of all, a few is three, I only been in the hospital for four.

• 23:50Speaker 04

  I, my sister and my crush, I was crushed. Also, this whole time, I thought she was being rude for me, she was being rude for herself?

• 24:07Speaker 04

  She tells me that one day when I was in surgery, he came and he brought her lunch. And since then, he had been coming by and supporting her whenever I was going through something major at the hospital, he was the one that sat with her, that comforted her. And the night before, they were able to have a date outside of the hospital, and one thing led to another, and they did it.

• 24:40Speaker 04

  I really, you guys, first of all, I felt betrayed, I wanted to drop down to my knees and scream, no! Because here's the other thing about being one of so many siblings, I have had to share everything.

• 24:57Speaker 04

  I share my room, I share my clothing, I share my food, and now I gotta share my crush?

• 25:06Speaker 04

  I was devastated. But I just listened. I listened, I kept my face surprisingly still.

• 25:18Speaker 04

  I let my sister talk it out. At the time, I was able to tap into her POV. I thought, oh, this must have been tough for her. She's a young girl who saw her sister, her younger sister, moments after she'd been hit by a truck. And she was given the task by my parents to make sure that I made out of it okay. She should be seeing the world, not sitting here taking care of me. And then this charming guy came around and made it seem like it was about her for a brief moment.

• 26:00Speaker 04

  In that moment, as much as we were both brokenhearted, I decided to allow her broken heart to live.

• 26:09Speaker 04

  I think it was my way of saying thank you. I mean, she, she did wipe my ass.

• 26:23Speaker 04

  I recovered eventually, and thankfully, I can walk.

• 26:34Speaker 04

  But I do sometimes think back to that time when I was 17 years old. At that time, I was juggling so many new emotions. I was scared, I was fragile, I was confused, but I was also tasked with protecting my sister's heart.

• 27:12Speaker 00

  That was Zainab Johnson, a stand-up comedian, actor, and writer from New York City, best known for playing Alicia on the Amazon series Upload and her debut special, Hijabs Off. She says she never did tell her sister about her crush on M, though she wouldn't be surprised if it made its way through the 12 sibling grapevine at some point. She'll certainly hear about it now.

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  And what does Zainab want on her tombstone? She was everyone's, quote, "friend in their head."

• 27:48Speaker 00

  Next up, we have Jillian Sousley, who told this at a Story Slam in the Twin Cities. Here's Gillian.

• 27:59Speaker 05

  So, I am at my grandfather's memorial service, and I'm sitting on a bench, talking with my grandma. And we're far enough away from the door that we don't cause, like, get attention, but close enough that she can see as people are coming in. And when my Aunt Sue Ann comes in the door, she goes, you know, Sue's mad at me. She doesn't like that your grandfather left everything to me. And she was his second wife, but they'd been married for like 50 years, so of course, like, everything would go to grandma. And she continues on and says, Sue says that because he was her father, half should go to her, but she's not getting anything, at least not yet. And she gets up, and she goes to start greeting people at the door, but suddenly, she turns

• 28:44Speaker 05

  back to me and she goes, oh, good, the rest of your grandfather arrived. And that was a statement that confused me, considering we were at his memorial service. So she says, the lockets around your cousin's neck, they contain parts of your grandfather. I wonder which parts of them they got. Oh, it'd be so dark in there all day if they had one of his eyeballs. And then she leans in and whispers, but what if they got one of his testicles?

• 29:13Speaker 05

  So she walks away, and my mom walks up, and I ask her, do you know about the drama with Sue Ann and the parts of grandpa? And she nods, and she says, you know, if one of them got a finger, I hope it was Sue Ann and that it was the middle one.

• 29:28Speaker 05

  So, so my grandpa's funeral memorial service is at this church they've gone to for 25 years. It's amazing to see all the people there, like, well over 100 celebrating his life. He lived to be 95 years old, was a World War II vet, so he was given a 21-gun salute, the flag folding ceremony, the presentation to my grandma. And it was really unexpected that it was part of the service, and I was moved when they sounded taps for my grandpa that one last time. And after he was beautifully celebrated, I thought the day was done, we were going home, finding a place on the mantle for his urn, but we weren't. My grandma said she wanted to go plant flowers at his parents' grave.

• 30:12Speaker 05

  So my mom's husband, my siblings, grandma, mom, and I, we get into a car, and we drive to the cemetery. And when we arrive, she pulls out a shovel and hands it to my brother, she gives a potted plant to my mother, and takes my grandpa's ashes. And we walk to the plot, and when we get there, she points down to the ground and goes, Jordan, start digging. That's where we're gonna bury your grandfather. And all of us sort of stop. And my mom goes, what are we going to do, mother? And shaking her head, she's like, well, the cemetery one is $7,500 to bury in here. And I thought, heck, we can do it for free. Jordan, right on top of his mother.

• 30:52Speaker 05

  Make sure you get the grass nice, I don't want anyone to know. Now, I don't know if any of you have been part of an illegal burial before, but this, this is my first time, so I'm like looking around for cameras. I mean, I know this is what grandma wants, presumably she's talked to grandpa about it, but still, we're, we're breaking the law, we're burying him in someone else's grave, but my brother's just like digging away. And so, we're all like clustering close, standing in like, nothing to see here type of poses. But my, but, you know, soon enough, the hole is dug, my grandpa's ashes are inside the hole, and we all take some dirt, and we sprinkle it on top, and then we hold hands,

• 31:34Speaker 05

  and my sister says a prayer, and I start crying because this, this felt final, this was his funeral. And as my brother is placing dirt on top, my grandma tells him to make sure he's nice and snug, because she doesn't want him getting cold. And my grandma, my brother goes, well, what about the plant? And grandma goes, oh, that was just decoy, in case it got hot. And burying that, I'm planting that in my backyard. So, my grandma lives in northern Indiana, I call her multiple times throughout the week to, you know, we like to connect with her, pass this time through traffic. And so about six months later, she's telling me about a cookie recipe, and then she just subtly drops, oh, I moved your grandfather. And I was like, you moved my grand, how did you move him? Where did you move him?

• 32:19Speaker 05

  And she says, well, the army called, and said that since he was a World War II vet, he could be in our local mausoleum. And I thought, yeah, you'd like that. So my 78-year-old grandmother and her 82-year-old sister got another decoy plant and went and dug my grandpa back up. So I'm telling her that I'm gonna tell this story at the moth, and she goes, do you want to know something no one else knows?

• 32:43Speaker 05

  Well, of course I do. And she goes, well, talking like she just picked him up in a Notre Dame game, not dug his ashes up. Well, he was a little soggy when we got him out of the ground. And I didn't, I didn't want the army people to know that I had already buried him. So I put him out on a couple of cookie sheets to dry him out. But it was a little windy that day. So a few parts of her grandfather flew into the cornfield behind the house. But I don't think he'd mind. You know how he liked looking at that cornfield. And I couldn't help but laughing because, because my grandpa was 23 years older than

• 33:25Speaker 05

  my grandma, but he lived to be so old and vibrant through those 95 years because I always thought she kept him moving in life. And so really, why would his death be any different? Thank you.

• 33:47Speaker 00

  Gillian Southley was born in South Bend, Indiana, and lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota. When not illegally burying family remains, she listens to audiobooks out on the deck, enjoys everything Minnesota has to offer, and plays with her dog Adelaide. Gillian's grandma, also known as my personal hero after hearing this story, was over the moon when Gillian called to ask if she'd be OK with it airing and also assured her that there were no more secret relocations to share. The words Gillian wants on her tombstone? Final resting place. Do not move.

• 34:28Speaker 00

  In a moment, a story of finding closure after a loved one goes missing when The Moth Radio Hour continues.

• 34:44Speaker 02

  The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

• 34:51Speaker 06

  Do you ever wish you could ask nosey questions about people's money? I have $729.71 in my bank account. We bought, you know, a $1.3 million house on a $350,000 income. On the podcast What We Spend, we ask those questions. It's a show about money and all the feelings that come with spending it.

• 35:09Speaker 05

  I want to be the kind of person who can just take care of the people in my life.

• 35:14Speaker 06

  Listen to What We Spend, an Odyssey original, available now wherever you get your podcasts.

• 35:22Speaker 00

  This is The Moth Radio Hour. I'm Chloe Salmon. In this episode, we're listening to stories of how we engage with mortality, both our own and that of our loved ones. Our final story is told by Eileen O'Brien, who shared it in Boston, where we were presented by the Wilbur Theater and public radio station GBH. Here's Eileen, live at the bar.

• 35:46Speaker 05

  In 2014, I was watching a true crime show about the discovery of seven unidentified women in Arizona who'd been murdered by a serial killer. Listening, I felt compelled to Google missing persons and unidentified remains, which I know sounds weird, but I've honestly done that a million times before. This time, though, a website came up that I had never seen. It was called NamUs, N-A-M-U-S. NamUs.gov, a database created in 2005 to centralize information and DNA on missing

• 36:31Speaker 05

  persons and unidentified remains. When I opened the site, I got this rush of energy. And in that moment, I knew, I mean, I just knew that I needed to get my DNA into NamUs. But let me explain, and it will make sense. My sister Marguerite went missing in 1985. She was 30 years old, an addict, and a drifter, so exactly when in 85 was unclear because she could go weeks without contact.

• 37:12Speaker 05

  But eventually, her daughter Nicole always got a letter or a call letting us know where she was. It was in the fall of 85 when we realized that no one, not even Nicole, had heard from Marguerite in months. And that raised a red flag. A missing person report was filed and a search began, but it's difficult to find a homeless person. And we grew up here in Melrose. Marguerite was two years older than me and a lot tougher. She feared nothing. And even when she was afraid, she would never admit it. Me, on the other hand, I feared like just about everything.

• 37:57Speaker 05

  But as kids, we were focused on how to feel safe in a violent alcoholic home. And I felt safe with Marguerite because she looked out for me, like when I was 10 and she taught me how to steal so I could have things I wanted. Or when I was 11 and she taught me how to escape through the magic of alcohol and drugs. In my world, in our world, this was love. In a home where love could seem absent, we found love. It was unspoken, though. She never said she loved me out loud, but I knew she did. I think it was just too painful for her to feel love out loud.

• 38:41Speaker 05

  When she was 19, Marguerite had a baby, and she stayed clean while she was pregnant because she was happy then. And when her daughter Nicole was born, she was in awe of the love that she felt. I was only 17, and I tried to help her care for Nicole, but after a while, we drifted apart as I went off on my own journey into that magic of alcohol and drugs. When Nicole was five, she was removed from Marguerite's custody and placed in the care of our oldest sister. Without her daughter to anchor her, Marguerite spiraled into her addiction, but she kept in touch with Nicole.

• 39:25Speaker 05

  She never gave up hope of regaining custody. I remember she called me one time from a payphone in New York. She told me she was hitchhiking from Massachusetts to California. Her plan was to get sober, start a new life, and come back for Nicole. I told her I was struggling with my own addiction now, and I was very worried about losing my two boys. "Not you too," she said, and she cried. She was so afraid that I was going to end up like her.

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  Saying goodbye, we promised each other that we would get sober and we would be good mothers. But that would be the last time we ever spoke. And when Marguerite stopped writing to Nicole, I just knew she must be dead. I often thought I felt her presence, like she was watching over me, reminding me of that promise we'd made to get sober. And I wanted to get sober, but I couldn't do it, until this one day when I came to on my living room floor. I don't know how long I'd been unconscious. I had no idea where my two boys were.

• 40:49Speaker 05

  My body was shaking violently. I was desperate, and I begged God, please, I can't live like this anymore. And then I thought I heard Marguerite's voice. I held my breath so I could hear her better. "You're all done, Eileen," I heard her say. And that was the day that I got sober, and I've been sober ever since.

• 41:25Speaker 05

  Thank you so much.

• 41:29Speaker 05

  The search for Marguerite ended with no resolve, but Nicole never stopped looking for her mother. We all wanted to find her, but we didn't know how. I was haunted by thoughts of her dying, terrified and alone. In my heart, I just knew that she needed her daughter to know that she had not just forgotten about her. And I wanted to do that for her. So when I found NamUs that night in 2014, I inquired about me and Nicole, who was now 40, submitting our DNA, and was told, we need to work with law enforcement.

• 42:13Speaker 05

  I called a friend of mine, who was then chief of police in Salem, and told him my story. He assigned a reluctant and skeptical detective to work with us, who eventually did get our DNA into NamUs. It was one evening, several months later, when two police officers knocked on my door. "Are you Eileen O'Brien?" "Yes." "Eileen, did you submit your DNA to NamUs?"

• 42:48Speaker 05

  "Yes." My heart was pounding. "There's been a match to a Jane Doe," he said. And suddenly, I just felt like I was floating, like I left my body. And I could see he was still talking, but I couldn't hear him anymore. All I could hear was, "There's been a match to a Jane Doe," echoing in my head. "Ms. O'Brien," he was shouting. "Are you okay?" "It's my sister," I told him. "She's been missing for 30 years." He handed me a flip of paper.

• 43:30Speaker 05

  "This is a number for a detective in California. He's waiting for your call." So I pulled myself together, and I called Detective Bob Hunter, who told me that on August 3, 1985, a young woman was struck and killed by a truck when trying to cross a busy road. He was a new officer in Fontana, California, and was called to the scene of the accident. He said he was with Marguerite when she died. She had no ID, and unable to identify her,

• 44:08Speaker 05

  they labeled her Jane Doe #1385, and she was buried in the county's Doe Cemetery. "I never forgot about her," he told me. "I knew that someone, somewhere, had to be missing her." He'd even taken her earrings from her belongings and placed them in a case file, and he still had them. I spent that night imagining Marguerite's last moments, wondering, had she meant to step in front of that truck, or was it an accident? It

• 44:44Speaker 05

  was a long and sleepless night. I was ecstatic, but at the same time, my grief was just so heavy, I could barely lift my head. And I was at Nicole's door early the next morning, but before I could even speak, she said, "I know why you're here. You found my mother, didn't you?" "I did," I said. And we held on to each other as a tsunami of emotions

• 45:22Speaker 05

  washed over us. Then, as I shared Detective Hunter's story, I could feel Nicole's relief. It was almost as deep as her grief. "I want to bring her home," she told me. "I want to bury her with Grandma." And I agreed. We could not leave her there. In June of 2015, Nicole and I flew to California to pick up Marguerite's remains. At the funeral home, we were led around back to the Doe Cemetery. It was a dirt lot, surrounded by a chain-link fence. The ground was barren, cracked, and dry. Off to the right was an

• 46:07Speaker 05

  orange cone, marking where she'd been buried, nameless and alone. Inside the funeral home, we were led to a viewing room, where I heard beautiful music and saw a small table with the urn Nicole had chosen for her mother's ashes. "Mommy," I heard Nicole say. She ran towards that table. And then, everything she'd needed to say for 30 years just came pouring out of her with so much love. I stood a few feet in back of her, watching, overwhelmed with sadness and gratitude, but mostly, I felt reconciled to that longing I'd held

• 46:52Speaker 05

  to reunite Marguerite with her daughter and just to be for her what she had been for me. A light shining into the darkness and an undeniable source of love. Sorry. We buried Marguerite with my parents on a beautiful summer day. Approaching the grave, the sun highlighted her name on the stone. "Marguerite Eileen O'Brien." Sorry. Standing side by side, Nicole and I breathed in every aspect of these final moments. The

• 47:32Speaker 05

  rustling of the trees in the warm breeze, the thoughtfully placed colorful bursts of flowers, and the peaceful beauty of the grounds. I recalled the Doe Cemetery, where she'd been alone for so long. Then, finally, I felt at peace. With her mother's earrings in her pocket, Nicole held her mother's remains close to her body. Then, inhaling deeply, she knelt down and she gently placed that urn into the grave. After a long silence, I slipped my hand into hers, and we walked away. Thank you.

• 48:29Speaker 00

  That was Eileen O'Brien. And what would she like written on her tombstone? Never say never. This was such a sweeping, grand story that I wanted to sit down with Eileen to hear a bit more about some of the details. We connected over Zoom.

• 48:47Speaker 05

  I really did feel, after I told the story and the reaction, when people clapped all of a sudden, or laughed, or went silent, I felt like they were hearing it. And the feedback was, because I wasn't looking for a good job kind of a thing, there was an emotional, human connection in so many people that experience, especially are impacted by addiction, and what that does to a family, and the trajectory of so many that can't climb up out of it. There were so many that came up to me with stories of loss, you know,

• 49:28Speaker 05

  where they didn't get the same closure, or their person died right there in front of them. And, you know, I was grateful to have made that connection with them, like, because for me, it was about the love. Like, it's so hard to tell people you still love that person, because they think that you shouldn't, because they're so hard. They make it hard to love them, you know? So unconditional love becomes like something you keep to yourself, you know, and let everybody say all the nasty things they want to say. So I love, too, that a lot of that fell away with my own family, when the whole story was said and

• 50:13Speaker 05

  done, because some were still holding on to, she was nothing but trouble, you know? And then it spiked memories of, it wasn't always like that.

• 50:28Speaker 00

  That was Eileen O'Brien. The night she told the story in Boston was what would have been Marguerite's 71st birthday. When the show's host heard, she asked if it would be okay to share with the audience, which led to 1,000 people singing "Happy Birthday" to Marguerite. Marguerite's daughter Nicole, who was in the audience that night, said it was the first time she'd ever sung her mother "Happy Birthday."

• 50:54Speaker 05

  Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, Marguerite. Happy birthday to you. Come on.

• 51:16Speaker 00

  That's it for this episode. Thank you to our storytellers for sharing with us, and to you for listening. And I'll leave you with the same question that was asked and answered throughout this episode. What do you want written on your tombstone? As for The Moth, ours would probably say, we hope you'll join us next time.

• 51:48Speaker 02

  This episode of The Moth Radio Hour was produced by me, Jay Allison, and Chloe Salmon, who also hosted and directed the stories in the show. Co-producer is Vicky Merrick, associate producer Emily Couch. The Moth's leadership team includes Gina Duncan, Christina Norman, Marina Kluch, Sarah Austin Janess, Jennifer Hickson, Jordan Cardenale, Caledonia Cairns, Kate Tellers, Suzanne Rust, Sarah Jane Johnson, and Patricia Urenia. Moth stories are true as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Our theme music is by The Drift. Other music in this hour from Echo Mandolin Ensemble, Epidemic

• 52:28Speaker 02

  Sound, and Blue Dot Sessions. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Special thanks to our friends at Odyssey, including executive producer Leah Reese Dennis. For more about our podcast, for information on pitching us your own story, which we always hope you'll do, and to learn all about The Moth, go to our website, themoth.org.