The Moth Radio Hour: Food, Glorious Food
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From PRX, this is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Sarah Austin-Ginesse. When you're mining your past for stories, one way to start is to think of an object that has meaning. In this hour, the object is food. In our four stories, we'll hear about pumpkin pie, beans, New York City pizza, and a suitcase filled with smoked salmon.

Our first storyteller, Ritija Gupta, has always been close to her mother's mother. The story you're about to hear involves a quest she was assigned by her grandmother. We were introduced to Ritija by our friends at Story District in Washington, D.C. Ritija shared the story on their stage and then told a version with us at the Moth. Here's Ritija Gupta live in Ithaca, New York. I thought my life was going pretty well until my grandmother called me and said, Ritija,

I know you've been having a hard time finding a man, so I think it's time you talk to God. And I was like, I've been paying my bills and I have a decent job. I didn't realize that my life was in need of divine intervention. But okay, Nani, please tell me, how do I talk to God? And she said, well, you know, there's Lord Shiva and he's a very good man and God to help single women find their husbands. And I was like, Nani, Lord Shiva, the God of destruction?

Lord Shiva, you want him to be my wingman? And she said, yes. So every Monday, if you fast, he will find you a husband. So I thought about this, and I had a couple of issues. The first is that I'm actually not Hindu. So I was like, is Shiva even going to take my calls? No, he's going to listen to me. But then the other issue was, I kind of didn't feel like I wanted to give up food just to get a man. But I did...

Thank you. I did really want to make my grandmother happy. I loved her so much and she loves me so much. And, you know, okay, maybe let's just see what happens. And when this inevitably fails, we can go back to talking about what I like to talk about, like Game of Thrones or cartoons. So the next Monday, I went into the office, walked right by the break room donuts, like no donuts for me because Shiv is going to find me a man. I did great until about after lunch.

And then I think my coworkers kind of saw like a look on my face and started to disengage with me. And I realized that by dinner time, I needed to just put myself to bed so I could wake up the next morning and have a meal because I was starving. And then something really weird and unexpected happened. I met a guy.

After literally years of not going on a single date, I met a guy who was really, really cute and funny. He had an interesting job. He worked as a White House correspondent. And he seemed to like me. And we went on our first date walking around D.C., enjoying the cherry blossoms and the sights and liking each other's company. And I was like...

"This is kinda cool. I just skipped my meals for a couple Mondays and now I'm meeting this really awesome guy. Thanks Shiva." On our second date we went to a restaurant, we're arm wrestling because that's what you do on a second date, and I'm beating him. And then out of nowhere he slams my arm to the table and beats me and I was like, "Wait a second, I'm not sure how I feel about the fact that you just kicked my ass." And he looked me in the eye and he said, "Aroused." And he was right.

So I was like, this is a great story to tell my grandkids. This is going to be amazing. Now, he was also the type of person who would end friendships over Settlers of Catan. And he got angry at waiters. And he started getting angry at me. And I kind of felt like, maybe he's not the right one because he seems really upset all the time. So we broke up. And I went back to my grandmother and I was like,

So I did meet somebody, but it didn't work out. I don't know, maybe I was really hungry and I broke the fast too early and I like settled with the wrong guy. So what am I supposed to do now? Like now, maybe there's something to this. And she got kind of excited because now she could really kind of sink her teeth in to this advice. And she goes, well, you know, Ritija, maybe what you need to do in addition to fasting is start wearing yellow because yellow is Shiva's favorite color.

And I didn't have it in my heart to ask her how she knew that Shiva's favorite color was yellow. She seemed really pretty convinced. I also didn't love that advice because yellow's like, it's not a good color on me. But okay, I'm already the weird one at work right now, so let's go ahead and throw like some ugly yellow clothes on it. So...

I found an old sweater that somebody had given me in the back of my closet, and I put it on like, all right, this is not an accident, Shiva. This is 100% for you, so let's do this. And another few weeks went by, and I met another guy, and he was really sweet. He was a lawyer, and he went to the coolest protests. He was really woke. When we would text, he would text me with thumbs up and brown emojis, and I'm like, is that brown emoji for you or for me? Because you're white, so...

Thank you for that. But I always felt like he was just really busy doing other things. He didn't really seem to have a lot of time for me. I kind of felt like if I was a harp seal or a bottlenose dolphin, he'd be more interested in me. And then I was like, you know, maybe I'm the one who's being really selfish, right? Like this is how he wants to spend his time. So since I'm never going to be an endangered species, maybe we just aren't right for each other. So we broke up. I was getting a little frustrated at this point because now it was getting some volume, but like I wasn't closing the deal.

And I was also like really weak on Monday nights and really tired. So I go back to my nanny and I'm like, "Is Shiva okay with something else where I actually get to eat? Like, can I chant for Shiva?" Now, when I was born, my grandmother gave me the nickname Guria, which means dolly. She thought I was like her little doll. And she said, "Guria, you sound hungry. I think what you need to do is eat more on your fast." And I was like, "That was an option?"

We could have been doing this. Please tell me more. What do you mean? Eat more on my fast. And she said, well, you know that Shiva's favorite color is yellow. Yes, I know that. So you need to start eating yellow food. So I was like, okay, so I'm going to just be eating like bananas at work all day on Monday is what you're saying. And she said, no, no, just eat other yellow foods like, you know, squash and corn and pumpkin pie. And I was like, what? Pumpkin pie? Okay.

How did pumpkin pie suddenly become sacred food? That... Uh... Okay. I will sacrifice my body and eat tons of pumpkin pie to find the love of my life. If that's what it will take for Shiva. Luckily, now we're around fall and pumpkin pie was plentiful. And a few weeks go by and I've eaten like a pilgrim's folly of pumpkin pie. And I meet a guy and this guy is so sweet. He's...

He works at an academic journal. He's just really lovely. We laugh at the same cartoons. And I just kind of felt like this feels nice. And on Thanksgiving itself, I got to meet his family. I did not eat pumpkin pie at that meal. And we were downstairs and I was kind of watching Paul and his cousins play ping pong. I was just like tooling around on my phone. And out of nowhere, a ping pong ball comes flying at my face.

And he, like a ninja, jumps and swats it out of the air to protect me. And I realized at that moment I was in love with him. And I thanked Shiva for somehow bringing me this amazing man. We dated. I told my grandmother about him. And on our one-year anniversary, we decided we were going to go to Chicago so that she could meet Paul. And I got there a couple days before him, and I said, "Nani, I'm so glad you get to meet him. This is really exciting for me." And she said, "Ritija, I can't wait to meet him."

I'm so glad I want to give him a gift. Either I can give him some Indian sweets or I can give him $1,000. And I was like, don't do that. Don't give him $1,000. That's going to be really weird. That's not a thing that we do. Why don't you give me $1,000 and give him the sweets? So she did that. And he came and visited. I didn't tell him. And...

We ended up going out to dinner at a place that my grandmother chose. And I think she thought that I had been feeding him Indian food, so we went to this spicy Indian restaurant. And as he was sweating and crying through the meal, and she was just talking at him, I could see that she was falling in love with him just as much as I had been.

A few weeks after we came back to DC, we decided that we were going to move in together and we went to IKEA. And he's picking out these huge Bjorns and Blargs and whatever. And we're moving into my 400 square foot studio.

And I was like, Joanna Gaines couldn't figure out what to do with this. This is insane. What are you doing? Where's all the rest of your stuff going to go? Like, you're taking over my apartment with all this junk, and then where's the rest of your stuff going to go? And Paul said, I didn't realize that you thought I was taking over your apartment, and I was just planning on keeping mine and keeping some of my stuff there. And I was like, oh, so you were going to keep your apartment too? We hadn't talked about anything. We hadn't talked about the future, right?

I didn't know if he wanted kids. I knew that I really did. I didn't know what he wanted to do with his career. He thought maybe he would move, and I was pretty committed to staying in D.C. And I realized that I had been doing this fasting and this kind of sacrifice because I really saw this great future. And he found somebody that he fell in love with, and that's kind of where he was. We weren't on the same page, and we broke up.

And as much as I was heartbroken, I was really worried about my grandmother, too, because she had so loved meeting him and really cared about him. And I called her and I said, you know, Nani, I have some really bad news. Paul and I broke up. It's okay, but we're not getting back together. But don't worry. I am going to get back to the fasting on Monday. I'm going to find your grandson-in-law. I'm going to weird out my coworkers again. You know, can't explain what's going on to them, but I'm going to do it, okay? And she said, Rithija,

I don't need a grandson-in-law, I just want you to be happy. Because Nani loves you, and Nani wants you to be happy." I realized that my grandmother had been just giving me advice that, even though I might have thought it was superstitious, it was no weirder than the advice I had gotten from dating books on like, waiting three days before you text somebody you like or making a focus group out of your ex-boyfriends. And she had raised these three kids during the Raj in India, and she'd done an amazing job.

And also what she had been doing was giving me hope through this process. And now that my grandmother has passed away, what I really miss, as much as I miss her love and as much as I miss her, you know, just her advice and, you know, I'd love to be able to ask her if a margarita counts as yellow food, but I do sometimes still fast on Mondays, even though I don't know what's going to happen in my future, because it does remind me of her and her love for me and the fact that she believed that I deserve love. Thank you, guys.

That was Ritija Gupta. Ritija says her grandmother was sometimes sharp-tongued with others, but always very soft with her. She took special care of Ritija, sending her packages of Indian sweets when she thought Ritija looked too thin, and recommending regular naps.

Ritija told this story a few times with us around the country, and we met her new boyfriend named Andrew at one of the shows. When I told her the story was moving on to radio, I asked, "What happened to Andrew?" And they just got married. So it worked!

To see photos of Ritija and her grandmother and Andrew, go to themoth.org, where you can also find recipes for some of Ritija's favorite yellow foods, in case you'd like to try this regimen of fasting and eating to find true love.

After our break, two stories. A girl who was anemic as a child grows up to lead an experiment with beans. And a high school student is asked to give away his first ever slice of New York City pizza. That's 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-Ginesse. This hour is kind of like a buffet and all sorts of foods are on display in the stories you're hearing. Mercy Lungaho tells our next story about an experiment in Africa with beans. And a dramatic story about beans is a hard thing to come by.

We met Mercy when she was an Aspen New Voices Fellow and she crafted this in one of the Moth's global storytelling workshops. Here's Mercy live in Washington, D.C. Growing up in Kenya, I had the story of my birth many, many, many times. And that's because when my mother was pregnant with me, she had anemia. As a result, I was born too early.

At 32 weeks, weighing barely a pound, anemic myself, the doctors gave me 72 hours to live. No doctor was willing to waste an incubator on a dying baby. So my mom paid double. She paid for the incubator and she bribed the doctor to give me a fighting chance. I was her miracle and she never let me forget it.

I used to think she was overly dramatic when she would make me stand up in the middle of a room full of family and friends to tell the story. Until I met the woman who delivered me. I was 14 at the time. I was with my mom. We were walking downtown when we met this woman in a beautiful white nurse's uniform. When I was introduced to Sister Margaret, she threw her hands into the air in public.

and started to pray loudly, thanking God for her little primi who had grown up into a tall young woman. I didn't know what to do with this moment. But I remember saying to myself, "Mercy? Maybe it's not enough to be a miracle. You have to do something with this life. You have to make your mother proud. You have to make this life count."

From then on, my relationship with my mom became about me making her proud. As a young teenager, I resented it. In Africa, if you want to have an impact, you have a choice of three careers. You can either be a doctor, an architect, or an engineer. I had grades for all three, but I didn't want to be an engineer. I would have loved to be an architect, but I couldn't draw. So I was happy to join med school.

But nobody told me that I wasn't cut out to be a doctor. I wanted to be a pediatrician, but each time I went to see the sick children, they made me sick. When they threw up, I threw up. So the school asked me to move to nutrition. It was the closest thing to medicine. That news crushed my world. It broke my heart.

I remember the day that my mother received the letter that I was joining med school. She had told the whole world that her daughter was going to be a doctor. In fact, from that time, she had referred to me as Daktari, Swahili for doctor. So I couldn't imagine how I was going to break this news to her. I remember the weekend I had to go home and tell her that I was going to be a nutritionist. She wasn't expecting me, so when she opened the door,

She asked, "Daktari, what's wrong?" It was a cold evening like today. It was drizzling. I stood there in the night, in the cold, and told her the truth. I remember the look on my mother's face. It was the first time I felt like a total failure in my mother's eyes. That weekend we spoke very little. And when Monday came, I decided I'll go back to school and make the best of the situation.

But I loved what I was learning in nutrition. It gave me hope, hope that I could use what I was learning to help the communities that I saw in Kenya. So when I got the opportunity to move to America and do a PhD in nutrition, I grabbed it. I was in Cornell for five years, and when I was done, to please my mother, I started to look for a job in Kenya. But I took up this job in Rwanda,

Because it was kind of an extension of what I did at Cornell. You see, I was in a lab where we produced a bean with more iron. So my job in Rwanda was to figure out if eating this bean with more iron would help women resolve anemia. There were only four students who had done any work, any such work. My mother was not impressed, but she got me the job, so I took it.

In this study, there were 200 university women aged 18 to 27. I had 135 days to get the evidence, but it wasn't easy. You see, I had this iron biofortified bean, a normal bean that looked exactly the same. I didn't know which girls were taking which beans, so we couldn't cheat. We had to allow the science to work.

Did I mention that this study had failed before? At that time, I was a year behind schedule. In fact, a friend of mine had called me to say, Mercy, you're going to get fired. I called my mom looking for comfort and she said, Baby, you should have listened to me. But you signed up for this so you better do it. I was screwed. This was a Hail Mary on so many levels that I...

I really needed this to work. I wanted it to work. I remember it like it was yesterday. It was early evening and as usual, I was setting up for dinner and I was watching the sunset. The girls were streaming in and I saw her from the corner of my eye. This one girl, she was usually very bubbly but today, she looked upset and she was whispering to her friends. I wanted in on this conversation.

So I inched on closer to eavesdrop. She was talking about her monthly period, how it had become regular, consistent, and on time. I mean, I could relate. These things can be an inconvenience in a young woman's life. But wait, why were they talking about this? And it hit me. You see, when a woman has anemia, her brain tells her body to stop the monthly period immediately

to reserve iron. But when a woman who is anemic receives enough iron and the anemia resolves, then the brain tells her body to resume the monthly cycle. This was huge. I wanted to call my mother and say, "Mommy, I think this is going to work." Way before we collected all the data, wrote the papers, published them, I had an inkling that this was going to work. But this moment,

brought me more than I could ever hope for. My mom was delighted, and I finally understood her. I remember calling her and talking about the study and going on and on and on. And when I paused to catch my breath, she said to me, "Baby, watching you fight for your life convinced me that you could do anything you put your mind to. This is what I was trying to tell you your whole life." I remember the relief in her voice

As she said, "Daktari, I'm proud of you. When you're done, come home." It was a wonderful moment for me. Today, there's no more resentment, just love and gratitude for everyday miracles. That was Mercy Lungaho. Mercy is still a research scientist working to end hunger and malnutrition in Africa. She says she wants to leave a legacy of a nourished world.

I asked Mercy about the follow-up from this experiment, and she said that this study provided evidence that iron biofortified beans improve memory and cognitive performance in young adult women. And as a result, Mercy says that countries across Africa, Rwanda included, are mainstreaming these biofortified foods in their overall nutrition plans.

Next up, Dihan Hussain. This story takes place four months after he and his family moved to New York City from Bangladesh. Dihan had never eaten pizza, and when he moved to New York, he couldn't wait to get his hands on his first slice. We

We met Dehan at the International High School at Prospect Heights, a Brooklyn public school for recent immigrant students. Dehan told the story in front of an audience of middle and high school students as part of a partnership between the Moth Education Program and Lincoln Center Education. The theme of the night was learning curves. Here's Dehan Hussain. Hi, guys.

When I first came to America, everything was interesting and anxious to me. And the most interesting part of me was pizza. Because in my country where I belong, it's from Bangladesh, where over there, pizza is not a regular thing like over here. We used to eat pizza occasionally, not every day. So, it's the second day of my school, and I was coming back to home, and I see there's a pizza store nearby my house.

and a shopkeeper was taking out a pizza which was like really amazing, chicken on the top, orange color, cheese is melting. I was like, damn, I need to get that pizza. It looks so delicious. I have to have that.

So I went to the shopkeeper and I asked him, "Okay, how much is the pizza?" And he said it's $5 with the soda. I was like, "Oh, that's pretty much cheap. That's nothing." But like every immigrant, they do, when they come from the country, they count the dollars in the currency.

And I started counting my money, like the dollar in my currency is like, oh, $5 is equal to around 400 bucks in my country. I'm like, that's not cheap as I thought. It's kind of pretty expensive. So I went to my mom and I asked my mom, mom, can I have $5? And she asked me like, you know, weird reaction, for what?

I said, I want to eat a slice of pizza. And she said, really? You think I'm going to give her $5 for a slice of pizza? Because I know she also was thinking that $5 equal to my currency, $400. And she was like, no, I'm not going to give it because we just came here. We're struggling. I don't want to spend money too much on the slice of pizza. And I was like, I understand, mom, but please, can I get it?

But she said, no, right in my face. I'm like, okay. Now, I was so mad about to eat that pizza that I started like saving money to get that, like to eat the pizza. And it took me like 20 days to just save $5. You know how it feels.

All the immigrants know how it feels. So, and now after 20 days, I have my $5 in my pocket. I feel like I'm the Bill Gates of the world, like, you know, richest person. Then I was, like, so excited all the time in the school. Now the school is finished. I went back to the shop, and I asked the shopkeeper that can I get that pizza because there was no name, and I don't even care about the name. I just want that pizza.

So he just gave me the pizza. It was on my hand and it was so amazing feeling that, damn, after 20 days I'm gonna have that fancy food that I'm thinking I'm waiting for a long time.

I'm feel scared and there was a place around my house there was like park so there were benches I was like damn I'm gonna eat my pizza with peacefully calm because it's almost like evening time there's nobody I know that place I'm gonna go there because I know if I go home I have to share with my sister which I don't want to do

So I sat down, about to take out the pizza from my bag, and I see there's a strange guy further back down staring at me, like, without any reason. I was like, I didn't do anything. Why is he staring at me like this? I'm so pissed, because I'm waiting, like, I waited for 20 days to eat that pizza, and now it's in my hand, and I can't even eat that, like, so, like, pissing for me. And then...

I was like, "Okay, let's ignore him." Because I can't even ignore him. He's staring at me weirdly. And I waited. I thought, "He's gonna go away. It's fine. I'm gonna wait." It's almost five minutes, but still he's not going. I'm like, "Huh." And suddenly I see that he's coming towards me. I was like, "No. No. Please, please don't come to me."

But he as he said he cannot hear my like in a voice so he came to me and he was like Excuse me, sir. Can you have any kind of food or something? You could help me and I can't even say no because I have food in my hand and he could see it That's weird and I'm I'm feeling so like so bad that why you have to ask me that question

with that kind of food because I'm that kind of a person who never like to share their food, even with my siblings, never. And if you even look at my food, I'm really mad. I don't like it at all.

Then I was like, "Okay, it's fine." But I looked at his condition. He had a ripped jacket, ripped shirt, ripped pants and shoes. His soles were out. I was like, "Okay, but I'm going to give you half a slice, not the whole thing, because I'm going to eat it because I've been waiting for that for a long time." And he was like, "Okay."

I tear the slice into half and give it to him and he just ate the pizza like so fast like around 10-15 seconds. I was looking at him and I was like damn how? Because the other slice is still on my hand and I'm still like pretty warm and how the heck he like eat that pizza so fast without when you order water or something. Then I

Suddenly, I see that the tears coming out of his eyes. And because sometimes it happens to me when it's winter time, tears come out of your eyes. So I thought it's like that. Then I asked him, what happened? Like, are you sick or something? He said, no, I didn't eat for more than two and a half days. That time, I don't know how I feel, but I really feel a soft corner for him.

I don't know why he is like that and how he is getting in this condition, but I feel really bad for him. So I feel bad, but I give him the other slice of my pizza. And he was so... He felt a kind of peace and

And I know that if I'm going to go home, I'm going to have something to eat. Not fancy like pizza, but at least I'm not going to starve. But he had no surety that he was going to eat next time or not, and when he was going to eat. So I gave him the other slice, and we just talked for a little while. And I looked at my watch, and it's time for me to go.

and he asked me that, can I get a slight hug? And I see him dirty, but still, okay, that's fine. I'm going to give you a hug. And that day I realized that it doesn't take a long to help others. A small act of humanity can make our world beautiful. Thank you.

That was Dehan Hussain. Dehan told me, some people say I'm an open book that's hard to read, but if you need someone to hike, travel, or party with, I am your best option. I'm crazy enough to make my friends' lives feel like an adventure. After our break, a woman in a family of expats comes to realize the meaning of home. And there's a suitcase of smoked salmon thrown in there. ♪

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-Ginness. Joan Juliette Buck tells our last story in this hour. Joan was the editor-in-chief of Paris Vogue, and this story takes place in France, too, during the Cannes Film Festival. Joan told the story at a Moth night we held in partnership with public radio station WBUR in Boston. The theme was state of affairs. Here's Joan Juliette Buck. Most families have baggage, right?

In the case of my family, it's not baggage, it's luggage. My family were expatriates. We left America with my grandparents when I was a baby, and we lived in France and we lived in England, and we were always packing and unpacking and coming and going, and nowhere was really home. Then I moved to New York, and after 30 years in Europe, my parents moved back to Los Angeles, but that wasn't home either.

And all my life I've envied people who know where they come from and who know where they belong. There's just one place that kind of feels right. It's Cannes in the south of France. At one point we lived there and my grandmother used to love gambling there. She used to go to the casino every night. My dad made movies, my uncle bought and sold movies. I was a movie critic.

And the one time of the year that we were all together would be during the Cannes Film Festival in May, with the scent of mimosa on the breeze and the Mediterranean almost the color of summer, and all the memories. And then my dad stopped making movies, and it was just me and my Uncle Don. My Uncle Don is kind, and he's easygoing, and he travels a lot. He's kind of distracted.

He gets into scrapes. And one of Uncle Don's most remarkable scrapes is the story of the smoked salmon. One year, Uncle Don was going down to the Cannes Film Festival, and he bought a smoked salmon in London to share with all his friends who were there only once a year. And he packed it very, very carefully in tin foil and plastic, and he put it in his suitcase, and...

He got off the plane in Nice for the Cannes Film Festival. The suitcase did not get off the plane. The suitcase traveled around the world. The suitcase went to Africa. And when the suitcase came back to the airport, they put it in quarantine. The smoked salmon had melted under the hot African sun. And when my uncle finally picked up his suitcase, the smoked salmon had turned liquid and everything in the suitcase was just...

rotting smoked salmon, and he said, I'm never going to pack a smoked salmon again. So my Uncle Don and I always see each other at the Cannes Film Festival, and we're having breakfast on this particular morning. It's the morning after the end of the Cannes Film Festival, and we're at the Hotel Splendide, which is not Splendide, but it's really sweet, even if the coffee is

bitter and the orange juice is sour and the croissants are so greasy they fly right out of your hand. And I'm loving being in Cannes and we're both about to go home to different countries and I say, Uncle Don, don't you wish you lived in Cannes all year round? And he said, oh, you know, why would I live in Cannes all year round? There's no one here. There's no one here in the winter. And

And I think of my grandmother, Nana, who's buried here somewhere and whose grave I've never seen. And I say, Don, today's the perfect day to take me to Nana's grave. I really want to see it. And he says, I can't. I got to put the car on the train and get a plane back to London. And I say, I want to see it. He looks at me very solemnly and he shakes his head and he says, honey, I can't show it to you. It's been desecrated.

My heart stops. The coffee comes up in my throat. I say, "Don, you're taking me to the grave." He says, "I can't. I've got to put the car on the train." But I follow him downstairs, and I watch him start his car, and it doesn't start. It's a sign. And the mechanic who comes from the garage with the jumper cables says, "Monsieur, you have to drive this car for at least half an hour to reanimate the engine."

I know that's Nana speaking. I get into the car next to Uncle Don. I say, okay, we're going. What can he do? And we drive past these pink houses, and then we drive past these factories, and then we drive past the factories again. I say, Uncle Don, do you know where the cemetery is? And he says, you know, I haven't been there in a while.

So I take the map out of the side of the car door, and I flap it open, and I say, what's the address? And finally, he remembers the address. And we get to the cemetery, and it's beautiful. Birds are singing, breeze in the trees, and we walk down between monuments and vaults and headstones. And I'm

terrified. I'm bracing to see my grandmother's desecrated grave. And finally, my uncle stops walking and he points to the ground and he says, we're here. And on the ground is a little rectangle of earth. It looks like an empty plot. It hasn't been desecrated. It's never been honored. And I turned to my uncle like, what? What?

And he says, "You know, it just wasn't safe to put up a head still." And I'm in a fury. I think, "Why am I the only person in this family who cares? Why am I the only person in this family who pays attention to things?" And I get down on my hands and knees.

And I smooth out the earth, I pull out the weeds, I get up, I get enough pebbles from the flower beds to spell out my grandmother's real name, Esther. And it fits exactly without measuring. It's a miracle. And my uncle goes and he gets one stone to put next to her name. And he says, you know, I really got to put the car on the train. And I say, no, no, we're here with the cemetery. I'm getting a headstone today. I'm going to that cemetery office by the gate.

Uncle Don goes to wait in the car. I go into the cemetery office. There's a guy behind a counter. I give him my grandmother's name, the year she died. The guy goes through his ledger. He says, what year did you say she died? I say 1973. He says, this is irregular. She was buried in 1978. Where was she for five years?

And I run back out to the car where my uncle is asleep in the driver's seat, and I wake him screaming, Don, where was Nana for five years? And he runs his hand through his hair, and he says, oh, honey, remember the story about the smoked salmon? He says, you know, the smoked salmon that was in the suitcase that went around the world, and then it ended up in quarantine. I say, oh, yeah, that smoked salmon. Yes, yes.

He says, well, when I was bringing your grandmother's ashes down to Cannes to bury them, somebody gave me a smoked salmon to cheer me up. I was not going to pack it in the suitcase. So I left the smoked salmon in the carrier bag, and your grandmother was in one of those pale blue Pan Am overnight bags, and I put them both above my seat in the plane, and when we landed at Nice, I collected the smoked salmon and

and I forgot your grandmother. I can just see the pale blue Pan Am overnight bag in the overhead bin with Nana in it. And he says, well, the plane went around the world. By the time it got back, I was in New York, and then I was on the coast, and then I was in London, and it was never the right time, you know.

But then I think, wait a minute, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977. And I say, Don, all those years we all came down to the Cannes Film Festival and we didn't do anything? And Uncle Don says, well, you know, your grandmother was in the lost and found. I said, we walked past her in the lost and found? Okay, this is too much.

I run back into the cemetery office because now I am really getting that headstone. And the guy behind the counter has another problem. He says, Madame, your grandmother was buried in 1978. He said there was a 15-year lease bought on the grave. The lease has run out. If you do not pay up immediately, we are throwing your grandmother's ashes in the ossuary. And the way he says this medieval word, ossuary,

with such revolting relish makes me draw myself up to my full height and I say, "Monsieur, we are paying for this grave immediately and I want you to give me the name of the finest marble mason in all of Cannes because we will be ordering an extremely nice memorial monument." He gives me the name

I come running out to the car. Uncle Don says, "You know, I gotta get the car on the train." I say, "Yes, but first, you are dropping me at this address. It's the finest marble mason in Cannes." And when he drops me off, we don't hug, we don't kiss, we don't wave. He's angry at me for having basically bullied him all morning, and I'm angry at him for being so damn irresponsible with my grandmother's ashes. I go back.

And I call my mother in L.A. and I tell her this whole story. And she's silent. But I can fix it because I have all these things from the marble mason. I have pictures of headstones and tombstones and all kinds of things. And I say, Mom, we can have pink marble, yellow marble, gray marble, brown marble, black marble. But didn't you once say that Nana wanted peace?

her ashes scattered on the Mediterranean outside her favorite casino. Wouldn't that be nice? And on the phone from L.A., my mother says, Oh, honey, keep the grave. Get the tombstone. All your grandmother ever wanted was a bit of security. So my cousins and I pay for the grave. We order the headstone. But my uncle...

He gets ill, he's in hospital, he's dying, and he dies at the end of August. And my cousins and I know that the only way to really give him a good funeral was to wait nine months and do it on the eve of the next Cannes Film Festival because that's when all his friends will be in one place. And of course he'll be buried in the same grave as his mother.

And we tell the marble mason to add his name to my grandmother's name. And nine months later, I fly to London to pick up my Uncle Don's ashes. They're in a box on a shelf in the crematorium. And I put them in a new overnight bag that's suede and the color of bread. And I put it next to me on the plane. And it's like Uncle Don's flying down to Cannes with me again.

And we land in Nice in the middle of a total eclipse of the sun. And I take the carry-on bag and I walk it past the lost and found, where my grandmother was for five years. And I take him outside the airport terminal and I unzip the bag because I want to show the eclipse to Uncle Don. And I want to show Uncle Don to the eclipse.

Because this is a monumental welcome home. That was Joan Juliette Buck. In addition to being the editor of Paris Vogue for seven years, Joan is an actor and writer. Her memoir, The Price of Illusion, is out now.

I asked Joan for an update on her family gravesite. It turns out, when Joan's mother died, her ashes were placed in that same grave, and Joan added a marble panel with her name. But when Joan's father died, his wishes were to have her mother's ashes with him in a cemetery in Paris, so Joan moved them. But the marble panel remained in the Khan Cemetery.

Recently, one of Joan's cousins unscrewed that marble panel from the headstone, called Joan, and said, "You should take it. It's nice marble. It would make a great cheese board." Joan declined. To see photos of Joan, Uncle Don, and the rest of her family in Cannes over the years, and to see other extras related to the stories you hear on the Moth Radio Hour, go to our website, themoth.org.

As I mentioned at the top of the hour, we play the object game in some of our workshops as a way to brainstorm stories. And you can do it yourself. Pick one object of yours that has special meaning. Think of how and why that object came into your life. Many times you'll find a spark somewhere in there. And if you come up with a great story, pitch us at themoth.org. So 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-Janess. Sarah also directed the stories in the show, along with Katherine Burns and Katherine McCarthy. The rest of the Moth's directorial staff includes Sarah Haberman, Jennifer Hickson, and Meg Bowles, production support from Emily Couch. The Moth would like to thank the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for their support of the Moth's global community program.

Moth Stories Are True is remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Our theme music is by The Drift. Other music in this hour from Anushka Shankar, Bruce Coburn, RJ Ditu, and Chili Gonzalez. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by me, Jay Allison, with Vicki Merrick at Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

This hour was 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.