The Moth Radio Hour: Who's Got Your Back?

In this hour, stories of support systems and the people we depend on. In elementary school band, during medical events, and in the midst of a dangerous escape. This episode is hosted by Moth Senior Director Meg Bowles. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by The Moth and Jay Allison of Atlantic Public Media. Storytellers: Ryan Roe's father proves instrumental at a school concert. Eldon Smith struggles to connect to his girlfriend's kids. Silke Nied's family hatches a plan to escape East Germany. Bryn Durgin becomes her father's caregiver. Podcast # 921

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:13Meg Bowles?

  This is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm your host, Meg Bowles. Who has your back? Who are the people you lean on? For many, that job falls to family, biological or chosen. In this hour, stories of relationships that see us through, the people who stand by us and keep us out of harm's way. Our first story comes from Ryan Rowe. He told it at a main stage event we produced in Philadelphia. Live from the Kimmel Cultural Campus, here's Ryan Rowe.

• 0:49Speaker 01

  When I was in 4th grade, that's when we as students could pick an instrument to take lessons in and play in the school band. And I chose the trombone for two reasons. The first one was that there was this cute girl named Jessica who told me that she was going to play the saxophone. And I had heard that the saxophone players and the trombone players took lessons together. Now, the reason I didn't just also play the saxophone was that the buttons scared me.

• 1:20Speaker 01

  And the second reason I chose trombone was that my dad is a phenomenal trombone player. For many years, he played in the Marine Corps Band and he traveled around the country playing with them. He was based in New Orleans and he played in a lot of the jazz clubs there. And then after that, he became an instrument repairman. So, a lot of my memories as a child were of hearing him test the instruments in our house, playing his favorite songs. And I just loved the sound of the trombone. So, I felt like if I played trombone, that would make him proud. Now, the only other trombone player in the school was a 5th grader named Gina. And for months, Gina and I took lessons with our music teacher.

• 2:02Speaker 01

  And after all this time spent practicing, I just sounded terrible. Like, the noise that came out of my trombone sounded like a hive of angry bees, yet somehow more alarming.

• 2:19Speaker 01

  And, you know, it's a really hard instrument to play for a 4th grader, because you have these little 4th grade arms. And you can't even reach far enough to hit a C note.

• 2:32Speaker 01

  And what's more embarrassing is that when you have an instrument that has a lot of like valves and reeds and keys, if it sounds bad, you can sort of blame it on the instrument. But when it's just one long horn, if it sounds bad, it's 100% your fault. Like, I even came to my dad at one point and I was like, "This thing's busted." And he's like, "Here's the thing, no it's not."

• 3:00Speaker 01

  But the only consolation I had in all this was that Gina was also terrible. So as long as she was embarrassing herself, I felt fine embarrassing myself.

• 3:13Speaker 01

  Until 2 weeks before our first concert, Gina decides to quit.

• 3:19Speaker 01

  Now up and leaving me as the only trombone player in the whole school, and my music teacher is worried. But that week, my dad came in for a parent-teacher conference, and he met with my music teacher and mentioned to her that he played trombone. And she goes, "Wait, would you like to play in the winter concert

• 3:42Speaker 01

  with the 4th graders?"

• 3:46Speaker 01

  And he's like, "I don't know, this is their thing, I don't want to take anything away from it." And she's like, "Please, will you play in the winter concert?" So he accepts, and when he comes home and he tells me about it, he actually seems really excited about it. And I had to be like, "That's awesome, Dad, I'm excited too."

• 4:10Speaker 01

  Because at this age, my biggest fear was being the center of attention. I just wanted to blend into the background. I did not want to be sitting in the front row with Jessica on my left and an adult man on my right.

• 4:28Speaker 01

  But the concert comes around, and we're holding it in our dimly lit elementary school cafeteria. It was one of those cafeterias that weirdly has a full stage and curtains.

• 4:41Speaker 01

  As if they're trying to make the students think like, "Will there be dinner and a show?" Who knows?

• 4:49Speaker 01

  And the families are all there, in their metal folding chairs. Suburban moms have their 30-pound camcorders armed and ready. You can still smell the remnants of Taco Tuesday. And if you look close enough at the floor, you can see the remnants of Taco Tuesday. And the drummers, they were lucky. They got to sit all the way in the back, along with this kid named Evan, who had a triangle, because he wasn't really to be trusted.

• 5:19Speaker 01

  And every family that walked into the room instantly looked in my direction and had a confused look, because it was exactly as I had predicted: me in the front row, Jessica on my left, and my adult father on my right.

• 5:38Speaker 01

  And we begin playing the first song, and immediately my dad and I are in a competition to see who can play the quietest.

• 5:48Speaker 01

  I'm playing quietly, because I don't want people to hear the noises coming out of my trombone.

• 5:55Speaker 01

  My dad is playing quietly, because he doesn't want to upstage a bunch of nine-year-olds.

• 6:01Speaker 01

  We're both playing so quietly that the music teacher is waving her wand at us and mouthing, "Get louder, now!"

• 6:09Speaker 01

  But we get through the Blue Danube. The Carnival of the Animals goes a little better. And by the time we get to the funeral march, I can finally relax. But the last song that we played was "What a Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong. And you guys know it, it's a very soft and slow song. It's a bit easier to play on an instrument. And as I'm playing, I start to listen to my dad play next to me. And I'm hearing him hit every note perfectly and smoothly transition to the next. And then I look out into the crowd and I can see everyone else's dad sitting there. And then I look over at my dad and he's smiling.

• 6:52Speaker 01

  Because he's having the time of his life playing the instrument that he loves with his son that he loves.

• 6:59Speaker 01

  And I felt really lucky to be playing next to my dad. I finally felt like this is a really special thing, I should cherish it. And he ended up playing in every concert we did

• 7:16Speaker 01

  for the next five years.

• 7:26Speaker 01

  We had zero new trombone players every year for five years. So we just kept inviting him back. And it was awesome, I loved it, every single time, I was never embarrassed about it, I always looked forward to it, and it was always a special moment. So much so that when I got to high school and there was some upperclassmen that played trombone, I was no longer the only trombone player, so he didn't need to play with us anymore. And I only ended up playing one more semester before I decided to quit. Because it just wasn't as fun anymore. Something felt missing. So I moved on.

• 8:08Speaker 01

  Fast forward to just a few years ago, I was taking a road trip through the South and I stopped for a day in New Orleans. And I was really excited because my dad had told me so many things about New Orleans. And the whole experience just felt magical, walking around the city, because I kept thinking to myself, "This is my dad's home when he was my age." And I ended the day by going to a jazz club called Preservation Hall.

• 8:38Speaker 01

  And it's a really small club with these guys that play Dixieland jazz. And they sat me right next to the trombone player. And I'm having a great time listening to these guys. They're so talented. And then, right before they ended the show, a guy came up from the back of the room and handed the lead man a $5 bill and asked him to play "What a Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong. And as I'm listening to the trombone player hit every note perfectly and smoothly transition to the next, I become overwhelmed with emotion because I was being transformed back into being 4th grade Ryan.

• 9:20Speaker 01

  And I felt so lucky that I got to have those special moments with my dad. And so, when I got back home, I went to my parents' house and I told my dad all about it and I thanked him for what he had done all those years ago. And then, I went up to the attic and we had kept my trombone this whole time. So, every now and then, my dad and I will still get that musical itch and we'll go up to the attic and we'll break out our trombones. And I open up the case and I smell that sweet brass smell. And I put the horn and the slide together and you just hear all the familiar sounds.

• 10:01Speaker 01

  And when I begin playing, I'm immediately reminded of how terrible I am. But he hits every note perfectly and that's the fun part for me. Thank you.

• 10:15Meg Bowles?

  Ryan Rowe is a regular participant at our monthly Moth Story Slam in Philadelphia. He and his father are currently planning a trip to New Orleans together. It'll be his father's first time back since he lived there. The night that Ryan told this story, he invited his parents to the show. They had no idea what story Ryan was planning to tell. During intermission, after Ryan had taken the stage, his parents found him and they were emotional and hugging him. And when they returned to their seats, the people around them in the audience were like, "Wait, you're the guy, you're the guy's dad from the story?" and treated him like a mini-celebrity, which he apparently really enjoyed.

• 11:03Meg Bowles?

  You can see pictures of Ryan and his father playing the trombone on our website, themoth.org.

• 11:18Meg Bowles?

  Our next story comes from Eldon Smith. He told it at the Aaron Davis Hall in Harlem. Here's Eldon, live at The Moth.

• 11:33Speaker 02

  Thank you. We were at the Augusta River Walk. Me and my girlfriend have been together for a while now, but I really hadn't made a connection yet with her two kids. I tried. I would bring bags of cookies home from the Keebler plant I was working at. They'd just sit on a table untouched till they finally disappeared. It was like they didn't want me to see them take those cookies. It was just cookies here and cookies gone. Whenever I would come home, I'd make sure I spoke to both of them. They wouldn't even bother making eye contact. We'd go to the minor league baseball games.

• 12:15Speaker 02

  I'd buy the pretzels, the hot dogs, all the stuff. They'd stick around long enough to get that food, then they were off to play with the other kids. See, they were growing up without a father in their life, and I knew how important my father was in mine. Me and my dad might not have always seen eye to eye, but he was always there, and I felt that. But to them, I was just E., mama's boyfriend. So now we're at the River Walk. I see TT. She was about six, old enough to know better, throwing rocks at the ducks.

• 12:57Speaker 02

  And as gently as I could, I said, "TT, you know you shouldn't be throwing rocks at the ducks. You don't want to hurt them." She turned around, she put her little hands on her hips, and she screamed, "You ain't my daddy!"

• 13:16Speaker 02

  But a few weeks later, I was sitting in the living room watching Sunday Night Football. And Sam, her eight-year-old son, walked in and he had this piece of paper in his hand. It was a permission slip. He wanted to know if I would go with him and his Pee Wee League football team to a college football game that upcoming weekend. At first, I couldn't believe my ears. I said, "For real?" But quickly said yes before he had the chance to change his mind. Monday, I went to work and I was over the moon. I felt I was finally over the cusp. I was beginning a relationship with the leader of the pack.

• 14:00Speaker 02

  And I could go from there. Tuesday, I went to work with my brother. He owned a landscaping company. And as a side hustle, I worked with him. He had just received a contract for a housing project. There was a lot of landscaping that needed to be done. I wasn't wearing a mask and it aggravated my asthma. But I was used to that. I walked around with an asthma inhaler in my pocket. To be honest, I wasn't in the greatest shape. I smoked every day, had a beer or two, maybe a little gin. But with the work I was doing, I stayed on my feet so it felt like the two would just balance themselves out. I got home that night and my girl took one look at me and she said, "Are you okay?

• 14:45Speaker 02

  You don't look all right." I said, "Oh, it's just the heat, the dirt, all that grass is just getting to me." But I woke up Wednesday morning and it felt like an elephant was sitting on my chest. But I got up, I went to work, and as the day went on, it got harder and harder to breathe. By the time I got home, my girl took one look at me and she said, "You're not okay." I could see it in your eyes. And as I went to tell her I was fine, I sat down and realized I couldn't get a breath. It felt like my chest was filling with quick dry cement. With my last gasp, I said, "Hospital." Man, she jumped up like lightning and hit the spot she was sitting.

• 15:29Speaker 02

  She rounded up the kids and Sam, he helped me to the car. I could see that he was scared. I wanted to tell him I'm fine, but I was suffocating.

• 15:42Speaker 02

  On the way to this hospital, this woman ran every stop sign, every red light, while screaming at every car we passed. I didn't even think the asthma attack was gonna kill me.

• 15:58Speaker 02

  But I was sure, this is how we were all about to die.

• 16:03Speaker 02

  But we pulled into the roundabout at the emergency room, and I could barely stand up. Sam helped me through the entrance as soon as we burst in, he started screaming, "He can't breathe, he can't breathe." It was just like on television.

• 16:19Speaker 02

  I wanted to be their protector, and here he was trying to save my life.

• 16:26Speaker 02

  It felt like everything in that hospital was moving in slow motion. The nurse calmly got up, she brought me a wheelchair, and she took me to a room near the nurses' station. She put a mask over my face, and then she left. I began to panic. I just started talking. I said, "I can't breathe, I can't breathe. I don't wanna die. Please don't let me die." I was talking to God, because there was no one else in the room.

• 17:00Speaker 02

  And I closed my eyes and I seen this vision of this nurse.

• 17:06Speaker 02

  She had this beautiful dark skin. She was wearing one of those old nurses' uniforms with the long white dress and the little white hat.

• 17:16Speaker 02

  And in the most assuring voice, she said, "I'm not gonna let you die." I said, "I don't wanna die." She said, "You're not gonna die," I said, "I can't breathe." Then everything started to go black. And all of a sudden, that room erupted. There were so many people in there that they were spilling out into the hallway. I heard this nurse say, "I'm going to give you a shot. You're gonna feel like you're on fire. Then you, you won't feel nothing at all."

• 17:48Speaker 02

  And that's what happened.

• 17:51Speaker 02

  When I woke up, the room was bright. Everything was calm. And my dad was standing right there. The first thing I said was, "I can't stay here overnight. I've gotta take San to a football game this upcoming weekend." And with his bewildered look on his face, he said, "But baby, today is Sunday." "What do you mean it's Sunday?" It was Wednesday when I walked into this hospital. He explained that I had been in ICU for the past four days while they cleared out my lungs. I was placed in a medically induced coma.

• 18:35Speaker 02

  I call it a reboot. Machine not working. Power off. Reset. They were able to save everything to memory because when I woke up mentally, I was still in Wednesday. Tears just started falling. It wasn't supposed to be this serious. I was supposed to go to the hospital, get a breathing treatment. A cortisone shot at the most. And be back home before the night was even over. But my lungs had stopped working. My dad had been telling me

• 19:18Speaker 02

  to stop smoking. He told me that the doctor said I was a fighter because I could have died. He said, "I told you that you've gotta change. But now you've got a family. Man, you've got kids. You've gotta be here." And I knew he was right. Because I couldn't escape the feeling that I had let San down. I didn't get to take him to that football game. And I almost missed a chance to ever make it up.

• 19:55Speaker 02

  Wake-up calls, all that. But something had to change. I spent the next few months recovering. So there were no more outings for a while. But me and the kids, we were getting closer. They wouldn't let their mom pass a Sonic Drive-Thru without stopping to get me my favorite drink. A large cranberry slush. I noticed that they weren't so eager to run off. They'd even let me get in on the video games. We'd play Madden Football, NBA 2K. Me and Sam would sit down and watch games. We'd talk. Sometimes, we'd all just sit in the living room as a family and just watch movies.

• 20:40Speaker 02

  But after my recovery, we were able to get out again. And the first place we went was the Georgia Aquarium. And I didn't have to tell TT to stop throwing rocks because she was holding my hand. That Wednesday night at the hospital, it bonded us. And ever since then, I've made it a point to let those kids know. I am here for them, no matter what. And as long as I'm able, I always will be. Thank you.

• 21:27Meg Bowles?

  Eldon Smith hails from Augusta, Georgia. He's an ardent storyteller and devoted father, and likes to describe his life as a beautiful tapestry of family, passion, and artistic expression. TT and Sam are thriving. TT is a teacher, and though they're both all grown up now, they continue to have a very close relationship. To find out more about Eldon and learn how to hear more of his stories, go to our website, themoth.org. Coming up, swimming across the Danube in search of freedom when The Moth Radio Hour continues.

• 22:12Speaker 03

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

• 22:19Speaker 04

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• 23:04Speaker 04

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• 23:24Meg Bowles?

  This is The Moth Radio Hour. I'm Meg Bowles, and our next story comes from Zilka Neid. She told it at St. Anne's in the Holy Trinity Church in Brooklyn, New York. Here's Zilka, live at The Moth.

• 23:37Speaker 05

  Yeah, good. I was born behind the Iron Curtain in Brandenburg, East Germany. The close proximity to West Berlin enabled us to watch Western TV. Even though it was strictly forbidden, we did it anyway. I remember watching an old American series, The Streets of San Francisco, and was trying to imagine what it would feel like to be that free. I remember looking at West German travel magazines and picturing myself at the beach in Spain or skiing in Austria.

• 24:13Speaker 05

  I always dreamed about walking through the Brandenburg Gate, which divided East and West Berlin. And at some point, you were able to move freely through the gate. However, that was no longer possible. My mom's family escaped from East Germany to West Germany, including my mom's brother. And my mom and my dad, they also wanted to leave East Germany. However, my mother still had two more years left to finish her master's degree. During the time my mom was still in school, the Berlin Wall was built, and my parents were trapped. In 1978, my parents hatched a plan to escape from East Germany.

• 24:56Speaker 05

  The plan would include for us to swim across a river, which was roughly two miles wide. And we estimated it would take about two to two and a half hours to swim. So we had a cabin by a lake that enabled us to swim in the summertime without being detected, so nobody would suspect what we were doing. In the wintertime, we would go to the pool, and we would swim up and down, and up and down. And the lifeguard even asked us, "Isn't that kind of boring?" We're like, "Oh, no, we're good." Now, if he would only knew what we were up to, that would have been the end of it. See, I couldn't tell anyone, especially not my friends and my grandfather.

• 25:39Speaker 05

  If I would just so much as uttered the word, my parents may have been arrested. And the minimum sentence was eight years and an additional four years of trying to take a minor out of the country. So we planned our next vacation according to the moon, so we wouldn't be easily detected on the water, because the moon on... A full moon on water is like daylight, you see everything. In 1979, roughly two weeks after my 14th birthday, we set our plan in motion. We were packing up the car, and I made the bed on the back of the car. And as we were driving away from our apartment,

• 26:24Speaker 05

  and it was getting smaller and smaller, I was wondering, "Where will I be at the end of the summer? Would I be free? Would I be dead, or back in East Germany?" The plan included my uncle driving from the west to Romania, and we were all supposed to meet in a town called Orsova in Romania along the Danube. We were setting up camp at the Danube, and on the campground, we were greeted by some Romanian campers. And they told us, "Well, you know, the Romanian Border Patrol just shot and killed some people just the night before. They left their dead bodies in the water." I wasn't so sure. I still wanted to escape that day.

• 27:11Speaker 05

  Very next day, we drove down to the riverside, and we hit along the river in the brushes until darkness fell. While we were sitting there waiting, my uncle was in his hotel room overlooking the river, trying to monitor the activity on the river, and then would give us a signal when it was all clear to swim for us. The signal would be for him to stand on the balcony with the lights on behind him and his arms stretched out wide. Around midnight, I finally found his hotel room and saw the signal, and I know all was clear. It was time to go.

• 27:53Speaker 05

  As I was taking off my clothes and only wearing a bathing suit, putting on my flippers, I was terrified. I was shaken like a leaf. It was surreal, eerie, just like an experience I never felt before. Slowly, very slowly, I make my way into the water with my parents by my side, not trying to make any splashes, because at night, everything amplifies. Once in the water, all that fear disappeared. It was almost trance-like, just running on pure adrenaline. Roughly about an hour into our swim, all of the sudden, I look, and there's a searchlight

• 28:37Speaker 05

  that comes from the Border Patrol boat, and it comes around, and instinctively, I just whispered, "Dive." So my parents and I went under the water, and then slowly come back up. And as we were coming back up, that searchlight comes around one more time, and again, "Dive."

• 28:57Speaker 05

  We hover, slowly come back up, and fortunately, the boat has moved on. See, we were too close for the searchlight, we were too close to the boat for the searchlight to catch us.

• 29:11Speaker 05

  Another, almost two hours into our swim at that point, I could feel that my legs were cramping, and I tucked my mom's arm and said, "Mom, I can't make it anymore." So my mother dragged me the last few meters to shore. Finally, I feel the ground underneath my feet. As I was laying there, soaking wet off the sun, I hear some rustling in the brushes, and I turned and I look, and I look at a German shepherd and his handlers.

• 29:45Speaker 05

  They were yelling at us in Serbian, and we didn't understand a word they were saying. So my mom was begging them in Russian not to shoot us, while my parents were shielding me with their bodies.

• 30:01Speaker 05

  The plan for my uncle was to drive across the border from Romania to Yugoslavia while we were swimming, and then pick us up on the Yugoslavian side, and then take us to freedom.

• 30:13Speaker 05

  So the border patrol tied us up, and as we were walking on the street, I saw my uncle's car along the side, but I didn't see him. I had no idea where he was, and he didn't know where we were. We were taken to the border patrol house and were interrogated all night. They asked us, "Who were we? What did we do? Who helped us? What did we want?"

• 30:40Speaker 05

  After an exhausting night, we were taken to the next bigger city the following day and put into a jail cell. Now, each one of us had our own jail cell, and at fourteen years old, that's pretty terrifying.

• 30:55Speaker 05

  We were then introduced to an inspector after they finally realized we are family.

• 31:03Speaker 05

  And the inspector took care of our case. He told us that the first three days were very critical because they didn't know would they send us back to East Germany or would they let us go free.

• 31:16Speaker 05

  "About two weeks into our captivity, the inspector told us that we were to go to Belgrade, the then capital of Yugoslavia, where we can request asylum. At that point, I knew we were going to be free. Once we arrived in Belgrade, it was time to say goodbye to the inspector, and I will never forget him, because I believe he's in part responsible for my freedom. As we were walking towards the West German Embassy, I looked and on the right side of the corner of my eye, I can see the East German flag and the East German Guard. My blood froze in my veins. I was terrified. I stopped breathing.

• 32:01Speaker 05

  I swear that God could see "SKP" written all over my face. Because in order to get to the West German Embassy, we had to pass the East German Embassy. They were right next to each other. Finally, we set foot into the West German Embassy, and my mom kept asking, "Is this the West German Embassy?" And after an eternity, somebody finally answered and said, "Yes, ma'am, it is." I'm looking at my parents, and they're crying. And I asked my dad, I said, "Why are you crying?" And he said, "We are free. We are finally free." My parents and I settled in a town called PermaSenz in the southwest corner of Germany.

• 32:45Speaker 05

  And in 1989, the wall finally fell. I remember watching it on TV unfold with my parents. You know, it was just an incredible moment. We're hugging, crying, trying to reach our friends who are still in East Germany. I went back to visit Brandenburg, and I was able to see my grandfather one more time before he passed away. And during that time, I also took a day trip to Berlin, because my dream will come true. I was going to walk through that Brandenburg Gate. As we were walking to the gate, I asked my father, I said, "Please take a picture of me leaning against the pillar. It meant the world to me."

• 33:29Speaker 05

  Because now you could move again freely through the gate. It's still a symbol of freedom to this day for myself. Behind the gate, the Brandenburg Gate, is a park. And on that park are names of people who escaped and didn't make it, that died in the process. There is also a plaque that states to all those who successfully escaped the East German regime, they in part contributed to the liberation of the East German people. Today, I live on the west coast of the United States, and I will be forever grateful for

• 34:10Speaker 05

  my parents, who had the courage and the unwavering strength to risk their lives and mine for that opportunity. Thank you.

• 34:19Meg Bowles?

  Zilka Neid was born four years after the Berlin Wall was built. She said returning to East Germany and meeting old friends who had grown up behind the wall felt strange because she had lived a very different life than they had. And the contrast between her life in the US and life in East Germany was stark. We met Zilka after she called the Moth Pitch Line and told us about her experience fleeing authoritarian rule in East Germany. If you have a story, and granted, it might not be about escaping oppression, or it may,

• 35:04Meg Bowles?

  we encourage you to do the same. You can visit our website, themoth.org, and record your pitch directly on our site. Or you can call 877-799-MOTH. That's 877-799-6684. We listen to every pitch, and we'd love to hear from you. Coming up, love, memories, and therapeutic lies, when The Moth Radio Hour continues.

• 35:40Speaker 03

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

• 35:47Speaker 06

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• 36:31Speaker 06

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• 36:43Meg Bowles?

  Hi, I'm Dr. Mary Claire Haver, board-certified OB-GYN and menopause specialist. My podcast, UnPaused, is the place for bold, unfiltered conversations about what it really takes for women to thrive in the second half of life. Every week, I sit down with medical experts and leading voices to talk about the health issues that matter most. Because UnPaused isn't just about the years you live, but how well you live them. Listen and follow UnPaused with me, Dr. Mary Claire Haver, wherever you get your podcasts. This is The Moth Radio Hour. I'm Meg Bowles, and our final story in this episode comes from Bryn Durgin. She told it at the Center Stage Theater in Atlanta, where we partnered with Georgia Public Broadcasting. Here's Bryn Durgin, live at The Moth.

• 37:32Speaker 07

  I had just left my life in New York City to become my dad's full-time caregiver. And everybody kept calling this a "sacrifice." I hate that word. It makes me think of dead goats or baby lambs, also dead. Because some things gotta die in order for it to be a sacrifice. My dad was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's. And he was young, and I was young. I was still a teenager when the brain scan started. Now, years later, and in my twenties, I had moved home because the signs weren't so subtle.

• 38:15Speaker 07

  That first morning back, I heard the shower running, and I see the bathroom door is just wide open. I go to check, and I see my dad, and he's standing in front of the sink, still in his pajamas, just staring at his reflection in the mirror, sort of touching his face all over. And I go past him to turn the water off, and it's ice cold, so I know he's been standing there for some time. And he looks at me while still looking in the mirror, and points to his reflection and says, "Who is that?" And I tell him, "That's you."

• 38:57Speaker 07

  But it's the first I'd spoken that morning, so my voice has this unintentional flatness to it that makes it sound almost sharp. And so I say it again, except this time, like, I'm introducing him to someone that I know he'll love, someone I'm excited for him to meet. Like, "That's you, you." But he looks disappointed and scared. The next day, our medical IDs arrived in the mail. And there are these silver chains that look more like friendship bracelets, except instead of "best" and "friends," his was engraved "dementia" and mine "caregiver." So I put mine on first, and then I present him With his, like, it's a present.

• 39:43Speaker 07

  And I make something up about how these bracelets mean that we belong together. And he looks at me like I've lost my mind. And I think maybe he's on to me. And then he says, "No, this bracelet is from my time in World War II." And then he goes on, he even names the division, the 101st Airborne. And, and he, he just goes on and on. And he says that these guys, they're trying to track him down. But don't worry, they're good guys. They're just trying to bring him home. And he says something about this having to do with his three brothers. My dad's an only child, by the way.

• 40:26Speaker 07

  And as he's telling this story, it's starting to sound pretty familiar. Like, I can almost see it. And he is summarizing the plot of Saving Private Ryan. Which, I guess, makes him Matt Damon. And then, a week later, he announces that he is Canadian. This man who fought for our Stars and Stripes on the beaches of Normandy is Canadian. And then, my dad, who is in his 60s at this point, is telling people at gas stations, in the doctor's office, in the grocery store, anybody who will listen, that he is 96 years old.

• 41:08Speaker 07

  And they are earnestly responding like, "Wow. Look at you. Good for you." And like, they, they want to know his secret. And I should say that there's usually at least a sliver of truth in what he's saying. You know, I'm, I'm sure that living with a fatal neurological disease makes you feel a lot older than you really are. And we were living right on the US-Canadian border. You could see the bridge. And, you know, his dad was a 100% disabled military veteran. And he was the only child, so if it weren't for that, he would have been shipped off to Vietnam.

• 41:50Speaker 07

  And I guess that has a whiff of Saving Private Ryan to it, at least. And so, I never correct him. And I get really good at going along with whatever he says, no matter how bizarre or unreal it is. And...

• 42:11Speaker 07

  In the dementia community, we don't call this lying. We call it therapeutic fibbing. And it's world-building, really. Because it's a lot easier for me to step into his world than it is for him to understand mine. And that's the last thing that I wanted. I did not want him to know the reality of the situation. Of course, he knew that he had Alzheimer's, but he didn't know that I was his caregiver. When I was little, I was terrified that I would just disappear in the middle of the night. And this made bedtime a total nightmare.

• 42:51Speaker 07

  So my dad, the drama teacher that he was, he turned bedtime into a whole production. And he would make up a poem, a new one, every single night and theatrically recite it to me at my bedside. And on nights that I'd spend away, he would write this poem in advance on a little blue index card and slip it into my bag for me to read before falling asleep elsewhere. And now that he was afraid of a different kind of disappearing, I put all of my energy into making him feel as alive and present as possible. So that fall, I got us seats on an antique railway that took us through the Adirondack Mountains.

• 43:33Speaker 07

  And I took him to a sugar shack that winter, and we watched the sap drip from the maple trees and get boiled into syrup and ate them on stacks of blueberry pancakes. And in the spring, I took him strawberry picking, and I made a pie using his mom's recipe, my grandma's recipe, and we ate it on paper plates in the park. And then one day, I take him to this beach on Lake Ontario, and it's where he used to take me, growing up as a kid. And it's just before sunset, and he's looking up at the sky, and then over at me, and then back up at the sky, and then back over at me.

• 44:15Speaker 07

  And he looks at me like, "Oh, I see what you did." Like, he thinks that I am making the sky turn colors. Like, the setting sun is a present that I'm giving him. And he starts to seem nervous, and he starts fidgeting in his pocket, like maybe he's looking for something that he can give to me. And then he's looking at me, and he's really looking at me. And he looks so happy. And he says, "Will you marry me?"

• 44:50Speaker 07

  I know. And I'm shocked. And I get that feeling that you get when someone sort of jumps out and scares you, where my whole body just tingles, and it feels sort of numb. And without even thinking, I tell him, "I'm your daughter." And I see his happiness. This happiness that is him imagining a future turn to confusion. Because he doesn't get labels anymore. He doesn't know what "daughter" means at this point. And now, I know that my dad didn't actually want to marry me. He just wanted to be together forever.

• 45:33Speaker 07

  And what father doesn't want that with their daughter, right? Might they express that a bit differently? Probably. But I know that he's proposing to me for the same reasons that I probably said that I wanted to marry him when I was a kid, because of that sense of belonging and security and safety. And it's a healthy development, really. My therapist said so. Of course, he's proposing. And also, I don't know what I had expected, because I had taken him on a year's worth of what now, in the soft light of the setting sun, looks like dates from The Bachelor.

• 46:20Speaker 07

  I had even gotten a helicopter involved at one point. I had gifted him a helicopter ride for Father's Day that year. And two weeks before that, before this proposal, I had taken him on a glass-bottomed boat to an island that is in the shape of a heart. So, duh, of course.

• 46:42Speaker 07

  But responding to him like I did felt corrective and cruel. And it's all I could think about on the drive home. But it's not like I could turn around and say to him, "Hey, you know what you asked me back there on the beach? On second thought, I changed my mind. The answer is yes." Because he wouldn't remember.

• 47:07Speaker 07

  So, a few weeks later, we are apple picking when, with a mouthful of Granny Smith, my dad turns to me and again asks me to marry him. And again, I tell him, "I'm your daughter." And that was my chance. That was my chance to just therapeutically fib, to just say yes. But I didn't. And over the next year, my dad continued to propose to me over and over and over again. And he proposed so many times that it's all now just this fog that blends in with this guilt and shame

• 47:51Speaker 07

  that I feel over not having said yes.

• 47:56Speaker 07

  And eventually, my dad stopped being able to ask me to marry him. And he stopped being able to say much of anything at all. And then he died. And standing on the stage of my high school theater, where my dad taught for 42 years, I started his eulogy by saying, "I'm Joe Durgin's daughter." And that's the thing. I couldn't have said yes. I needed to remind myself, not him, that I'm his daughter, his child, something that I had stopped feeling like when I had started installing child safety locks and replacing his shoelaces with those elastic coils

• 48:41Speaker 07

  that don't need tying and putting his drawings up on the refrigerator.

• 48:48Speaker 07

  I think on some subconscious level, I knew that once he was gone, being his daughter is what would be left. It's what I would still be able to be. It's what I'm still able to be to him now. So what, what I guess I was really saying all of those times that I told him, "I'm your daughter," is, "I'm your daughter, so you'll always be with me." And that's true. I, I see him, I see his face in my own every time I look in the mirror. Because I'm his daughter. Thank you.

• 49:34Meg Bowles?

  Bryn Durgin is a writer, humorist, and frequent contributor to The New Yorker. She's also the director of programming at Bookstore One in Sarasota, Florida, where she leads the popular Band Book Club. Bryn was her father's full-time caregiver for three years, and she says the experience shaped her in significant ways that are hard to articulate. It forced her to slow down, and that slowing down allowed her to see the smallest parts of life, like the colors of a sunset. She said during that time, taking care of her dad, it was as if every one of her senses was heightened.

• 50:12Meg Bowles?

  She told me that often people think a person with Alzheimer's forgets you. People were always saying that her father was mistaking her for his wife, or he was getting her wrong, but she said it never felt like he was forgetting her. In fact, she said, spending that time with him, she felt like she knew him better than she ever had before. She says she absolutely believes that you can have lasting, meaningful relationships with people living with dementia.

• 50:41Meg Bowles?

  She still wears the medical alert ID slash caretaker slash friendship bracelet, and in fact, she has never taken it off since that first day with her dad.

• 50:56Meg Bowles?

  That's it for this episode. We hope you'll join us again next time.

• 51:16Speaker 03

  This episode of The Moth Radio Hour was produced by me, Jay Allison, and Meg Bowles, 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, Jennifer Hickson, Kate Tellers, Marina Cluchet, Leanne Gully, Suzanne Rust, Sarah Jane Johnson, and Patricia Urenia. Special thanks to our friends at Odyssey, including executive producer Leah Reese Dennis. Most stories are true as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Our theme music is by The Drift. Other music in this hour from Trombone Attraction, Illy Mel and Sean Williams, Deluxe, and Phil Cook.

• 52:01Speaker 03

  We receive funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. For more about our podcast, for information on pitching us your own story, and to learn more about The Moth, go to our website, themoth.org.