Remembering Our Loved Ones Through Story: The Moth Radio Hour

This episode originally aired on April 19th, 2022. In this hour, the people we've loved and lost, their memories preserved in these stories. Mothers, partners, and the colorful residents of a nursing home, with special excerpts from the Moth's audio book. This episode is hosted by Moth Artistic Director, Catherine Burns. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by The Moth and Jay Allison of Atlantic Public Media. Storytellers: Sharon D'Orsie goes on adventures with her aging mother. Adrienne Lotson worries she's not cut out to be a chaplain. Writer Elizabeth Gilbert shares her struggle in dealing with her partner’s terminal illness and what it taught her about living. Podcast # 761

• 0:14Speaker 00

  This is The Moth Radio Hour and I'm Catherine Burns. I've worked at The Moth for more than 20 years and one of my favorite parts of my job is all the people I get to meet. The storytellers, of course, but also their friends and family. There are so many people who I'd never get to meet in real life, but who I've had the privilege of getting to know a little bit when their loved one tells a story about them. This is especially true when a storyteller is talking about someone who has died. Through our stories, we're able to keep the people we love alive long after they leave us. I think of comedian Mike DiStefano's wife, Franny.

• 0:52Speaker 01

  Two weeks later, they sent her out of the hospice because she started to get better. She was like thrown out of hospice for not dying. And only she could pull that off. She was a young Italian girl and she was not interested in suffering and dying. Who is? But she was extra not fucking into it.

• 1:11Speaker 00

  Or Kate Teller's memory of her late mother, Lisa.

• 1:16Speaker 02

  We're laughing about this and she throws her head back like she does. I note the shape of her nose and that her head is so small, she buys her glasses in the children's section at LensCrafters. And I can see this because in the candlelight, I can see the side, the arm of the glasses, where it says, "Harry Potter."

• 1:37Speaker 00

  To tell a story about someone who has died is to conjure them back to life, if only for a few minutes, and allow hundreds and thousands of people to meet them. This week's theme was actually inspired by Sharon Diorcy, whose story about her mother, Adrienne, is the first up in this hour. I loved Adrienne and hope you will too. Sharon told this at the Houston Story Slam, where we partner with Houston Public Media. Here's Sharon Diorcy, live at The Moth.

• 2:16Speaker 03

  Shortly after my dad died, my mom moved in with me. There we were, two single ladies. One widowed, one divorced, separated by 23 years, but joined by 23 chromosomes, and at least 23,000 memories. And that was the start of the adventures for my mother and I. My mother was smart, she was kind, resourceful, and feisty.

• 2:55Speaker 03

  She also was petite, about the size of a chickeny. And she quickly determined that her favorite adventure was going to an expensive restaurant for dinner, and she would order two lemon drop martinis, a crab cake for an appetizer, an entree, and creme brulee. I was still working at the time, but sometimes I wanted to have some fun. So I would say to mom, "Pick out your clothes, Mom, we're going on an adventure."

• 3:38Speaker 03

  She liked it, we had fun, and she neither planned nor paid. But every outing that we had had a situation that made my list of things not to do. For example, I took her to an authentic 1880's Thanksgiving dinner in Plymouth, Massachusetts. My mother is the one who asked if her apple cider could be traded for a lemon drop martini.

• 4:25Speaker 03

  Then, there was the first time that we went dog sledding along the Canadian border. Outside of the path, the snow was really deep. It was up over my knees, higher, on my mom's body. And when we took a break to rest the dogs and relieve ourselves, my mother, in all of her snow clothes, you know, kind of waddled into the woods to pee. However, she did not like to follow directions. So, she failed to hold on to a tree branch. As a result, she fell backwards,

• 5:10Speaker 03

  her feet hopelessly tangled in her snow pants, and she froze her ass.

• 5:21Speaker 03

  She had the humiliation of having to call our guide Pierre

• 5:29Speaker 03

  to get her upright.

• 5:33Speaker 03

  Then, there was the time I took her to the vagina monologues.

• 5:40Speaker 03

  She loved them.

• 5:43Speaker 03

  But about midway through, she kept going like this to the lady next to her. Like, "Did you get that?", you know? And I'm thinking, "This is a problem." Well, before long, she whispered in a very loud voice to this stranger, "I know all the nicknames for vagina.

• 6:09Speaker 03

  If you need any help, just ask me.

• 6:15Speaker 03

  My husband was a sailor."

• 6:23Speaker 03

  My last example was I took her to Reykjavik for a spa vacation for her February birthday.

• 6:34Speaker 03

  Besides not following directions, she never paid attention to her surroundings. So, she went out the door of the spa and found herself in the hotel lobby, locked out of the spa, wrapped only in a towel,

• 6:54Speaker 03

  where everyone else in the lobby was wearing a parka.

• 6:59Speaker 03

  She did not speak Icelandic.

• 7:04Speaker 03

  Well, dementia finally ended my mom and I's adventures.

• 7:12Speaker 03

  I was her caregiver for the last six years of her life.

• 7:18Speaker 03

  And as she was dying, I was sitting next to her.

• 7:24Speaker 03

  I held her hand, and the hospice nurse said, "She's ready to go. Tell her that she has your permission." And I said, "Mom, you can go now. You can go to heaven." But nothing happened. I tried another approach. I said, "Mom, do you know what St. Peter has waiting for you? Lemon drop martinis, crab cakes, and creme brulee." And she died!

• 8:05Speaker 03

  And, and the hospice nurse said, "By God, I've never seen that."

• 8:13Speaker 03

  And I said, "I couldn't go with her on this adventure, but I sure hope that St. Peter remembered to go to Specks and Croakers, or I'm gonna catch hell."

• 8:31Speaker 00

  That was Sharon Diorcy. Sharon moved to Texas for her first job after graduate school and has stayed for 50 years. She was a corporate engineer, an entrepreneur, an educator, a caregiver, and a writer. Periodically, Sharon and her friends gather to drink Lemon Drop martinis and tell Adrian stories. To see stunning photos of Sharon and Adrian, go to themoth.org. Coming up, a student chaplain at a nursing home gets schooled by her charges. That's when The Moth Radio Hour continues.

• 9:12Speaker 04

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

• 9:23Speaker 00

  This is The Moth Radio Hour. I'm Catherine Burns. In this hour, we're talking about remembering those who have left this world by telling our favorite stories about them. Here is Adrian Lotzen, live at the Hanover Theater in Worcester, Massachusetts.

• 9:41Speaker 05

  It was a magical night. I don't know what shone brighter, the stars in the sky or those on the field at the conclusion of the Olympic Games. I was running all over the field in Atlanta, Georgia, congratulating all the athletes, marveling at their medals, giving them hugs that transcended language barriers. My friends thought that I lived such a glamorous life as a sports attorney, and yet what they didn't know was that I was miserable. I was that little kid, the one that wanted to make a difference in the world, you know, find a cure for cancer, bring about world peace, and this wasn't it. But I didn't know what would be it.

• 10:25Speaker 05

  And so that night, and for two more years, I struggled, and I tried to figure out what it would be. Now... I wasn't raised in a religious household, but I remembered clearly how a local church reached out to my family when my father passed away to give us comfort in our time of grief. And I also remembered that, particularly with the black church, it was a public square where political and economic engagement happened, and I wanted to be a part of that. So I decided to leave my very successful career in the law and go to seminary, to go into ministry. And I happened to pick a seminary that was very social justice oriented and believed in experiential learning. So I found myself as a student chaplain

• 11:09Speaker 05

  at an assisted living center in Atlanta, Georgia. Now, this assisted living center was average age 80, overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly female, and 100% good Southerners. So I show up my first day with my box. The senior chaplain meets me, shows me to my office, and she says, "Put your things down, get a little comfortable, but meet us down in the main meeting room for your first staff meeting in five minutes." She walks out the door, and in walks Joni. Joni has a bouffant hairdo, a string of pearls, little platform heels, and she says, "Hi, I'm Joni,

• 11:52Speaker 05

  a longtime resident here at the assisted living center. I play the piano every week at Bible study. Now, you're gonna start Bible study, reading the 23rd Psalm, and you're gonna end it with a hymn called "Alone in the Garden." 'Hi Joni, how are you? Nice to meet you. Listen, Joni, I have a meeting I need to go to, so why don't you and I talk a little while after the meeting?' Joni sits down and proceeds to tell me about everyone who lives in the assisted living center, what all their problems are and how I should pray for them. Thanks, Joanie. That's wonderful, but I really have to get to this meeting that I'm now 15 minutes late for. And she says, "Don't worry, dear. You're gonna make a fine chaplain." And off she goes.

• 12:34Speaker 05

  I run out to make it to the meeting, and I see a guy sitting in the corner scowling out the window. And he strikes me as rather odd. In the 20 minutes that I've been at the assisted living center, he's the first person I've seen with a full head of hair. And it's not gray. Something's going on here. So I go to my meeting, and I'm told what my duties are. How to go to the hospital to make hospital visits, visit some of the seniors who can't leave their homes, just be available for them. And just before I leave, they say, "Now, listen. You may have noticed the guy sitting out there near the window looking really mean. His name is Jimmy. He's really mean. He's not happy. He hates it here. His kids dropped him off. They don't come visit him. He's from Brooklyn. Don't take it personally." I go straight to Jimmy.

• 13:18Speaker 05

  I said, "So, Jimmy, they tell me that you think the best pizza in the world is from Brooklyn, and everybody knows the best pizza in the world is from Manhattan with Queens playing a close second." He looks up at me, "Who are you?" I said, "Hi, I'm Adrian. I'm the student chaplain. Is there anything I can do for you? Booze and broads. Booze and broads. Can you do that? No, Jimmy, I can't do that, but I'm the student chaplain. Is there anything else I can do for you? Gambling. Gambling. Can you do that? You know what, Jimmy? That I can do." I ran into the office.

• 14:02Speaker 05

  I pull out the deck of cards that I keep with me, because you never know when you have to play a game of Solitaire. And I come back, and I say, "Jimmy, I don't know how to play poker." I lie. "Can you teach me how to play poker?" And he says, "Yeah, okay." So we play a couple of hands of poker. I lose miserably, and he throws the cards down. He says, "This isn't gambling. There's no money."

• 14:24Speaker 05

  Give me a couple of days, Jimmy, I'll figure it out. I come back a couple of days later with a jar full of pennies. Sit down with my jar full of pennies. We get to playing. I start beating Jimmy ridiculously. And Jimmy says, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, I know when I've been hustled. I've been hustled here. And this is, by the way, not gambling. These are pennies. I said, Jimmy, pennies are money. Money is gambling. We're gambling. Let's play. And he says, aren't you a minister? I was like, yeah. And he goes, won't you get in trouble for gambling? Yeah, probably, but let's have some fun until that happens, shall we? He's like, OK. And Jimmy begins to tell me his story.

• 15:06Speaker 05

  And we play poker for pennies two times a week for several weeks. And he tells me that he's from Brooklyn, that he was adjacent to, but not in, the mafia.

• 15:22Speaker 05

  That his children convinced him to come down to Atlanta, but then moved him into the assistant living center and never come to see him. Jimmy was right about one thing. I got in trouble. I was called into the office and they said, you are the minister. You don't get to gamble. You don't get to gamble publicly. And I said, but wait a minute. Jimmy's doing well. You said the guy didn't talk. You said he was mean. Look at him. He's laughing. He's having a ball. And they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's all well and good. But you don't get to gamble. You're the minister. OK, great. So I said, let's think about this. Tell you what we do. How about at the end of every game, I scoop up the pennies, put them in the jar, put the jar back in my office,

• 16:04Speaker 05

  and then technically, there's no gambling happening? They agreed to that. And I said, aha, got to use my lawyering skills, so. This is good. This is good. So among other responsibilities I had was visiting the sick in the hospital. You know, you'd go, you'd get a list of the residents who were in the hospital. You go and see them, tell them everyone's thinking about them, and you pray with them. And one day, I'm at the end of my rounds, and I get on the elevator, and there's a woman crying hysterically. And I said, "Hi, how are you?" And she said, "Oh, I'm terrible." I said, "Oh, okay," and got off the elevator. And someone, something said, "Get back on the elevator, you're the chaplain, help this woman." So I back up, I get back on the elevator, I said, "Ma'am, is there anything I can do to help you?" And she said, "Yes, my boyfriend was in a really bad motorcycle accident.

• 16:49Speaker 05

  And they won't let me see him because he's in ICU. So could you go see him and pray for him?" So I said, "Sure, I can do that, I can handle that, no problem." So I'm like, well, upstairs I go to ICU, I go see the ICU nurse, I show her my badge, student chaplain. And I said, "Hi, I'm here to pray for the gentleman who was in the motorcycle accident." And she says, "Oh, room eight." I go to room eight, and there's a group of doctors and nurses and technicians surrounding a bed. And as I walk in, one of the nurses moves one way, one of the doctors moves another way, and I see the person in the bed.

• 17:23Speaker 05

  There is no skin on his face.

• 17:27Speaker 05

  Half of his eye is hanging out of the socket. His teeth are a mangled mess.

• 17:35Speaker 05

  I leap back and scream, "Oh my God, what happened to you?"

• 17:41Speaker 05

  The room freezes, the doctor turns around, he says, "Get out, get out now." And I said, "Hey, I'm the student chaplain, get out, go stand over there." And I'm shaken by this, and I go and I stand there, and I hang my head. And they do whatever they do, and the doctor comes out, he says, "Let me tell you something. You're supposed to be a professional. That man is on the brink of death. He does not need you to come in here and have the kind of reaction you had. Now get yourself together, get yourself together, go in there, do what you're supposed to do, be a professional, and then leave." So I walk in and there's only one nurse left in the room by this time. And I said to her, "Is there any part of his body I can touch that won't cause him pain?" She points to one hand.

• 18:26Speaker 05

  So I grab his hand and I said, "Sir, your girlfriend asked me to come and pray for you." And his eyes well up with water. "She wanted me to tell you that she loves you and she's not gonna leave this hospital without you. May I pray for you?" And I pray for him and when I'm done, he's crying. And I walk out and I'm thinking,

• 18:48Speaker 05

  I don't know if it was my lack of professionalism, being called out for my lack of professionalism, the tears that he had, because I didn't know if I was causing him pain by touching him, but I felt like, "Maybe I'm not really good at this." And I felt really, really awful. I got in the car and I was like, "Wow, you know, maybe, I don't know. I know what I'll do. I know what I'll do. I'll get myself together and I will liven up Bible study. That's what I'll do." Because Bible study was deadly dull. And I said, "I can get this right. I know I can get this right." So I show up at Bible study with new scriptures and new hymns, because we're gonna liven this thing up and we're gonna have a good time. So I walk in, I pass out all the new hymns.

• 19:31Speaker 05

  I say to Joanie, "Hey, Joanie, here's some new music we're gonna play." And Joanie looks at me and I say, "Okay, here we go." And I start to sing. No one joins me and I'm singing. And I hear this rustling noise and I look and all the ladies, because only ladies went to Bible study, are getting up and they're grabbing their walkers and they're grabbing their canes and they're walking out, albeit very, very slowly. I am in the middle of a full-fledged Bible study revolt. I look over at Joanie. Joanie shakes her head, walks out, and the only person left was the lady who slept in the front row every week during Bible study.

• 20:17Speaker 05

  I go back to my office and Joni's sitting there. Joni says, "Dear, let me explain something to you. We read the 23rd Psalm every week because Mrs. So-and-so read it to her husband every night before he died, and so it has a lot of meaning to us. We sing "Alone in the Garden" every week because many of us have visual and memory issues, and we can't learn new songs. I suggest that before you try and get people where you want them to be, you understand where they are and meet them there." And then she passed me on the back of my hand and she says, "Don't worry, you're gonna make a fine chaplain someday." And such was my life at the assisted living center, from one crisis to another, setting

• 21:00Speaker 05

  off the sprinkler system when I tried to sneak a meal in the community kitchen because I didn't want to eat Jell-O delight, or the time that I allowed the blind lady's emotional support cat to escape during a visit, always followed by a reprimand in the front office, which they called lovingly Coaching and Mentoring, followed by Joni's visit, where she would explain to me what I did wrong and how I could do better, always leaving by patting my hand and saying, "But don't worry, dear, someday you're gonna be a fine chaplain." I realized that I was not cut out for this.

• 21:40Speaker 05

  I had made a mistake, and I just needed to get to the end of this experiential learning experience and get my life back together. So I'm wrapping up my responsibilities, my last week of hospital visits. I go to the hospital and I see a man in a wheelchair being pushed to a car. And I said, "Hmm, he looks remotely familiar, not sure where I know him." And then I see the woman pushing him, and she looks at me, she recognizes me, I instantly recognize her, it's the lady from the elevator. That's the guy from the motorcycle accident. Ah! Oh my goodness, he made it. He's alive. He, I did something right. I did something right. He survived the motorcycle accident.

• 22:24Speaker 05

  Wait till I tell Joni. Wait till I tell Joni, I did something right. So I go through my hospital visits. I can't wait. I get in the car. Wait till I tell Joni, I did something right. I get to the, to my office and there's a note to come immediately to the front office. And I thought, whoop, some other disaster happened and I'm about to have my nice mentoring and coaching session. So let me just get ready for that, but I'm going to tell them the man lived. And I walk in, they tell me to have a seat and I have a seat. And they said, Adrian, we just need to let you know that Joni died last night. She had a sudden heart attack in her sleep. And Joni died. Her family is going to hold the funeral here. And we would like for you to read the 23rd Psalm. You can do that, right?

• 23:08Speaker 05

  I said, yep. I can do that. I can do that for Joni. So we come to the funeral. I stand up to read the 23rd Psalm. I see Jimmy walk in in a suit and tie. I didn't even know Jimmy owned a suit and tie. And there he was, coming to Joni's funeral. And I open the Bible and I say, "The Lord is my shepherd." And I drop my head and tears well up. And I begin to cry. And cries turn into sobs. And sobs turn into wailing. And I am standing there in front of everyone, wailing and heaving and crying and crying. And suddenly I see coming towards me Joni's son.

• 23:53Speaker 05

  And Joni's son comes and he puts his arms around me and he's comforting me. It's going to be okay. It's going to be okay. And I'm thinking, I can't even get this right. I'm supposed to comfort the family and I'm a mess. And I see out of the corner of my eyes, the senior chaplain just shake her head and hang it low. And I was like, this is a disaster. So, we get through the funeral. A few days later, I'm there to pack up my belongings, because I only have a couple of weeks left. So I said, well, I might as well get a start on that. And I get a note that I need to be seen in the office. And I think, well, they can't even wait the couple of weeks to the end of this thing. They're gonna let me go today. They're gonna say, you're not cut out for this. It was a nice experiment, but hey, we learned something.

• 24:37Speaker 05

  You are not supposed to be a minister. Good luck. So I go in, and they said, please have a seat. And I'm preparing myself for this. I said, we want to read you a letter that Joni's son just sent us. And I thought, oh, this is gonna be a bad one.

• 24:53Speaker 05

  And he said, "My family and I have always felt extreme guilt over moving our mother into an assisted living center. And we sat with that guilt for years. But when that lady chaplain broke down while reading our mother's favorite prayer, we realized that she was truly loved, and this was her home, and that she was cared for. And all of that guilt just lifted off of our shoulders. So as a thank you, we'd like to give you, and it turned out to be the largest gift by a private individual to this particular assisted living center." The senior chaplain gets up. She walks past me.

• 25:34Speaker 05

  She puts her hand on my shoulder, and she says, "You've become a fine chaplain." Thank you.

• 25:50Speaker 00

  Dr. Adrienne R. Lotzen calls herself "a Renaissance woman with a Peter Pan streak." She's a cultural anthropologist, administrative law judge, author, public speaker, minister, and performance artist. But she says her true passion is traveling the world, sharing and hearing stories.

• 26:11Speaker 00

  For The Moth's 25th anniversary, five of our longtime story directors spent 18 months putting all our knowledge about storytelling into a book. It's called "How to Tell a Story: The Essential Guide to Memorable Storytelling from The Moth." And it's full of tips on how to tell your own stories, whether that's onstage at The Moth, or in a job interview, or while giving a toast. But we've read a lot about this topic of honoring our loved ones by telling stories about them. Telling stories is a way to make sure precious memories of beloved family members get passed on to future generations and cement them in our collective memories. Here is The Moth's senior curatorial producer, Suzanne Rust, on how she honors her parents.

• 26:56Speaker 00

  This is excerpted from the audiobook version of "How to Tell a Story."

• 27:01Speaker 06

  I am forever weaving stories about my parents into conversations. And my children, who never got the chance to meet my wonderful mother, often toss her stories back to me. And through them, they have a pretty good idea about her. Talking about my parents is like sprinkling a little handful of fairy dust that brings them back to life for a few moments. I'm a big believer in celebrating my parents' birthdays every year. I make their favorite meal and pour them a drink, vodka and tonic for her, Roman Coke for him. But really, it's just another excuse to talk about them and have a good laugh or cry and repeat our favorite stories about them.

• 27:41Speaker 00

  That was my fellow radio host, Suzanne Rust. A final tip: If you're trying to capture stories of a loved one, especially someone who is elderly and perhaps suffering from memory loss, try recording them while they go through family photos. The pictures can trigger memories that might otherwise be lost. That's what The Moth's executive producer, Sarah Austin Janes, did. Again, taken from our audiobook.

• 28:05Speaker 07

  My grandpa Jack was in the throes of dementia when I recorded him talking about his life. He had no short-term memory left, but with the help of photographs, my grandmother and I were shocked and delighted to know that his long-term memory was still intact. With each black and white photo we revealed to him, he was transported. He told us of his lake vacations in the summer as an only child and his doting parents. He said, "My father was an insurance salesman. He cared so much about his few clients. He kept visiting and asking if they were all right and if they needed more insurance." They didn't need more insurance, he needed more clients.

• 28:47Speaker 07

  The photographs lit up not only detailed memories from the past, but also his dry sense of humor that we worried had vanished.

• 28:57Speaker 00

  That was Sarah Austin Jenness. Coming up, the writer Elizabeth Gilbert tries in vain to manage the illness of her headstrong wife. That's when The Moth Radio Hour continues.

• 29:17Speaker 04

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

• 29:31Speaker 00

  This is The Moth Radio Hour. I'm Catherine Burns. In this hour, we've been talking about how people live on through the stories we tell about them. Peter Aguero once hosted a show in New Bedford, Massachusetts. And after a teller shared a story about losing a loved one, Peter reminded the audience how the simple act of hearing that story brought their memory to life.

• 29:53Speaker 08

  Man, it's a really beautiful thing. I get to, I'm very lucky, and I get to hear lots of stories. And you know, they say that when we die, we really die twice. You die once when your body's gone, then you die again when your name is said for the last time. So when we tell stories about the people that we lost, they stay alive, you know? So I implore you to please, you know, tell the stories about the people that you love that are gone, so they'll never be gone, you know? You just say their name again, they're still alive. On the count of three, everybody say the name of someone that they love that isn't with us anymore. Just on the count of three, everybody all together. One, two, three.

• 30:29Speaker 08

  And they're still alive, they're still over here with us. Thank you so much. Those, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

• 30:37Speaker 00

  That was Peter Aguero at The Moth in New Bedford. A few years back, I got to know someone truly remarkable when her partner, Elizabeth Gilbert, took the Moth stage at St. Anne's Church in Brooklyn Heights. Here's Elizabeth, live at The Moth.

• 30:59Speaker 09

  Last summer, I was walking down the street in New York City in the East Village, and it was a glorious day, and the sun was bright, and I had the love of my life on my arm, and she was dying. Really dying. She had advanced pancreatic and liver cancer, and the tumors had grown and they had spread, and she had recently discontinued all chemo and medical treatment because it was hopeless. And all she wanted at this point in her life was to try to find small ways to enjoy whatever was remaining to her. And what that meant on this day was that she wanted to try to mobilize to get herself out of the house and walk to Tompkins Square Park and get a soft-serve ice cream cone.

• 31:41Speaker 09

  Now, Tompkins Square Park was four blocks from where we lived, but it truly might as well have been Kilimanjaro for the amount of effort that it took her to do it on this day. And she was on her cane, and she's leaning her full weight against me, what's left of her full weight, because she's gotten so thin. And I've got my arm around her, and I can feel her little bones through her sweater, and my heart is breaking because this day signifies a turning point in her illness that I had known was coming, and I had dreaded was coming, and now it is here. And it is the day where she has now gotten so frail and so weak that we can officially say that this once formidable person is now completely dependent on me.

• 32:26Speaker 09

  And the reason that's so particularly heartbreaking, it would be heartbreaking for anybody, but the reason it was so painful in this case is what you gotta know about my girl is that for the 17 years that I knew Rea Elias, I never once saw that woman walk into a room that she was not the most powerful person in that space. Never once, didn't matter what. She was so tough, so strong, so hot. She was a Syrian-born, Detroit-raised, glamour butch, lesbian, punk rock, ex-heroin addict, ex-felon, rock and roll music star, artist, filmmaker, hairdresser, writer, phenomenon of a human being. And in the circles that we rolled in, Rea was legend.

• 33:11Speaker 09

  Not just because she was so tough and so street smart, but also because she had this enormous, capacious, generous heart. And she was ferociously protective of anybody who she cared about. If you were lucky enough to be one of the people who Rea loved, she would just tuck you under her arm and name you as one of her little cubbies. Like we were all the little wolf cubs and she was the mama wolf. And she would just take you through the world and you were never in danger when Rea was there. I have never experienced a feeling like it and that's exactly why I fell in love with her and why I blew up my entire life. To be with her was precisely and expressly because of that power.

• 33:55Speaker 09

  But now she's powerless. And as we're inching along the sidewalk on Avenue A, I'm feeling that for the first time and I'm feeling how the tables have turned because now I've got her tucked under my arm. And now it's my job to protect her from a world that she used to dominate effortlessly. And I don't know if you've ever taken care of somebody who's sick and dying, but when somebody who you love is very fragile, one of the things that happens is the entire world starts to feel incredibly perilous. You know, every crack on the sidewalk is something that could trip her and she could hurt herself. Every kid on a skateboard, every big dog could knock her over. So it's my job to keep her safe and I've got her bundled up and I'm navigating her down this world. And it's so terrible to watch her decline,

• 34:39Speaker 09

  but the one consoling thought that I'm having in that moment is, "Thank God she has me." Like, "Thank God," or what would we do? Like, "Who would protect her if I wasn't here?" And at that moment, this super sketchy guy on a bicycle comes terrorizing up the sidewalk super fast. He's like this gross meth head looking crusty bearded nasty guy and he's got a furious face and he's tearing so fast up the sidewalk careening into pedestrians and he's coming right at us and he almost plows us over and I managed just at the last minute to grab Rea and pull her out of the way for safety, but he clips her. He hits

• 35:19Speaker 09

  her on the arm with his bike handlebar as he goes by and I'm like, "Oh my god, my baby." At which point, Rea turns on her heels and says, "Get the fuck off the fucking sidewalk, motherfucker."

• 35:34Speaker 09

  And the guy, the guy screeches to a halt, drops his bike, grabs his crotch and goes, "Suck my dick bitch!" And Rea goes, "If you had a dick, you'd be driving a car and not a bicycle, you fucking loser."

• 35:47Speaker 09

  And I'm like, "Whoa, kids. I'm from Connecticut and I need everybody to just take it down a notch."

• 36:05Speaker 09

  But I'm also looking at her and I'm thinking, "What are you literally backing this up with? Like, she weighs 87 and a half pounds at this point." And I'm thinking, "What are you gonna do, Rea, if this guy comes at you?" And then I see it, and he's not gonna come at her, because she's locked eyes with him and she has communicated to him very clearly that she is the alpha and he is the mutt and everybody can see it, him most of all. He drops his eyes, grabs his bike, scuttles off. And Rea keeps on inching down the sidewalk with her cane, gets her soft serve, finds herself a nice little sunny spot in the park, smiles up at me and says, "Today's a good day, babe."

• 36:49Speaker 09

  So yeah, this story that I had in my head when Rea got sick, about how helpless and dependent she was going to become, that never actually happened. Because somehow, despite the advances of the disease, Rea managed to remain the apex predator in every situation that she came into. And every plan that I had made, because you know I made plans to take care of her, every plan I made based on my perceived idea of her helplessness, that all blew up too. And my whole planning had been based in this idea that I was powerless to stop her from dying, but by God, I was going to make sure that she had the gentlest, the safest, the most zen, the most enlightened, the most cushioned death that a human being could possibly have.

• 37:32Speaker 09

  But she didn't want any of that that I was providing, as it turned out, because Rea didn't want gentle. That's not how she rolled. So she didn't want to talk to the bereavement counselor that I brought to her house. She wanted to watch football that afternoon with her nephews. And I made her all this beautiful, organic food to keep her as healthy as we could keep her, and she didn't want it. She wanted to live on Oreos and cigarettes, and did live almost exclusively on Oreos and cigarettes for a solid year past her original expiration date, as she called it. And of course, I got her signed up with hospice because I wanted to make sure that she had the best and safest quality home care. And then Rea got kicked out of hospice

• 38:16Speaker 09

  because she wouldn't let the nurses in when they came to check on her. So they'd come for their weekly check-ins, and she didn't send them away. She didn't want to deal with them, didn't want to look at their faces, didn't want to deal. So hospice threw her out, which causes me to beg of you and of the universe, who the hell gets kicked out of hospice? Like, how is that a thing? But that's what happened. And I went through all this trouble to rent and create this beautiful apartment for her to spend her last months. And with everything that I could imagine that she could possibly need, a doorman building, and an elevator, and wide hallways for the inevitable wheelchair that would be coming, and an extra room for a caregiver if we needed a night nurse toward the end, everything that you could possibly imagine, this beautiful, soft, sunny space. And then...

• 39:00Speaker 09

  Two weeks, or sorry, two months before she died, Rea decided that she didn't want to be in New York, that she wanted to move to Detroit. She wanted to go back home to be with her family and to like, party with her friends from 30 years ago. So she moved. My fragile, terminal cancer patient moved to another city. And what did I do? I did what I'd always done with Rea. I followed. I scampered after her like the little cub that I had always been in, blew up my life once again just to try to keep up with the she-wolf. So even Rea, not even Rea, tough as she is, of course, was tough enough to withstand pancreatic cancer. And the disease continued to eat at her. And by November of last year, the doctor said, "It's any time now."

• 39:44Speaker 09

  She's on borrowed time already, but it could be at any moment. And knowing that she was so close to the end, Rea called in her ex-wife, Gigi, who she'd been married to 10 years earlier, and asked her to come and help take care of her. And she had also already called in her ex-girlfriend, Stacy, from 20 years ago. And she had me. So now what Rea's got is a hot blonde from every decade of her life waiting on her, hand and foot with devotional love, which is Rea Elias's version, of course, of hospice. And that totally worked for her, the Charlie's Angels way of being taken care of. And we did it. We did it because we were crazy about her. Because she was that Mac Daddy, and she still was. She managed to live till Christmas.

• 40:29Speaker 09

  I don't know how, but she pulled it off. It was important to her. And on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, she couldn't get off the couch, and she was in and out of awareness. But she knew that we were there, and she knew that we were loving on her, and she was happy. And midnight on Christmas night, we put her to sleep. And at 4 o'clock in the morning, I had to wake her up to give her her pain medication, and I couldn't rouse her. And this was the first time that had ever happened. So I just laid with her for an hour and waited for another hour, and I tried again. I couldn't get any response from her. Another hour, no response. And by the time that the light of dawn was breaking through the snowstorm outside, I could hear that her breathing was ragged, and her lips and her hands were turning blue. And I knew.

• 41:14Speaker 09

  It's it. So I went and I got Stacy and Gigi and I said, "It's now, you know, come." And what happened next was so exquisite, it was so beautiful. It was like the three of us, these three women who had loved her so passionately for her whole life, we just knew what to do like it had been scripted or that we were born to it. We just came into the bedroom and Gigi put on sacred music and Stacy lit a candle. And then the three of us as one got on the bed and we wrapped our bodies around her body. And we took turns telling her all the last things that she needed to know if she could still hear us, that we loved her,

• 41:56Speaker 09

  that she was incredible, what a grand and stellar life that she had lived, that we would never be the same for having loved her and been loved by her, that she had forged our hearts in the furnace of her power, that we would always love her and that we would never stop telling the world her name. And then it was like this silence descended and it was like this portal opened from some distant uncharted part of the universe and this river of the infinite entered into that space and we could feel it, that it was taking her very gently from us. And that's when Rea opened her eyes and said, "What the fuck are you guys doing?"

• 42:46Speaker 09

  And we're like, "Nothing." Nothing. She's like, "What's going on?" I'm like, "Definitely not a bedside death watch." Like, "No, that's not..." We're like wiping sheets of tears from our eyes. She goes, "Babe, why are Stacy and Gigi in our bed?" I'm like, "They're not, they're just dropping off some mail." You know, like kicking them out of bed, Gigi's running to turn off the music. Rea's like, "Why does it smell like a fucking candle in here?" Stacy's like, "It doesn't." We're just, "No, it's my shampoo."

• 43:15Speaker 09

  And Rea's like, "You guys are weird." She sits up in bed, lights a cigarette, looks at me and goes, "Babe, what's today's date?" And I said, "It's December 26th, my love." And she said, "Cool, I want to hit that 60% off sale today at Lululemon."

• 43:37Speaker 09

  So that's what we did. Couple hours later, we're all at Lululemon. There's Rea in the dressing room, surrounded by her attendants, trying on athleisure wear for some future that she's still very much intending to have. Somebody once told me, and I wish to God that I had got it sooner, that there is no such thing as a dying person. There are living people and there are dead people. And as long as somebody is alive, as long as they have any sentience or sense about them, you have to expect and allow them to be who they have always been. Never more important than at the end of somebody's life that they get to be who they are and who they always were.

• 44:22Speaker 09

  And I think that goes a long way toward explaining why Rea was so resistant, why she was so stubbornly oppositional to every story that I had in my mind about what her death might be or should be. She just wasn't having it. From the beginning of the diagnosis till the end of her life, she was like, "I'm not your story whore." Like, "You don't get to script this. I'm Rea fucking Elias. My life, my death. I'm doing it my way. You don't write this one. I'm doing this one." So it was just a handful of days after Christmas when she did die. And hers was not a gentle death. I'm sure you will be shocked to hear. She went down fighting. And it was rough. And even there, at the end,

• 45:06Speaker 09

  I still had stories in my head about what I wanted it to be and how I wanted it to go. And I had this very airy, dreamy, romantic idea about what Rea's last words would be to me, that she would gaze up at me from a soft pillow and say, "I love you." Or, "Thank you for everything you did for me."

• 45:29Speaker 09

  You're getting the idea.

• 45:32Speaker 09

  Rea Elias's last words to me were, "No, baby, no." As I was trying to walk her from the bathroom to what would be her deathbed. "No, baby, no." It was the last steps that she was ever gonna take in her remarkable life. "No, baby, no." Her legs didn't even work anymore. "No, baby, no." I got this. And what I got, but I only got it at the very end, was that Rea didn't want my help. She didn't want my pity, she didn't want my planning, she certainly didn't want my story. The only thing that Rea wanted from me was that thing which I had always so effortlessly and naturally given her, which was my devotion and my awe.

• 46:17Speaker 09

  She just wanted me there in the room, in love with her. And bearing witness as she took that last ride. She just wanted me standing back in amazement and horror, but mostly amazement, watching as she went down, as she came out of this earth, not gently, but like a ship going down in a storm at sea, like the force of nature that she was. And in the end, the only thing that I could do for her in those last harrowing hours was nothing. It was nothing. Except to surrender to my powerlessness and to have to let her go and to have to watch her go.

• 46:57Speaker 09

  And she went down, swinging and battling to the last awful breath. And it was brutal. And it was beautiful. And she was brave. And I howled like a wolf when she was gone. And I will never stop telling the world her name.

• 47:30Speaker 00

  Elizabeth Gilbert is the bestselling author of nine books of fiction and nonfiction, including Eat, Pray, Love and City of Girls. Elizabeth was raised on a small family Christmas tree farm in Connecticut, but she currently lives in New York City. And for those of you who aren't familiar with her, Reya Elias was a Syrian-born writer, musician, hairdresser, and filmmaker. She was just 57 when she died. And her own book, Harley Loco: A Memoir of Hard Living, Hair, and Post-Punk, was published in 2013.

• 48:11Speaker 00

  On the one-year anniversary of Reya's death, Elizabeth sent me a link to a Neil Young song. She wrote, "Reya asked me to ask you to play this song for her so, so loud today." (singing) We hope you'll be inspired by this hour to tell a story of your own, maybe about someone you love who's no longer with you. That's it for this episode.

• 48:55Speaker 00

  We hope you'll join us next time for The Moth Radio Hour.

• 48:58Speaker 04

  This episode of The Moth Radio Hour was produced by me, Jay Allison, and Catherine Burns, who also hosted and directed the stories in the show. Co-producer, Vicky Merrick. Associate producer, Emily Couch. The rest of The Moth's leadership team include Sarah Haberman, Sarah Austin Jenness, Jennifer Hickson, Meg Bowles, Kate Tellers, Jennifer Birmingham, Marina Kluch, Suzanne Rust, Brandon Grant... Inga Glodowski, Sarah Jane Johnson, and Aldi Kaza.

• 49:42Speaker 04

  Audio courtesy of Random House Audio from How to Tell a Story by The Moth. Special thanks to Devon Sandiford and his series Unreeling Stories, a Brooklyn-based organization providing a platform for people of color, women, and others who have been pushed to the margins of our culture. Most stories are true, as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Our theme music is by The Drift. Other music in this hour from Blue Dot Sessions, The Swing Growers, and Neil Young. We receive funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. 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.

• 50:26Speaker 04

  For more about our podcast, for information on pitching us your own story, and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.