The Moth Radio Hour: Second Chances
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Hey there. We here at The Moth have an exciting opportunity for high school sophomores, juniors, and seniors who love to tell stories. Join The Moth Story Lab this fall. Whether for an aspiring writer, a budding filmmaker, or simply someone who loves to spin a good yarn, this workshop is a chance to refine the craft of storytelling. From brainstorming to that final mic drop moment, we've got students covered.

Plus, they'll make new friends, build skills that shine in school and beyond, and have a blast along the way. These workshops are free and held in person in New York City or virtually anywhere in the U.S. Space is limited. Apply now through September 22nd at themoth.org slash students. That's themoth.org slash students. From PRX, this is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Sarah Austin-Ginness.

This episode is about second chances. We have four stories for you today, all different kinds of do-overs, opportunities to try again in work, in life, and in love. Some second chances you give to others. Some are given to us.

Our first storyteller is Josh Blau. He told this at a story slam in New York City where we partner with public radio station WNYC. And on this particular night, the theme was drive. Here's Josh Blau live at the Moth. So it's about six years ago and it's a rainy Sunday in Manhattan and my daughter Emma's eight and my daughter Sarah is six and the triplets are three. I know.

So we're going skating at Chelsea Piers. We're living on 58th and Sutton. And Chelsea Piers is, you know, on the west side. And we decide, you know, skate. First of all, I hate skating. The little girls love it. So we go to skating. It's like $100 a pop. I'm so stressed out. And the triplets, we decide to take them along because they're going to play at Chelsea Piers. And, like, you never take the triplets out because it's scary. And...

You put them in the car, you strap them in, and they're fighting about something. They're three. They fight about everything. They're fighting about whether it's raining or not. It's raining. It's not raining. It isn't rain. They're like morons. You love them, but they're like a little gang. They're cute. They're cute, though. They're nine today. Anyway, so...

Yeah, they're good. They still fight. So anyway, so you get in the car, you're very stressed out, and you're thinking about your life, and you're thinking, oh, God, we used to do brunch on Sunday, and now it's skating, and you're feeling a little bad for yourself, but you don't want to feel bad for yourself because you know you're blessed with five children, triplets, whatever. Anyway, so we head down the FDR Drive. We head down the FDR Drive. We're going to Chelsea Piers. Everybody's okay. And we get off at 23rd Street, right, because we're heading west, and I go to reach for my wallet, and it's not there.

And I'm like, "Where's my wallet?" Oh my God, I left it on top of the car. I know, with my cell phone. And the girls are like in the back, the two girls, the oldest, they face traffic. And Sarah's like, "Oh, Daddy, you know, I saw flying paper."

And we thought it was snowy. It was really fun. It was green and white. And I go, oh my God, I'm freaking out. My wallet's in there. I'm yelling at my wife. I'm getting very depressed because I'm already depressed, but I can kind of mask it. But now that this happens, I'm really showing it.

And you don't want to show it in front of the kids, but you can't help it. You want to not, but you can't help it. So the kids are like crying now because I'm like, I don't have my wallet. I can't pay for skating. What are we going to do? And the kids all of a sudden are like, oh my God, Daddy doesn't have any money. We're not going to be able to eat. The girls are crying in the back. We head to Chelsea Piers. And I don't know, I'm freaking out. I drop them off. I tell my wife I'm going home. I get on my bicycle. And you know, you really can't get on the FDR drive on your bicycle without

I'm thinking my wallet must be there somewhere. And I spent about three hours looking for my wallet, and I cannot find it anywhere. Everything is in there. So this is Sunday. I'm very sad. I have to cancel all my credit cards, if you've ever gone through that. And Monday, I have to go get my new license. And it's very upsetting. And Tuesday, we're heading to school, because they all go to the United Nations school, which is another story, because it's like $100,000. Anyway, but...

But we're heading down the FDR Drive. It's Tuesday morning. And Emma says, Daddy, I see your wallet. I'm like, you do not. You're eight. You're in third grade. What do you know? She said, because I'm still upset. So when you're upset, you're nasty to your kids, but you don't want to be, but it's okay. And so I said...

She said, oh, Daddy, I saw your wallet. I'm like, no, you didn't see my wallet. And so we go to school, and I say to my wife, you know, maybe she saw my wallet. So we drop them off. I don't even care. I guess they get up to school, and triplets are home with the babysitter. And I say, we're going to go on the FDR Drive. So we go on, and I swear to God, at 49th Street...

I see my wallet. It is there where she said it was. And I see it, but I can't stop. And I say to my wife, you know what? I love you. We've been married like 15 years. You're going to get out of the car and get my wallet.

He's like, "No, I'm not." I'm like, "Please, I'll buy you something." And so we go around again, 'cause I can't stop, and I wait. I keep going around, and I said, "Well, what if we make believe we break down on an FDR drive?" And she says, "Okay." I said, "Listen, you love me. Please, I'm not doing well, and you'll do this for me." And she says, "Okay." And so she gets out of the car. I stop the car. I put on my hazards, and my wife goes, and she retrieves my wallet.

And she says, "Wow, down the FDR Drive a little bit, I see credit cards and I see your driver's license." Meanwhile, this is like three days later, and I'm like, "Okay, let's go around again." I stop again because we have to go a little further, and I don't want to make her walk down the FDR Drive. I mean, what kind of a husband am I? So...

We go on the FDR drive again, and she retrieves credit cards. It's amazing. And of course everything's canceled, but I'm feeling good, right? And we retrieved my wallet, and then I swear, the next day, a little further down, the girls see my cell phone. But you know what? I've decided that I don't want that. It's been raining. I can't make my wife get out of the car again.

So I decide to leave the cell phone alone. And I want you to know, I keep this wallet in my desk at work. It has tire tracks on it. It has, you know, broken credit cards. But every time I have a bad day, which is often, because I'm an accountant and it's painful, and like an auditor will come into the office or something and I'll say, you know what?

I found my wallet on the FDR drive, so life turns out for me in the end. Thank you. That was Josh Blau. Josh is an accountant, and as you heard, he and his wife raised five kids in New York City. They're almost all adults and out of the house now.

The wallet from this story is still in the top drawer of his office more than 10 years later. He told me, "If you find your wallet on the FDR drive after several days, second chances are not only a possibility, but a reality."

To see a family photo from the time the story took place of five kids jumping all over him in the couch, go to themoth.org. It's like a beautiful chaos. Josh says, when you look at them, I want you to realize that you too would mistakenly leave stuff on the top of your car and drive away.

Our next storyteller is Navryoska Mateo. She developed this in a Moth community workshop where we partnered with the organization New Women New Yorkers, which supports immigrant women of all levels of education and English proficiency. At the time this story takes place, Navryoska is living in the Dominican Republic, and her ultimate dream job has always been to be a computer network engineer. So with that, here's Navryoska live at the Moth at the Bronx Museum in New York City.

So, I'm almost a straight out of the oven network engineer. And I've been applying to the same job for the past five years, every possible way, every day. Web page, driving physical resumes to the company, because it's my dream company and that's the job I want, so I'm not giving up. Now I'm one month away from graduation day.

It's important that I mention that I had this idea of becoming an engineer when I was tiny and I went to one of my mom's class. She is a construction engineer. I didn't know by then, but I know now it was physics. They had a humongous boat on the whiteboard with water and lines. And it was like the forces that the water emerged, whatever.

I found it fascinating, so I decided that was what I was going to do when I was a grown up. So I went back home, wrote it on my life plan. Become an engineer by 20 something. And it was happening. So I'm on that mental state that every new degree has of I know everything and everybody else knows nothing. And I'm cocky and confident and I'm there walking from one classroom to another and I get a phone call. It was them.

The people from my dream job, they wanted me. So I accepted and I was happy. Now one weekend into my dream job, I get to dress up super fancy and I feel like I can conquer the world every time I sit on my two flat screen, my keyboard and my mouse and connect to the matrix.

I realized that I didn't learn a thing on college because every day I had to go back home and study harder to actually perform the next day on the job. So now it's a Friday and like every other Friday we're there talking about our projects, how it went. You know, you don't want to delay because you want to go home and enjoy the weekend. And on that chill mood, my big boss comes in and he looks stressed. No bueno on a Friday.

And he said, "Stop what you're doing. We need this to get done by 5:00 p.m." So he hands off this, like, notepad with commands. I'm an over-planner. Don't hand a notepad with things I have to do and don't give me time to think about what I have to do because that's stressful. That's not part of my life plan.

But whatever, here's the boss. So I grab my commands, I get back to my NASA display, I sit there, I open a terminal with the, you know, the equipment. So I grab my first line, I put it on the terminal, I press enter, and it worked. Not bad. I grab the second one, and I put it on the terminal, and I press enter, and it worked. So now I'm feeling confident, and I grab like 10, and I put it on the terminal, and I press enter, and it worked. Grab 30, and I put it on the terminal, and I press enter, and everything stopped.

The terminal stopped. My heart stopped. And the network stopped working. So I hear one of my co-workers say, "Hey, I have a phone!" And I go, "Oh, no network." Yeah, I know. I know, dude.

So I do what we all do when we don't know what to do with a computer and I start clicking frenetically. And on that stage my big boss come in and look at me like, "Come on, move me away!" And start doing the same thing, clicking on my mouse, clicking on the keyboard. He knows it's not working. I don't do that, I already did that.

So he enters on emergency mode, which means I have to hard reset the router. Said, "Nobody else can go to the data center right now and fix what you broke." So I grab my car keys, I get to my car, and I speed drive from point A to point B. Headquarters, data center. The drive is 30 minutes, I did it like in five, and I swear, I think I didn't kill anyone. I get there.

the data center which is like a big freezer with a bunch of blinking lights. I get to the right equipment, it has the name, we stare at each other. I get to the back of the rack, I find the power cord and I unplug it and I plug it back and I wait. And those minutes waiting for the equipment to come back to life were the longest minutes of my life. I had to rethink

all of my life plan because I blew up my dream job in less than a year. Was I going to become a chef now? I was for sure not working for another telecommunication company because in Dominican Republic there are three and I'm already in one and I blew up the network. So eventually the router comes back to life and I feel nothing because I'm getting fired. So I grab my car keys and I drove back to the headquarters. Now I'm walking to my boss office and I said walking but I'm like

crawling, delaying the inevitable. I get to his desk and it looked like a mess. He has a bunch of paper. So one of those paper was my resignation letter for sure. And he does something with his hand and I interpret that he says like sit human. So I sit and he started talking, but I was barely listening because I was replaying all the stupid things like getting overconfident and entering 30 lines on a command line and blowing up a

And I'm there on this math in my head. He said, Namryoska, the vice president of technology just left my office and he wants your head. Because you didn't only blew up our internal network. You also affected our sales. So I meant the company lost a lot of money. So, you know, I will fire me. And he's like, but I'm not going to fire you. And I'm a septic. Dude, how come?

Are you sure? Did you just say what you... Yeah. I'm not going to fire you because if you don't screw up, you're not going deep enough. And he sent me off to my desk. And I'm like, okay, I guess I still have my job. And life goes on. And it took me a long time to click back on my computer without throwing up. But I got there.

that day that having a life plan is good but it's not written on stone and I have to be able to modify it and that making mistakes is part essential part of being human thank you Navrioska Mateo lives in New York and she's still a network engineer she says failing is part of the job and if something is broken focus on your capacity to fix it

She calls herself an artistic nerd hybrid. She likes to hike, sing, and read, and she says her main challenge in life is satisfying her never-ending curiosity. After our break, a dilemma. What do you wear to your divorce? When the Moth Radio Hour continues.

The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts and presented by PRX. This is the Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Sarah Austin Janess. In this hour, we're hearing stories of second chances. This is a theme I'm somewhat obsessed with.

My parents divorced each other when I was five and remarried each other when I was nine. So the idea of at least considering a second chance is in my blood. I think about it all the time. One friend says I'm from the recycling tradition. These stories have so far been about being given a second chance and a do-over. But sometimes you give yourself a second chance. Here's Faith Saley live at The Moth.

The night before I flew to my divorce, I was standing alone in my bra and underwear and basic black pumps, trying on dress after dress. And it wasn't sexy, and I wasn't sassy. I didn't have any girlfriends with me, though it would have been a perfect chick-lit rom-com scenario for me to give a gay divorcee fashion show.

I didn't have any kids to watch me, though at 38, I wanted them. And I didn't even have my own mirror to look in because I had been subletting a furnished apartment ever since moving to Manhattan from LA during the separation from the man we will now call my "wasband."

What I did have was this hot desire to show up in court wearing something that would say to my husband, "See what you've been missing?" when he had not been missing me at all and had in fact been dating a bartender coom fit model who was a decade younger than I was. And if you're wondering whether I googled her, oh yes I did.

And she was, I mean, you can say it with me, she was blonde, she was tall, she was thin, and tan. According to her modeling photos online, she enjoyed riding a bicycle in a bikini with no helmet. And I realized that focusing on what to wear to the funeral of your marriage may sound silly, or jejeune, if I may use that word, and I'd really like to, but it's

I knew that being in my husband's presence for the first time in 10 months would yank my heart and quicken my pulse. And that sounds like the stuff of romance novels, but it was really the stuff of corrosive karma. I'd met this funny, handsome, tall man when we were in our 20s, and he was quite bald then because he had just survived cancer.

And I was quite sad then because my mother had just died of cancer. And I think we thought we would heal each other. And the sweetness of our early days had diminishing returns. And I loved him madly, slavishly. And he loved me too. We just loved each other wrong. And I always loved him more.

My lawyer had promised that there would be no drama in the courtroom because we didn't have a single shared asset. I mean, we had these crate and barrel gift cards, which were the only things we registered for because we couldn't agree on anything else. But besides that, nothing. And all we had to do to release ourselves from our marriage was sign this piece of paper. But my husband wanted to see me in court.

And I didn't know what to expect. I didn't know what I would say or feel, and I didn't know what he wouldn't say or wouldn't feel. So my literal appearance was the only thing I could control about my legal appearance. And honestly, it was such a relief to focus on something as superficial as a dress after years, years of addressing deeper concerns. You know, I got to dig in my closet rather than my soul.

Here's what it came down to. I wanted to look beautiful for my divorce. I wanted the man to whom I was saying I don't to look at me and think I was pretty and feel sad he was losing me because that would mean I'd mattered. Also,

Focusing on what to wear to my divorce was an easy way to be glib about something painful. I mean, honestly, there is something very chic about flying in from New York to Los Angeles to get divorced. You know, it's kind of Auntie Mame. And my friend Joe begged me to wear a black pillbox hat with lace that would cover my eyes. One of my brothers told me to look very law and order, and my other brother told me to look sex-in-the-city fabulous.

I seriously considered wearing one of my reliable, beloved Diane von Furstenberg wrap dresses, but I didn't want to taint it with bad juju. Now the funny thing is, my wedding dress was a cinch to pick out. I shopped for it alone because I didn't have a mother or a sister, and it was the very first one I tried on.

I was getting married in a 15th century chapel in Scotland, and this dress, it had ethereal gauntlet sleeves. And this was way before I ever saw a Game of Thrones episode. And I went back to look at the dress with my best male girlfriend, whose name is Manfred. And when he saw me in my wedding dress, he whispered just one word, "'Inevitable.'"

Sadly, Manfred was not with me when I was picking out my divorce trousseau. And so I had this pile of dresses on my bed. I didn't buy anything new. It seemed wasteful. And I was going through my dresses in my closet one by one, and there was this one dress I kept dismissing because it was very grown-up and elegant. And the neediest part of me thought I had to look a little bit sexy in court. But this dress told me to step in it, and I awkwardly zipped myself up

And it was the one. A silk Nanette Lepore with this black and tan and purple pattern that somehow simultaneously evokes peacock feathers and leopard print, which I thought was an appropriate yin-yang combination. And the clincher was it had pockets which lent it, you know, an air of casual insouciance that I did not possess.

But I didn't realize until after I packed the dress why it was so extraordinary. And I remembered that I had bought it at a sample sale a year earlier in Manhattan on a cold fall evening. And as I was leaving the sale, my husband called with some legal threat.

And as I was walking through Times Square with the phone to my ear and my arms laden with bags of beautiful, deeply discounted clothes, it occurred to me I could hang up on him. And this had never occurred to me before because I spent years clinging to his every word. And I did it. I just hung up. And it was like giving myself keys to my own cage.

And every time he called back and I didn't answer, I got a little less sick to my stomach, and I just kept walking through the cold night air. And the world kept spinning, and the lights in Times Square didn't even flicker. And that's the origin story of my divorce dress. The accessories were cake, my mother's gold Celtic cross as if it offered some kind of armor, beige patent heels which we know elongate the legs,

My toenails were painted "Modern Girl" and my fingernail polish was "Starter Wife." And I cared about the jewelry and the shoes and the nail polish because I cared about those things on my wedding day. And on a meaningful day, whatever you wear can have meaning because it becomes what I wore that day, whether that day is a beginning or an end.

When I get out of the taxi at the municipal courthouse of Los Angeles, my lawyer escorts me up to the eighth floor, and we exit the elevator, and we're walking down this long hallway, and it's like my attorney is some weird legal dad who's giving me away on my divorce day. But what really gives me away are my heels, which are clicking so loudly on the tile floor, and I had wanted to see my husband before he heard me,

But it was all so instant. I was about 50 feet away from the courtroom and I saw him pacing outside and at the same moment he heard me and he looks up and my heart lunges. It is crazy, it is crazy how fast your heart can beat when you are approaching the person you're divorcing. And he looked strong and somehow taller. And I caught my breath seeing him.

This man that I had married just a few years earlier under a gothic nave instead of the fluorescent lighting of a courthouse. And the sun had streamed through the stained glass on our wedding day. And I remember trying to slow my walk down the aisle because my husband was staring at me like he never had before.

And I just thought, "This aisle is too short to hold this moment." And when he saw me for the first time in my inevitable wedding dress, he blinked his eyes so hard and fast as if his own tears surprised him. And my veil was a blusher. It covered my face. And for once in our whole relationship, he was the naked and emotional one, and I was the less transparent one. And I remember thinking,

"Someday I will tell our children how their father looked at me on this day." But on this day, on the eighth floor of the Superior Court, the father of the children we never ended up having looked at me for half a second. He glanced at me by accident, really, and then turned on his heels and went into the courtroom where he studied his iPad with intense concentration until the judge arrived.

And when the judge arrives, we sit in this row, and it's my husband and his lawyer and me and my lawyer, and for a half an hour, I try to get him to look at me. I crane my neck, I scoot my chair back, I'm like pushing it back on the back two legs, which is not safe, and I'm twisting my torso, and I just want to give him a small, sad smile, the kind where the corners of your mouth turn down, just sad.

Just some kind of respectful closure for the decade we spent failing to love each other properly. And now my heart's not beating fast, it just sinks into my gut and I'm thinking, "Dude, you married me! You invented hilarious nicknames for me! And you won't even look at me this one last time? I mean, this is it!" And he never looked my way. I thought he wanted to see me in court.

After all that energy put into deciding how I should look, I never wondered whether he would look, which is ironic and maybe inevitable. Just two years later, I wear another wedding dress. This one more exquisite than the first because when I walk down the aisle in it, my first child is inside me.

And soon after marrying the man I call my husband, I am in bed, it's early evening, I'm exhausted and I'm nauseated, and I'm flipping through a magazine to try to put me to sleep, and I see this ad for Naked Juice with this fit young lady out for a run. And I'm just kind of sleepy, and I think, oh, I can't run, and oh, that juice looks so good. And then I do this slow-mo double-take ad,

And I realize that the runner in this ad is my husband's girlfriend. And I'm so happy I can't run. And I'm 40 years old. And I won't fit into any of my dresses for quite a while. I wish I could go back and tell that motherless, partnerless, childless woman...

standing in front of a rented mirror, trying on dress after dress for her divorce, that what seems to fit you now may not suit you at all a season hence, and you'll outgrow old favorites and slip effortlessly into something new. Thank you.

That was Faith Saley. Faith is an Emmy-winning contributor to CBS Sunday Morning, my all-time favorite show, and a regular on NPR's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. She hosts Science Goes to the Movies on PBS. Her memoir, Approval Junkie, is out now.

Fun fact: Faith attended Oxford University on a Rhodes Scholarship, and she said her fellow scholars went on to become things like governors and Pulitzer Prize winners, while she landed on a Star Trek Deep Space Nine collectible trading card, which is now worth hundreds of cents. After our break, an old-timer is reunited with his family when the Moth Radio Hour continues.

The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by the Public Radio Exchange, PRX.org.

This is the Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Sarah Austin-Ginesse. This hour is about resets and do-overs and more swings at the ball. Our next and last storyteller is Sherman O.T. Powell, and O.T. stands for old-timer. It's a nickname he was given while he was in prison, and it stuck.

OT's like a cat with nine lives, and he's told his stories at the Moth for decades. Dame Wilburn, another Moth storyteller and regular mainstage host, talked to OT about his Moth history. She credits OT with inspiring her to tell stories. I'm here talking to you, and I can't even express how excited I am. I heard your story about being a pickpocket. It was the first story I heard on the Moth. Can you just...

Tell me anything about what it's like to be a storyteller. My stories was basically about the streets or hard life. And it was a change of pace when they came and asked me to do the story concerning my family. You know, I had to really rethink that.

And because I knew there was going to be a lot of soft spots or issues that was going to be painful to bring that story into tuition. But when they said that I was going to be able to do it in St. Louis in front of my family, that kind of.

put a little bit more prep in my step, you might say. And when I told them that, you know, that I was doing it in St. Louis, they were so happy because finally I'm coming to St. Louis to tell the story about them. So O.T.'s first stories are about his life on the streets, but this story is about a second chance. Here's Sherman O.T. Powell live at the Moth. It's a brisk autumn day. I'm on my way to Wendy's to get a couple of burgers and some chili.

I know Thanksgiving is right around the corner and so is Christmas. And my pastor, he's going to want me to come have dinner with him. But I refuse to this year. I refuse to go there and act like I'm enjoying myself when I really wasn't. I miss my sisters, and I really miss them this time of the year. I can remember my oldest sister's beautiful smile and the way she would always teach me the latest dances. And my baby sister, what a pain.

Everywhere I went, she wanted to go with me and my crew. And if I told her no, she'd go tell my mother. And my mother said, "Take her with you anyway." But I love my baby sister. If only they hadn't changed their phone numbers when I got out of the joint, I would have been able to find them. But this wishful thinking now. Years of drug abuse and incarceration had put the promise on hold. The promise that I had made to them when I left St. Louis 34 years prior.

I promised them that I would return one day and buy a house for the three of us and no one would ever separate us again. But like I say, drugs and incarceration put that on hold. Oh, well, at least I'm drug free today and got my own place. Thank you. So as I turned the corner, I see a friend of mine who I grew up with. As a matter of fact, we used to hustle together.

And so we embraced each other and went to talking about some of the same people that we knew. And he told me some of them had gone straight and got jobs. Some of them was back in the penitentiary, but most of them was deceased. And so I asked him, had he seen any of my sisters? He told me he hadn't, but a friend of ours named Tommy had.

that his girl hung out with one of my sisters. So I asked him if I gave him my phone number, would he give it to Tommy? He said he would. And I said, cool. So about a week passed, and then about a month passed, and I said, oh, well, it was just wishful thinking. It was a shot in the dark. So after about a month and a half, I'm laying in bed one night looking at the news, and the phone rings. And I answer the phone, and I hear two people trying to talk at the same time.

May I speak to Sherman Powell? I said, this is Sherman Powell. This is your sisters. I said, my sisters? Yeah, you idiot. This is your sisters. I said, Peggy? Delores? They said, yeah. I said, oh, my God. I jumped out of the bed, went and sat in the chair. I said, oh, my God. We went to crying and reminiscing and talking and everything. I said, Grandma, how's Grandma doing? They said, Grandma passed away about four years ago.

I said, "Grandma." I said, "You remember when Grandma used to chase all of us? She was dipping stuff and that stuff be rolling down her mouth and she'd be wanting to kiss you and stuff?" And we started laughing about that. And my older sister said, "Yeah, but remember when Mama got that new boyfriend and Daddy had told you before he passed away that you was the man of the house and you wouldn't ask that man how much money he made on his job and what kind of car he had and Mama told you to take your butt in the kitchen?"

And I said, yeah. I said, but Peggy said, but no, no, that wasn't the one. You remember when we was on our way to the drive-in for the first time and Daddy pulled behind the filler station and told all of us to get in the trunk? And I said, yeah. I said, that cheapskate trying to save $3. So we laughed and we laughed and continued to reminisce. So Peggy said, listen, you're coming home for Christmas. You're going to be with the family. You're going to meet all your family, your nieces, your nephews, your grandkids, and your sons.

So I said, "Alright, cool." She said, "I'm sending for you." So as I hung the phone up, I realized she said, "Sons." I wondered if she meant all three of them. Anyway, next thing I knew, I was on the plane headed for St. Louis.

All kind of things was running through my mind. Were they being nice on the phone? Were they waiting to get me there to give me a verbal spanking? And what about my sons? Maybe they're waiting to jump on me when I get there for leaving them and their mother. All kind of stuff was going through my mind. And we just talked about the nice things. We didn't talk about the bad things.

the stuff that I had been through and stuff I had done, you know. All this was running through my mind, and I just felt like I always do when I'm in front of a judge getting ready to be sentenced. I look for, I hope for the best and look for the worst, you know. So...

So I just fell asleep and let the plane come on into St. Louis. So once we got to St. Louis, my sisters and them were waiting for me. We hugged and kissed and got on in the car. My niece took us to her house. And so once we got to my niece's house, one of my great-great nieces come out. I think she was about four or five years old. Her name is Mimi. Mimi.

And so she come flying out the door, she hugged me and said, "Uncle Sherman, we've been waiting on you. I love you, Uncle Sherman." I said, "Well, I love you too, sweetheart." I said, "Well, at least I got one admirer." You know? And so she grabbed me by the hand and took me into the house and introduced me to a bunch of my nieces and nephews. So two of my sons were over in the corner.

So I walked over and I'm getting ready to get in chapter one of my life story. And so they said, "Listen, Pop, you don't have to say anything. Mama told us about everything that happened. That, you know, you had hard times and our grandparents died at an early age. Didn't nobody want to take you in because times was rough. And they didn't want an extra mouth to feed, so you did what you had to do. So come on down and have a drink with us." I said, "Well, I don't drink, son." I said, "But I'll be down there in a minute."

So they went on downstairs as did the rest of the family members. So I went back into the front room where the Christmas tree was and all the presents were under the tree. And I was sitting there and I was just reminiscing about how me and my sisters used to go on Christmas morning, wake up and go get all the presents under the tree and tear open the packages and stuff and watch the expressions on my mom and father's face.

And so at this time, Mimi came in and she sit beside me. She said, Uncle Sherman, where you been? My grandmother and my mama, they used to cry when they talked about you. I said, they did, sweetheart? I said, I'm sorry. I said, well, Uncle Sherman was sick and that's why he couldn't come home. She said, oh, you were sick? I said, yes, sweetheart. She said, what was wrong with you?

I said, "You see all those toys under that tree?" She said, "Yeah." I said, "If I hadn't been well, I'd have stole all those toys and wouldn't have sold them." She said, "You would have sold them?" I said, "Yeah, because Uncle Sherman was sick off of crack." I said, "And I would have took all those things and sold them." I said, "Crack make you do things that you don't want to do." I said, "But I'm okay now, sweetheart." So she said,

So she looked at me and she seemed to accept what I said. So she got up and took about three steps and she turned around and she looked at me, she looked at the toys, she looked back at me. She said, "You sure you okay, Uncle Sherman?" So I told her, I said, "Yeah, I'm alright, sweetheart. I'm good." So she went on to be with the rest of the kids. So at this time I said to myself, I said, "Well, if I can be honest with this kid, I gotta be honest with my sisters." And so I started toward the kitchen where my sisters were making hors d'oeuvres for the rest of the family.

So I got in and I went to tell them about this, began to tell them about the trials and tribulations that I was going through back then.

after I left them, but they didn't want to hear it. Just like my son, my older sister said, "Listen, we didn't search for you for 34 years to hear nothing about your past, what you've been doing. All we know is that you're here now. You know, we know that we had a rough time growing up. We know we did what we had to do to survive." And my baby sister said, "And anyway, you're here now, and that's all that matters."

I said, well, I appreciate that, sis. So I turned to leave to walk back into the front room where my baby sister said, but Sharma, I said, yes, sis, we still want that damn house. I said, OK. And so at the end of the day, my sister told me, say, listen, we're going to have we're going to start having family reunion every September Labor Day. So you're going to come back to St. Louis Labor Day of September next year. And in this time, you'll get a chance to meet all your family members.

I said, "Peggy," I said, "when you say all my family members, do you know I have another son?" She said, "Yeah, I know your Sherman Jr." She said, "We looked for him, but we couldn't find him. We know he's somewhere here in St. Louis." I said, "Yeah, okay then." I just was wondering. She said, "Yeah, well, I know about Sherman Jr." So anyway, I go back to New York, and before you know it, I'm back on the plane flying back for Labor Day.

So Labor Day, we go to this big, beautiful picnic park, and we're having this beautiful picnic, and all my family members is coming from all over St. Louis, Kansas City, and different parts of Missouri.

And I'm looking at grandkids and great-great nieces and great-great nephews, and it's just beautiful. And the kids, they've just come from dance school, so the youngsters, they're doing their little dance that they learned in school, and everybody's admiring them and clapping them on and everything. So then when they get through, the older people get up and get to do the electric slide.

And so I'm sitting there with my friend Tommy. So Tommy said, "Man, you having a good time?" I said, "Yeah, Tommy." He said, "Well, the circle is complete." I said, "Not yet, Tommy. The circle ain't complete yet." And Tommy said, "You talking about Sherman Jr.?" So I said, "So what do you know about Sherman Jr.?" He said, "I talked to your sister." He said, "Would you like to meet him?" I said, "I'd love to meet him." He said, "Well, he chairs a meeting on the other side of town for Narcotics Anonymous." He said, "I'll come pick you up tomorrow. We can go."

So the next day, he comes and gets me, and we go to this church where they're holding a narcotics analysis on the second floor. And so as I'm going up the steps, I'm thinking, you know, I've forgiven myself, and most of my family has forgiven me, but will he forgive me? You know, my stomach is tight. It's beginning to be hard. I'm hardly breathing, and I'm thinking it's the emphysema, but I know it's fear. You know, what is he going to say? Will he be the one that...

messes up the circle. But anyway, I said, I'm too far gone to turn around. And as my old cliche, look for the best, hope for the best and look for the worst. And so I go through the doors and with Tommy, we sit down and he starts the meeting. He say, my name is Sherman P. And he gives the ample and 12 steps of narcotics anonymous and 12 of drugs.

things that go along with it, all the rules and regulations. He said, so if anyone is here that's new and would like to stand up and have something to say, you do so now. So I stood up. I said, my name is Sherman P. I said, I'd just like you to know that I am here for Founding Reunion, and I really appreciate being here and hope that this will be the beginning of something that I'll do every year that I come for Founding Reunion.

So as I sit back down, the people is looking at me. Then they're looking at him. They're looking back at me. And then he stands up. He said, yeah, that's my father. And like y'all, this is the first time I've ever seen him. He said, but...

He said, but I'm not going to ask him where he's been because Tommy told me that he has seven years clean. So that means he's been in the rooms of Narcotics Anonymous. And therefore, he's been in the trenches like we've been in the trenches fighting this addiction. He said, I'm not going to ask him where he's going or what he's running from because I know what he's been running from. He's been running from the demons of relapse. So I'm not going to ask him none of that. He said, all I'm going to ask is that God be grateful enough and hope that he will give us 34 years of

quality time together moving forward and that's all I got to say about that and as he said this here tears is running down my eyes tears is running down my eyes and and I said yes the circle is finally complete and so I felt Tommy nudging me in the side and I turned around and looked at him he said God is good and I looked at him and I said all the time Tommy all the time

That was Sherman O.T. Powell. I called O.T. so often to check in and work with him on that story that he said, I'd make a great parole officer. O.T. was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. He's a graduate of the Moth Community Program, and he's currently studying to become a substance abuse counselor.

Here's Dame Wilburn again talking to O.T. She hosted the Moth main stage when he told the story in St. Louis and his family was in the audience. I got a chance to host that show in St. Louis and I got a chance to see your sisters. As soon as we did a call out for them, they all stood up, like your whole family stood up. I know they were clapping you on the back, but anything you can tell me about...

Like after the show, how they felt about it. Oh, well, of course they were, once again, well, my older sister's very emotional anyway, so she's going to cry at the drop of a hat.

But it was so funny because I've always had the church family, but I always yearned for my biological family. But I never dreamed of, you know, I just wanted to see my sisters. I never thought about, you know, they had kids and their kids had kids. You know, I never thought about my sons and their kids. And, you know, I had grandkids and great-grandkids. And so when I finally reunited with them,

It was amazing to see that it was just us four, me and my three sisters, that was responsible for all that. That was Sherman O.T. Powell talking with the Moth's Dame Wilburn. So a thought to end this hour about second chances. There's a life cycle philosophy in the Vedic tradition. It's a circle of creation, maintenance, and destruction. We need a little destruction before creation is possible.

It's a reminder that if you're in the midst of destruction, creation may be around the corner. So thanks to all of our storytellers in this hour and thank you for listening. That's it for this episode of the Moth Radio Hour. We hope you'll join us next time.

Your host this hour was Sarah Austin-Gines. Sarah also directed the stories in the show, along with Jennifer Hickson and Chloe Salmon. The rest of the Moss directorial staff includes Catherine Burns, Sarah Haberman, and Meg Bowles. Production support from Timothy Liu Lee.

Moth Stories are true is remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Our theme music is by The Drift. Other music in this hour from Pokey Lafarge, Nightmares on Wax, Khaki King, Bombay Dub Orchestra, and Brian Bromberg. You can find links to all the music we use at our website. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by me, Jay Allison, with Vicki Merrick at Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

This hour is produced with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts. The Moth Radio Hour is presented by PRX. For more about our podcast, for information on pitching us your own story, and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.