We all tell stories - of our loved ones, of ourselves - with shifting shades of truth. This time last year, NPR promoted a project called #TheGreatListen, to get families to record their stories over the holidays. My parents had been married for 55 years - sometimes happily, sometimes not - and they definitely had a tale. We were all together in Florida for Thanksgiving, so this was my perfect - and only - chance to capture their words. With the Storycorps app downloaded on my rose gold iPhone, I hit “Record”.
I had told my dad the topics we would discuss, but not the exact questions. I hoped his answers would sound genuine, not overly rehearsed. Still, I wanted him to have a chance to recall some specifics from the last five decades. He would be doing most of the talking.
We set up our chairs in the living room. The thermostat was set at a sticky 78 degrees, because my father is “frugal”. (He buys off-brand Ramen noodles, because 20 cents a packet is clearly a rip off. For the interview he was sporting a fraying baseball cap that appeared to have been gnawed by wolves.) Circling us were pages from a lifetime lived overseas - Hebron glass vases and olive wood carvings from Israel, woven baskets and amethyst geodes from Africa, an oil lamp collection, a brass tray and coffee service from Morocco.
I started off asking my father what he wanted to be as a child. He said he dreamed of being like his dad - a maintenance welder at the American Motors plant. In 1940s Kenosha, Wisconsin, that was “the top of the heap”.
I was a little surprised by the clear note of pride in his voice. The grandfather I remember was a man of strict pronouncements (“Dogs can only come in the house when it’s 20 below”) who hadn’t finished high school. My grandparents’ house had shaky wooden steps up to the front porch and two small bedrooms - one for them and one for their four boys. Clearly my dad admired something deeper in my grandfather than the possessions he didn’t have. Great - we were off to a good start.
Next I asked my father about his service in Korea. Like most men of his generation, my dad rarely spoke about the war. I knew that once he’d ended up lost behind enemy lines and that he slept next to a stove in the freezing winters (a perk of being the supply officer), but that was about it. Maybe he’d surprise me with a new story. That could work - I wanted my questions to sound fresh too.
My dad launched into a story about how Korea smelled - like “human excrement” (his words). He said when the US soldiers first arrived on troop carriers, everyone noticed the smell from 3 miles off shore. Over time they became immune. Then each time new recruits arrived, they remembered how much everything, everywhere reeked. He wasn’t rid of the stench until he was half way back across the Pacific Ocean, 18 months later.
I never ever imagined in my wildest hallucinations that my father - a career diplomat - was going to recount on tape that an entire nation smelled like fecal matter. His anecdote about crap had catapulted our interview off course, from heartwarming to horrifying. Slightly frantic, I hoped the Storycorps app had instructions on how to delete doo-doo. My secretly harbored hopes of our family’s story airing one fine Friday morning on NPR? Dung and gone. My interview had literally turned to sh*t.
Despite my devastation, I continued.
Next, I asked my dad to tell me about when he first met my mother. (That couldn’t turn disastrous, surely?) My favorite story was their second date, when they went to hear Louis Armstrong play at Lake Geneva. They didn’t have tickets (remember, my dad is “frugal”). They sat on a dock under the stars and listened to the music from the amphitheater drift across the water. It was surprisingly romantic and strangely cool for my straight laced, middle American parents.
Dad told how he met Mom while living in the same apartment building in Minneapolis. They often ran into each other “on accident” in the laundry room or doing chores. He said she was kind and compassionate. As a nurse, she was hard working and they seemed to have the same goals for the future.
OK - a little utilitarian as stories go, but solid. At least I wouldn’t have to flush this one.
Then I asked for a story from the foreign service. I hoped he’d pick the day Anwar Sadat’s made his historic visit to Israel, while we were living there. It was the first time an Arab head of state had ever visited the besieged Jewish homeland. That day, my dad had a classified diplomatic message to deliver to the American staff with the dignitaries. His embassy driver took him up the winding mountain road to Jerusalem. They came around a sharp bend and the ancient city was laid out in front of them, bathed in golden light. Entering the walls, they saw Israeli and Egyptian flags crossed together on all the lampposts. My dad’s burly, ex-military Israeli driver pulled the car over and wept. He never imagined he would see peace in his lifetime.
That wasn’t the story my dad picked. Instead he told an anecdote about the American Ambassador he worked for in South Africa under apartheid - who was black. The Ambassador was bright, educated, dignified and surprisingly well accepted.
It wasn’t quite what I’d hoped for, but his story had merit - a twist of irony, a welcome note of tolerance. The flashback it triggered in me however, was not as lovely. When I was 24, I told my parents I was planning to marry my bright, educated, dignified Haitian boyfriend. The letter my father wrote me was ugly, with no redeeming twist of tolerance or acceptance.
Next I asked about my mom’s accomplishments. I think of her as the Hillary of dentistry. She was the first woman accepted to dental school at the University of Minnesota. She came so very close, but did not achieve her dream. She completed the first two years with high honors - first in her class. To her deep and lasting shame however, she was told she “was not dextrous enough” to become a dentist. Her instructors thought she was “better suited” to nursing, so she transferred her credits - and considered suicide.
There are so many stories of women at the tip of the spear of social change, who are the first to be sacrificed in the battle. The fact that my mother’s professors could not teach an intelligent, motivated student dentistry screams volumes about their prejudice, not her abilities. She, unfortunately, believed them.
My dad chose to tell a story about how my mother revived a defunct Christian women’s club when we were overseas. It wasn’t the only time he minimized her achievements.
Once, after college, my mom and I were walking a soft sand beach on Sanibel Island, collecting shells. I told her I wished she could be happy. I told her not to stay with my dad just for me and my brother. Divorce wasn’t an option, she said. She believed in the vows she’d taken. She would stay with a man who could wound with sharp words and rough hands. She said it was her job to take care of him.
The interview then fast forwarded through my brother Bryan becoming a lawyer, me becoming a doctor and my parents retiring to Florida. Ten years ago, my parents lost their house to Hurricane Charlie. Five years ago, they lost their son to an arrhythmia. His heart stopped and theirs did too.
We reached the part of their lives with the unexpected role reversal. My mother developed Parkinson’s. My aging father stepped up and cared for her - gently and carefully - around the clock for two years. The man who always told us to “Ask your mother” about every scrape and illness, gave my mother pills eight times a day and ferried her to endless doctors’ appointments. He took over cooking, dishes, grocery shopping, laundry and every household chore. I pleaded with him to have the home health aide my mother loved come in more than two hours a week. I said I’d pay for it. He refused. He said it was his job to take care of her.
Two weeks before Thanksgiving, my mother had a massive stroke. She could not swallow or move her left side, including her left hand with the wedding ring she’d worn for more than half a century. She was so hoarse that she and my father (who is hard of hearing) could only communicate through me.
I watched as her body melted. First her skin and fat cells, then her muscles, then her organs, as she lay in her hospital bed. She dissolved into sharp angled bones and blue-black scribbled blood vessels under her oversized gown. Somehow her smile remained, larger and more radiant for being bordered by her shrinking frame.
The day of the Storycorps interview, we brought my mom home from the hospital for the last time. She wanted her hospice bed in the living room, so we set up our chairs around it.
Mom had listened intently to each question of the interview. Finally, I turned to her.
“Mom - I know you have your faith. I know you are looking forward to seeing your parents, your brother and Bryan. How are you feeling?”
“Comfortable.”
“Are you scared?”
“No.”
“Dad - What would you like to say to Mom, the girl from the laundry room in Minneapolis who travelled the world with you?”
“Thank you for 55 very good years. Later on, we will meet again.”
“Mom - What do you want to say to Dad?”
“We’ve had a good 55 years.”
“What about - Stop being so cheap and buy a new hat?”
“I don’t know about that…”
“Thank you for being my mom,” I told her. It’s the only time on the tape that my voice breaks. “I love you.”
(Barely audible) “I love you too.”
Maybe the crap and the tears are all part of it. I don’t think I’ll delete them just yet.