Pod Insights The Moth The Moth Radio Hour: The Pursuit of Happiness About this episode In this hour, stories of searching for fulfillment and finding one's bliss. Unconventional self-care, making ancestors proud, and a quest for the perfect gift. This episode is hosted by Moth Senior Director Jenifer Hixson.
Storytellers:
Ann Guo battles postpartum depression by soliciting dares from her family and friends.
Morgan Givens joins the police academy, following in the footsteps of his trailblazing grandmother.
Ruby Cooper strives to give her son everything, until he asks for an untraditional Christmas gift.
Transcript 0:14 Speaker 00 This is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm your host, Jennifer Hixson. In this hour, the pursuit of happiness. It's a deep concept from our Declaration of Independence, our inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Scholars and lawmakers and regular citizens have debated the meaning of these words since they were first inked in 1776. In this hour, people pursuing their versions of liberty and happiness in ways unforeseen by the framers. For example, our first story is by a woman who turns to crowdsourcing to find her joy. Live from the Wilbur Theater in Boston, where we partner with public radio station WGBH, here's Anne Guo.
0:59 Speaker 01 Back in January 2014, I'm driving toward a hotel in Cambridge with a sense of dread in my stomach because I can't believe that I, a 38-year-old professional Asian mother, I'm about to become a party crasher. And not just any party, it's the Goldberg Bar Mizva. This all started back in 2008, when my son was born, a time that should have been the happiest in my life. I was diagnosed with postpartum depression. All of a sudden, at work, around the water cooler, I no longer knew what to talk about.
1:43 Speaker 01 Instead, I find myself smiling a lot, partly to hide how I was truly feeling inside, and partly because I once read somewhere that the act of smiling will trigger happy chemicals to release in your brain. And I can tell you from personal experience that it's a load of crap.
2:08 Speaker 01 The depression lasts around two years or so. But it's not like after two years of darkness, I wake up the next morning and win the lottery. And the happiness and joy from winning the lottery fills up that big emotional deficit from last two years. Instead, I'm dragging around this deficit, this huge burden, everywhere I go. And anytime I have a bad day and I'm feeling a little down, I would worry, maybe it's coming back. Overall, life just felt kind of flat. And I couldn't help but wonder, is this my new normal?
2:52 Speaker 01 Will I ever be as happy as I once was? Now, by the time my son turned five, I said, alright, enough is enough. I'm gonna have to do something about this. In fact, I'm gonna print my own winning lottery ticket. It's gonna be something that bring me so much joy and happiness, it'll fill up my emotional bank. Now, what could that thing be, though? I figured I'll look to my past for some clues. So I sat down at my kitchen table and made a list of all the most joyful moments in my life. And I look at it, and a lot of them involve going on silly adventures.
3:36 Speaker 01 So I said, alright, if that's what it takes to get back to tip-top shape, so be it. I declare the year 2014 to be the year of adventures, where once a month, I will make time and go on adventure. And to help me come up with ideas, and also to help hold me accountable, I send a mass email to family and friends, making them a deal they can't resist. I said, look, you now have an opportunity to dare me to do whatever it is you want. Provided that you donate money to my favorite charity. If I hit my donation target, I will do your dare, no matter what it is.
4:20 Speaker 01 And I dubbed the project Care Dares.
4:24 Speaker 01 And, boy, did the dares start flowing in.
4:28 Speaker 01 I'm to walk a hundred miles from Boston to Northampton, Massachusetts, without bringing any money or food.
4:37 Speaker 01 I'm to make a boat and float in it on the Charles River.
4:43 Speaker 01 And I'm to speak only Shakespearean English for an entire week.
4:51 Speaker 01 My husband, Dan, who's Jewish, challenged me to Khashab Bar Mitzvah.
5:00 Speaker 01 A coming-of-age celebration for a thirteen-year-old boy.
5:08 Speaker 01 So, as I'm pulling onto Memorial Drive, just minutes away from the hotel, I'm starting to experience some serious anxiety.
5:21 Speaker 01 Because if people ask me, "Who should I say I am?", I probably won't blend in with a Goldberg's.
5:31 Speaker 01 So, I have to be related either through adoption or marriage. Alright, so if a family had adopted a baby girl from China thirty-eight years ago, you'd think they'd know who I am by now. Alright, so that's out. Marriage. Maybe I'm just Uncle So-and-so's date? Or maybe one of the kids attending the party, I'm the stepmother? Or maybe I'll just ask a person to guess and just nod to whatever it is they come up with? My plan's to go in there, chit-chat with a few people, maybe get on the dance floor for a song or two. If there's a limbo contest, there's usually a limbo contest, I might even participate.
6:15 Speaker 01 What I won't do, however, is eat or drink anything, because I don't want to be stealing. On top of that, I brought a birthday present. It's just a small card game, but it's sort of my way to proactively tongue for the transgression I'm about to commit.
6:35 Speaker 01 So with the plan all worked out, I step into the hotel. I figure I'll first do a walk by of the room to assess the situation. So after a long, winding hallway, I see a large set of double doors. As I walk past, time slows down. I see five round tables. The one at 10 o'clock is populated with teen boys. I figure that's where my target is sitting. The room is brightly lit. Everyone is just sitting there quietly eating their dinners. Holy crap, there's no music, no dancing, no limbo contest.
7:18 Speaker 01 Totally unlike the bar mitzvahs I've been to in the past legally. There's no way I can pull this off because if I walk in the door, all eyes will be on me. Everyone will hear what I have to say. And I'll be instantly exposed. Abort mission, abort mission. I speed walk back toward the hotel entrance. And it took everything in me now to run out the door in that moment. Instead, I plop into a large couch in the lobby, whip out my cellphone, and pretend to be texting. Why am I doing this? I have no idea. Why, take some deep yoga breath. I want to back out, but I can't because people donated their money to charity already.
8:02 Speaker 01 And then I remember Dan telling me, "Look, all you have to do to prove that you crashed a bar mitzvah is to take a picture with a birthday boy." I think I may have an idea. I pick myself back up from the couch, go through that winding hallway, through the set of large double doors, straight toward the head table. "Hi, how's everyone doing tonight? How's the food? I'm Anne from the catering department."
8:40 Speaker 01 A woman stands up, we shake hands and we chit chat a little. "By the way, I have a present here, so who's the birthday boy?" My plan's to go over there to that table full of teen boys, hand over their gift while one of his friends take a picture of two of us and I'm out of here. "Oh, the birthday girl, you mean? She's right here." "It's a bar mitzvah, the girl equivalent of a bar mitzvah." "I got the gender wrong, what else did I mess up?" I'm just standing here, after I hand over the gift, she opens it up, looks at it, thanks me politely and puts it away. And I missed my opportunity for the photo and I can't figure out what to do next.
9:22 Speaker 01 "Well, normally during these celebrations, there's music and dance." I have no idea why am I saying that, what I'm trying to do, I'm just trying to buy myself some time. "Oh, this is just the dinner for all of our out of town guests, the actual party is tomorrow." "What? Now you're telling me I came on the wrong date and crashing the dinner before the bar mitzvah?" "Alright, let's just get this over with, think, think Anne." "Where I'm from, if you take a picture with someone who's about to celebrate their birthday, it brings you good luck."
10:04 Speaker 01 "I can't believe I just said that, it doesn't even make any sense, I cringe so hard." "I'm just gonna go home now, pay everyone back for their charity donations out of my own pocket, I don't even care." But that's when I hear her say, "Um, sure, of course." And I hand over my cellphone for the photo. On the car ride home, I'm flooded with a sense of euphoria. It's like I just escaped a near-death experience.
10:38 Speaker 01 By December of 2014, I've walked across Massachusetts. I've spoken Shakespearean English for a week. And I've also built that boat out of two pieces of plywood. And my maiden voyage only lasted 10 minutes because it started leaking. And after a whole year of monthly shenanigans, my emotional bank is magically full again. And I can't believe that I'm happier than I've ever been. Thank you.
11:20 Speaker 00 That was Anne Guo. She's a career coach and creator of Passion Analytics, a coaching chatbot. When Anne is not geeking out on career design or storytelling, she continues to go on adventures. She invites you to hit her up, or maybe even join her if you have any great ideas. And I think she means it. To see a photo of Anne with her makeshift boat and smiling at the Goldberg bat mitzvah, visit themoth.org, where you can also download the story.
11:58 Speaker 00 Regarding the pursuit of happiness, my family, friends, trees, all bring me joy. But I do have a peculiar source. It's a little weird. I like to give my dog haircuts. He's a Shih Tzu rescue, and his hair grows insanely fast. Professional cuts look great, but cost more than my haircuts. So I invested in a buzzer. And I found out that the way the hair falls away is so satisfying. He's my own furry little zen garden. And unlike my kids, who get all bent out of shape if their bangs come out a little short or crooked or whatever, there are no complaints from Roscoe. He mostly loves the attention. Sometimes he grows impatient, so the second half of the haircut has to wait. No problem, no complaints.
12:43 Speaker 00 Mohawks, fades, the shag, I do it all. The lack of precision in my cuts sometimes makes strangers ask, "What kind of dog is that?" But the happiness circles back around because it's so fun to pet him when he's freshly buzzed, so he gets a lot of extra love. Find your joy, people.
13:13 Speaker 00 In a moment, a rookie cop with a secret, when The Moth Radio Hour continues.
13:50 Speaker 02 The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
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14:29 Speaker 00 This is The Moth Radio Hour. I'm Jennifer Hixson. We're talking about the pursuit of happiness, and for many, that would include freely being your whole self, at home and at work. Our next story was told at the Tampa Theater in Florida, where we partner with WUSF Public Media. Here's Morgan Givens.
14:55 Speaker 04 My grandmother pulled me to the side and waited until I met her eyes before she said, "Now Morgan, if you ever have an interaction with the police, you keep your hands where they can see them. You telegraph your movements. Tell them everything you are going to do before you do it. Do you understand me?" I nodded and said I did, because my grandma and I had been having that same conversation for years. But the fact that we talked about it so much
15:40 Speaker 04 didn't make it any less confusing. Because my grandma, she was the police. I'm serious. The woman had a badge, a uniform, a cop car, everything. And her friends, the people who would show up at our house for backyard barbecues and cookouts, the ones who would help us move loading boxes into the backs of pickup trucks, well, they were the police too. And as a kid, I didn't really understand. Because in my mind at the time,
16:24 Speaker 04 cops were heroes. And I was being taught to fear them. And my grandma is one of them black women they write inspirational novels and movies about. Because she was one of the first black women through the Charlotte Police Academy. And she was excellent. She was exceptional. She was perfection because she had no choice. She knew they were gonna judge every black woman that came up behind her by the standard she set. And in the inspirational movie of my grandmother's life, some well-assuming white person shows up at the end and takes all the credit.
17:09 Speaker 04 But if I'm keeping it completely one-hundred with y'all, white folks weren't checking for my grandma like that back then. She had to sue to get the job she had already earned when she graduated from the academy,
17:23 Speaker 04 as if she didn't have the highest academic marks in her class, as if she weren't running laps around her training instructors.
17:32 Speaker 04 But in the end, she prevailed, and her life turned out a bit like a fairy tale, although one with some baggage, particularly for me. Because it's already hard enough to live up to the expectations of our parents and our grandparents, but when yo' grandmother is literally superwoman,
17:58 Speaker 04 it gets just a little bit harder.
18:03 Speaker 04 And I ain't gonna stand up here in front like I don't appreciate everything she did on her path to success, as if I can't appreciate how I can trace it like a thread of hope from her to my mother, right down to me. She spent thirty years on that department,
18:22 Speaker 04 and when she retired, we had to rent a banquet hall because of how respected she was. The chief of police showed up himself.
18:34 Speaker 04 But I still didn't understand how some cops could turn out like my grandma and others could turn out like the ones we read about in history books, still read about today and still see on TV, the ones who are so clearly on the wrong side of history.
18:56 Speaker 04 And I never thought I'd get an answer to that question. But then I graduated into the middle of the worst recession in recent memory. And I needed a job. So I looked at grandma. You know what? If grandma can be a cop and be successful, maybe I can too. And could I have gone to the Charlotte Police Academy? I could have. But my grandma cast a long shadow. And the last thing I needed was for some snitching instructor to call her up
19:38 Speaker 04 and let her know I could not do a single doggone push-up.
19:45 Speaker 04 I ain't proud of it, but it is the truth.
19:50 Speaker 04 So that's how I ended up at the Washington DC Police Academy.
19:56 Speaker 04 Along with thirty other recruits, willing to do anything and everything we could to become officers in the nation's capital. But things were kind of weird when we got there.
20:10 Speaker 04 Everyone was always staring at us, watching us when we walked down the hallway, peering into the doorway of our classroom. We could not figure out what was going on.
20:26 Speaker 04 And one day, I'm sitting in the cafeteria next to one of my fellow recruits and he looks over at me. Hey, man, I know why everybody's staring at us.
20:38 Speaker 04 Yeah. They think there's a trans recruit in our class. Wherever could they be?
20:46 Speaker 04 I almost choked on my lunch, then ran to the bathroom, barricaded myself inside, reliving some of the worst memories from high school. Because the trans person they were looking for was me.
21:03 Speaker 04 The call was coming from inside the house.
21:10 Speaker 04 After a few deep breaths, I made my way back to the cafeteria. The same dude looks over at me. I know who it is. Mm-hmm. Talking with the hands and stuff. Putting them all on their hips. Very feminine qualities. It's Everett. My name is not Everett. But my secret was safe for just a little bit longer. And I'd always planned on telling my class about the entirety of who I am, but I wanted them to get the chance to know me first.
21:52 Speaker 04 But apparently, somebody way high up in the police department thought it'd be a good idea to tell everybody and their mama that a trans recruit was gonna be in the next class. And that if anybody messed with them, they were gonna get fired. To a certain extent, I get it. I was never going to be just another recruit. But I was now gonna have to out myself a lot sooner than I intended to. I was worried. I was afraid. Particularly about this one cat named Winston.
22:37 Speaker 04 Winston smoked cigarettes and chewed tobacco at the same time. Winston was the conservative oil to my liberal water. Winston was gonna be a problem. But I was gonna have to speak anyway. So I stood in front of the class. Alright, y'all, look, look, listen. The trans person everybody's looking for, it's me. So why don't we just quit this weird game of gendered hide-and-seek and let it go? And of course, it wasn't going to be that easy.
23:22 Speaker 04 Because I was the first openly trans recruit through the Washington DC Police Academy. And I knew they were going to judge every recruit that came after me by the standard I set. Thank God, my grandma had laid out the path all those decades before when she was a first. Because I was gonna have to walk the same tight rope to perfection that she had all those years ago. I would have to be excellent. I had to be exceptional. And I worked my ass off. Stayed up late into the night, so I got As on my exams.
24:06 Speaker 04 Crushed myself in physical training just to prove I could do it. And over time, I could see the way my classmates and training instructors began seeing me as a person first.
24:22 Speaker 04 My class even surprised me. They selected me to give the graduation speech in front of our family and friends, the assistant chiefs, and the chief of police. And after graduation, I got another surprise. It was Winston.
24:45 Speaker 04 He walked up to me, held out his hand, waited for me to take it, and locked eyes with me the same way my grandmother had all those years ago. Pulled me close, and he said, "Hey, man, you listen here. If anybody messes with you, you let me know, and we're gonna handle it."
25:14 Speaker 04 I could not have been more shocked if I had been struck by a bolt of lightning. Because here was Winston, this man I had been seeing in nothing but hues of black and white, reminding me to see the gray in him I so often demand that others see in me. And Winston showed me just a little piece of his heart and I got it. Because the heart of the officer matters. The badge don't do nothing but exacerbate the qualities of who we are at our core. That's part of the power of being a cop.
25:59 Speaker 04 But it wasn't a power I really wanted. After a few years, I resigned from the police department, but not before making some changes. The chief of police tasked me and a handful of other officers with rewriting the entirety of the Washington DC Police Academy Training Program. And I rewrote the hell out of that thing. Learning about unconscious bias and intersectionality, oh, they got that. Learning how not to be a homophobic, transphobe, or misogynist, I wrote that down too.
26:42 Speaker 04 Because one of the things that happens when officers get in trouble is courts pull their training records. And one of the common refrains in defense was, "I didn't know. Nobody told me. I wasn't trained." At the very least, they can't say that no more. And if they try, most of the officers I know will put that lie to rest. Because the heart of the officer does matter. And I had seen their hearts, and they had also seen mine. Thank you.
27:32 Speaker 00 That was Morgan Givens. He's based in Washington DC and is the creator, producer, and host of the critically acclaimed hope punk podcast, Flyest Fables. Morgan has been featured in The Washington Post, BuzzFeed, and on NPR's Invisibilia. He began telling stories onstage in the summer of 2015 and is so glad he did. The woman who would eventually become his wife happened to be in the audience for his very first story onstage. Now that's the power of storytelling.
28:12 Speaker 00 Do you have a story to tell us? Did you have to try to live up to your grandma's impossible standards? Call 877-799-MOTH. That's 877-799-6684. The best pitches are developed from off-shows all around the world. There are Moth events year-round. Find a show near you and come out to tell a story. And find us on social media. Just search for The Moth.
28:48 Speaker 00 In a moment, a mother who loves her son so much, she's almost willing to break the law. When The Moth Radio Hour continues.
29:34 Speaker 02 The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
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32:12 Speaker 00 You're listening to The Moth Radio Hour. I'm Jennifer Hixson, and we're hearing stories about the pursuit of happiness. Our final story was told at the Vic Theater, where we partner with public radio station WBEZ Chicago. I want to note that this story makes mention of sex a few times, just in case that doesn't feel appropriate for you or whomever you're listening with. Here's Ruby Cooper.
32:40 Speaker 06 After a year of him badgering me, I gave in. Parked on a dark country road in my mom's 1959 Dodge with a push-button transmission and a backseat as big as a double bed, I had sex with my boyfriend.
33:13 Speaker 06 He was happy.
33:17 Speaker 06 Me, not so much.
33:22 Speaker 06 I wasn't gonna do it again.
33:26 Speaker 06 What I didn't know is that I had gotten... I'm pregnant. Yeah. With twins.
33:43 Speaker 06 It was 1960 and I was 16.
33:52 Speaker 06 Six and a half months later, I gave birth to two little boys. Only one survived. But he spent the next three months in a preemie bin, struggling to live alone, while I watched him through a murky plate glass window. Because they never allowed me to touch him. When I finally got him out of there, I thought, "I'm never gonna let this kid get away from me again." A few months later, when he was 10 months old, through a routine visit with the pediatrician, he said, "This kid has cerebral palsy.
34:37 Speaker 06 He'll never walk, or probably won't talk, I don't know. You know, I'll give you, you're young, you can have more children. I'll give you the name of a place where you can take him, where he'll be with others of his kind." And I was stunned. I said, "His kind? I'm his mom. I'm his kind. He's going home with me."
35:10 Speaker 06 Kirk just grew, he was a beautiful, beautiful baby, with these great big green, blue, just hazel cut out, almond shaped eyes in him, possibly long eyelashes and a big smile. And he grew into this gregarious, confident kid that just, just everybody was attracted to. On his first day of school, I think he was seven years old, and he was in a little wheelchair, and I pushed him down the hallway, and he goes, "Hi, I Kirk. Hi, I Kirk." Like he was running for office.
35:55 Speaker 06 And he lost his first tooth. And I said, "Oh, what will happen is that the fairy will put the tooth under the pillow and a fairy will come at night and exchange it for money." And he looked at me like I was crazy. And he said, "No, mine bring pie."
36:19 Speaker 06 Pie?
36:22 Speaker 06 The tooth fairy doesn't have pie. The tooth fairy has money." He said, "Mine bring pie."
36:33 Speaker 06 And I said, "What kind of pie?"
36:40 Speaker 06 And he said, "Chocolate." And I, on the following morning, the tooth fairy from the local bakery had delivered a chocolate pie.
36:52 Speaker 06 And Kirk loved to swim, loved the water. And so, I would take, I would take, put the little May West out thingy on him, the vest, and I would jam him into a tractor trailer inner tube and tie a rope on it. And I, hey, I was a single mother, a teenage mother. Think about that. And I would drop him into any body of water, you know, and he could paddle around and, and I could pull him in with the rope.
37:31 Speaker 06 Listen.
37:34 Speaker 06 Nothing happened to him, for God's sakes.
37:40 Speaker 06 And, and so, one time, we were on, we were on my, on a little lake with, in my friend's ski boat. And he was watching the ski, us, they're just two women and him. And, and girls, teenagers. And he's, and, and finally, he just had enough of it. And he said, "I want to ski." And we looked at each other and said, "Pff, why not?" So we dropped him over.
38:11 Speaker 06 Back of the boat. And Janey's driving and she drove along real slow. And he's having a really good time and laughing. And then she revved it up. And he's just like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And she's having a great time. We got back to the beach and this, I don't know, big old ponchy, red-faced guy stomped over there to us and said, "I saw you out there with that baby, just pulling it along. You endangered his life. And I should have the authorities come and take him away from you." And I said, "Fuck you."
39:00 Speaker 06 We're...
39:05 Speaker 06 We're just having fun. And Kirk said, "Yeah. And you're no fun at all."
39:16 Speaker 06 Well, Kirk grew into a young man. When he was 22 years old, I moved him into a group home close by where we lived in California. And he met a bunch, it's five or six guys, that had different varying disabilities. And they would spend their time just talking and hanging out. And most of the conversation was about girls and how to meet them and about sex. And I would come and visit. And they would have come up with these schemes for me to get involved in.
40:00 Speaker 06 And I said, "No, no, not at all. I am not, no." And I would leave and go home and forget about it. And that year, about a couple of months before Christmas, I called Kirk and I said, "Hey, your sisters and I are wondering, Christmas is coming up and we're wondering if there's anything special that you would like to have for Christmas."
40:31 Speaker 06 And he said, "I want to have sex."
40:36 Speaker 06 I said, "Sex?"
40:39 Speaker 06 Sex is not a Christmas present.
40:46 Speaker 06 Videos and stinky cologne and perf- and sweaters and shit you don't need, that's Christmas.
40:57 Speaker 06 Sex, I can't, it's illegal.
41:01 Speaker 06 I can't buy it, I'll go to jail, I could go to jail. You could get a disease, it's not a good idea, Kirk. No. And when I finished ranting, I said, "You know what, I don't even know where I would look for it." "I have no idea about this, Kirk." And he said, "You could find it in my wallet."
41:26 Speaker 06 So...
41:35 Speaker 06 So I talked to my friends.
41:40 Speaker 06 My friend Jamie, who was the bartender, put a big pickle jar on the bar that said, "Get Kirk's Sex Fund."
41:50 Speaker 06 I gotta tell ya, that jar filled with paper money so fast, you wouldn't believe it. Because that is a cause that men believe in.
42:04 Speaker 06 I looked everywhere. I started, you know, I could've gotten picked up, because I looked at all of the women. Everybody at any bus stop, any, you know, trying, and I thought, "No, no." I, nobody knew anybody, nobody knew, I didn't know how to do this. And, and finally, I remembered that I, my friend, I had a friend named Bill and he was the manager of the Onslow Hotel in Reno, Nevada. Yeah. So I called him.
42:43 Speaker 06 And told him what Kirk wanted for Christmas and he said, "Hell yeah."
42:50 Speaker 06 Bring him up here." He said, "I'll take him to the Mustang Ranch." The Mustang Ranch, by the way, is the oldest brothel in the United States of America. In Reno, in Sparks, Nevada. It is known for, you know, it's just a good run place, from what I hear.
43:14 Speaker 06 And he said, "As a matter of fact, bring the whole family."
43:21 Speaker 06 "I'll give you family rates at the hotel and we'll have Christmas dinner at my place." I said, "Okay." So I tell Kirk. He's excited, he can't stand it. I said, "Now we gotta call my mother." Because my mother lived in Pennsylvania and spent Christmas, you know, holiday with us. And she's a little old-fashioned, kinda. And I didn't know how this would go over. And so I said, "Kirk, you tell her."
43:57 Speaker 06 So as soon as she answered the phone, he said, "Grandma, you gotta come to Reno for Christmas." And she said, "Oh, Reno. Why, honey, are we going to Reno?" And he said, "Because I'm gonna have sex, Grandma."
44:20 Speaker 06 And there was a silence and I thought, "Shit, she's fainted, no." But she didn't, she rallied. She said, "Isn't that nice?"
44:33 Speaker 06 "How much does it cost?"
44:38 Speaker 06 And I said, "I don't know, Ma, they don't give quotes over the phone."
44:43 Speaker 06 So she said, "Well, put me down for 50."
44:49 Speaker 06 To love my mother.
44:54 Speaker 06 So on Christmas Eve Day, FYI, the Mustang Ranch is closed on Christmas Day, in case you need to know, but on Christmas Eve Day, we got, we were at the hotel. His sisters got him all bathed and primed and powdered up like he was like a bride. And we drove over to Bill's. My mother goes into the kitchen to start the turkey and stuff for, and Bill and Kirk go heading out to the Mustang Ranch. In about an hour and a half, I don't know, I wasn't counting, but not too long, and I, they, I hear them outside coming up laughing.
45:37 Speaker 06 And Kirk, when he left, his muscles were so tight and he was so nervous and full of anxiety and scared and, and now when I open the door, he's just like laying in his wheelchair looking like Gumby with this big smile on his face. And I said, wow, back already? And he goes, she was real nervous. And so I, and I just laughed and gave him this great big hug. And I said, hey, guys, you know, everybody, I have a bottle of champagne.
46:17 Speaker 06 I think we should have a Christmas toast to the Christmas spirit, to family, to friends, to giving and receiving.
46:37 Speaker 00 That was Ruby Cooper. Ruby grew up in an Irish bar. She's a mother, grandmother, activist, teacher, writer, comic, and has traveled to much of the world solo. Her book is titled Irish Mongrel Child. She's currently working on a solo show called I Died Laughing. I gave Ruby a call to get an update on this story and life in general. In talking with you about Kirk over all the years, I've Feel like I know him. You tried to make sure that he had all the experiences he possibly could.
47:12 Speaker 06 Yeah, I tried to, I tried to give him a regular life. As much as close to just a typical male life as I could. I didn't baby him. I didn't, we did, that wasn't part of it. It was just, he couldn't walk, but he could think and laugh and, and have friends and everything else.
47:37 Speaker 00 You, you helped Kirk in his pursuit of happiness. And how did he help you in your pursuit of happiness, do you think?
47:43 Speaker 06 He was funny. He made me laugh. He was game for almost anything. As wacky as I was. And you have to understand, I wasn't a shrinking violet by any stretch.
48:02 Speaker 06 I mean, I liked adventure and I liked to do things. And, and he was with me on it. It was like, all right, now let's, let's go.
48:13 Speaker 00 You have told this story, I don't know, more than 20 times, all over the country. I'm not sure the exact count. And I always notice people coming up to you afterwards and talking to you. And I wonder what they say.
48:25 Speaker 06 Oh, they say, I wish you were my mother.
48:27 Speaker 00 Oh.
48:31 Speaker 06 Men say that to me, would say that to me a lot. Other, I've had people come up and cry. When we were, the first time I ever told it was at the, at the cemetery, Greenview?
48:45 Speaker 00 Yes, Greenwood, Greenwood, yeah.
48:47 Speaker 06 Greenwood. And this woman came up, hugging me. And I guess her first cousin had cerebral palsy. And she said, his mother kept him co- coistered in the house all the time. He never got to do anything. And she said, I just think, thought about him the whole time of what life could have been like for him.
49:09 Speaker 00 Wow. So what advice would you have for anyone who's supporting someone who may be disabled?
49:16 Speaker 06 The disability is not who they are. Who they are is inside. It doesn't. That's not, we take too, we spend too much time worrying about what people look like and what they can do. My mother said to me, when I was crying, when I was told he would be quadriplegic and they wanted to put him in the home, and I refused. And I said, "I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't know what this will be like or anything." And she said, "You don't need to know what it is. It's just, you, you have a baby." She said, "We don't love him for what he will do or won't do. We love him because he is ours."
50:04 Speaker 00 Mic drop. That's beautiful.
50:06 Speaker 06 Isn't it?
50:07 Speaker 00 Yeah. Your mom was cool, gosh. And what was your mother's relationship with Kirk like?
50:14 Speaker 06 Oh, God, they were like, they were like, I don't know, the tongue in the shoe. You know, I mean, he was, they were just so close. I have a picture of, that makes me cry practically looking at it. I have it in a frame, but I don't have it where I see it all the time because it's too emotional. She's old, she's sitting at the edge of a pool, and she, she has had a couple surgeries, so she's a little on the crooked side. He's crooked, he's in his, you know, she's got her arm around him, and there they are. They've been swimming.
50:49 Speaker 00 Ah.
50:49 Speaker 06 And now they're sitting together at the edge of the pool. I have a picture of them. She, I guess he was on his beanbag or something, and she leaned down and, and kissed him. And I got a real close-up picture of her just kissing him. She loved him. He loved her. When he was dying, I said, "You know, all you have to do when you want to go is ask for your grandma. She'll come get you." And he did. He said, "Mama, I want my grandma."
51:37 Speaker 00 That was Ruby Cooper talking about her son Kirk. Kirk died when he was 42 years old, surrounded by his mom and sisters and the many people who loved him. To see some pictures of Kirk and Ruby and Grandma, visit themoth.org, where you can also download the story. I want to thank all the storytellers in this hour for their lessons on the noble pursuit of happiness. That's it for this episode of The Moth Radio Hour. I hope you're inspired to pursue your own brand of happiness. We hope you'll join us next time, and that's the story from The Moth.
52:28 Speaker 02 This episode of The Moth Radio Hour was produced by me, Jay Allison, and Jennifer Hixson, who also hosted and directed the stories in the show. Co-producer is Vicky Merrick, associate producer Emily Couch. The rest of The Moth's leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Christina Norman, Sarah Austin Jenness, Kate Tellers, Marina Cluce, Leigh Anne Gully, 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 Nigel Kennedy and the Croca Band, Landsman Duets at Blue Dog Sessions, Cannonball Adderley Quintet, and Peter Bradley Adams.
53:10 Speaker 02 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. For more about our podcast, for information on pitching us your own story, and to learn all about The Moth, go to our website, themoth.org.
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