Stories from the Stage

RANDY RICE: He suggested to me that perhaps during his mom's visit, we could sleep in separate bedrooms.

"Not a chance" was my reply.

(audience laughter) BETSY KOMJATHY: Maybe she hadn't told her husband and children about the adoption.

I should have given more thought before sending that message.

ESMOND FOUNTAIN: Without hesitation, my brain came to the great conclusion that, on this first date with my dream girl, the only way that I could turn this around is by telling her that I love her.

(laughter) THERESA OKOKON: Tonight's theme is "The One."

From disastrous first dates to finding a lifelong mate, that search for love is sometimes hilarious, sometimes it's heart-wrenching, and if you are lucky, it just might be filled with a whole lot of joy.

Either way, we forge forward, hoping that maybe we, too, will become one of the lucky ones.

RICE: My name is Randy Rice.

I live in Providence, Rhode Island, with my husband, Aaron.

I'm 54 years old and I have been H.I.V.

positive for nearly 30 years.

And I understand that you're also a writer.

I make my living as a writer.

It is something that I love doing, and I do pretty well.

So I understand that much of your writing has to do with your experience with H.I.V.

Can you talk a bit about why you feel like it's important to share those experiences?

My first conversation about participating here, I said, "You know, I, I'd absolutely be thrilled to do it, "but I'm not going to tell a story in which I do not disclose my H.I.V.

status."

There is no reason for me to talk about anything if people don't understand that I have survived as long as I have.

Mm-hmm.

I have so many friends-- or I had so many friends-- that never survived, never became old men.

OKOKON: Mm-hmm.

Um, and that I've got this enormous privilege to be an old man, telling my stories is something that I, I can't pass up and, and I can't tell my story without that piece.

It would feel like a betrayal to all the friends I lost.

It is the Wednesday before Thanksgiving 2000.

My boyfriend Aaron and I are hosting our first holiday together.

After living apart for the first five and-a-half years of our relationship, we took the plunge, bought a home, and we began living together.

I'm a queer activist, openly H.I.V.

positive.

I've protested, I've marched.

I've died-in.

I've written strongly worded letters to the editor.

I have not thrown condoms at Catholic bishops... (laughter) ...but I have handed out thousands of condoms to sex workers.

Doc Martens, ACT UP, angry AIDS protesting.

"We're here, we're queer, get used to it."

All of that.

My boyfriend Aaron, by his very existence as a visibly gay Black man, prefers not to draw additional attention to himself, and understandably so.

We are both mama's boys.

It presents itself differently in each of us, but it is a defining characteristic for both of us.

Now here we are, we're hosting our first Thanksgiving together.

Aaron's 73-year-old mother, May Hazel, will travel from North Carolina to join us for the holiday.

Born in 1927, May was born in the small farming community on the border of South Carolina.

Her grandfather was born into slavery.

May graduated college in 1946, an astonishing achievement for a Black woman at the time.

She had a long, successful career in the healthcare industry and has for decades been a Sunday school teacher at First Baptist Church.

She is a woman of deep, abiding faith.

Generations of people have said or have been told, "Straighten up, here comes May Hazel."

(laughter) While Aaron came out to his mom as a gay man in 1982, night after night, she prays that he will find the right woman.

May and I have met a handful of times, and we speak on the phone occasionally.

But Aaron has not told his mom explicitly that we're a couple.

He tells me, she doesn't want to know.

May, like many moms, prefers the polite euphemism "friend."

When spoken as Southern code, it is typically pronounced as a two syllable word, "frand."

A few weeks after Aaron invited his mom to join us for Thanksgiving, he suggested to me only once and only briefly, that perhaps during his mom's visit, we could sleep in separate bedrooms.

"Not a chance" was my reply.

(audience laughter) If I ever visit your mom in North Carolina and she wants us to sleep in separate bedrooms?

Fine, I'll do it.

It won't make me happy, but I'll do it.

Her house, her rules.

But not here, not in our own house.

So here we are, it's Thanksgiving Eve.

The house is clean, we're ready.

When May arrives, we're all on our best behavior.

We're doing the dance.

It's like a Victorian era dance where everyone's moving in time to the music, but there's no touching... (chuckles) ...and there's no emotion.

I retire early because I want to give them the time and the space to go down memory lane.

Unbeknownst to me, Aaron's strategy for avoiding the obvious conversation with his mom is to stay up later than her for ten nights in a row.

(laughter) Night one is not going well.

(laughter) The clock passes 11:00, then 11:30.

May is comfortable and chatty in the guest room, which is right next to our bedroom.

Finally, accepting the inevitability of it all, Aaron says, "Good night, Ma," while he reaches for the door handle of the room that May saw me walk in two hours earlier.

While I can't hear her, she is energetically and desperately pointing at the bedroom door and whispering soundlessly, (whispering): "You sleep in there?"

(regular): "Yeah Ma, good night."

As Aaron opens our bedroom door and closes it carefully behind him, I am tucked in bed, trying to stay out of it.

Aaron is panicked.

He is certain that his mom is packing her suitcase and calling a cab to the airport.

"You got to go talk to your mom."

"I can't."

"You've got to."

"I can't."

"You've got to."

We go round and round.

"Do you want me to go talk to your mom?

"Yeah."

(laughter) "Okay."

It's almost midnight, but I'm up.

Knock twice on her door, which is ajar.

"May, can I come in?"

"Yes, you can come in."

But what am I going to say?

What does May need to hear?

"May I begin?"

I said, "I know that you prayed "that Aaron would have a nice place to live.

"He does.

"I know you prayed "that he would have a good job.

"He does.

"May, I know that you prayed "that Aaron would find someone to love him.

"May, "your prayers came true.

"I love your son.

"All of the things you prayed for, "they came true.

"Not like you expected them to, but they did."

At some point, Aaron says that he heard us laugh.

That's when he fell asleep.

(laughter) The next morning, my mom, Abby-- think Betty White... (laughter) Comes over for Thanksgiving and to meet May for the first time.

As she walks in our front door with our Christmas presents under her arm, she is beaming as she hugs and kisses Aaron.

Me, I'm watching May watch my mom, and it's intense.

May is seeing my mom treat her son like family.

At that moment, Thanksgiving Day 2000, I know that we can all do the work that love requires.

That was 22 years ago.

Today, May is 95 years old.

Two years ago exactly, February 14th, 2021, she came to live with us.

(audience says "aww") And she will tell you, whether you ask her or not, that she has two sons, Aaron and me.

Thank you.

(applause) FOUNTAIN: My name is Esmond Fountain, and I am based in Brooklyn, New York, and I'm a storyteller/comedian.

So, I understand you've had a number of different jobs.

Yeah.

OKOKON: Can you tell me what some of those jobs have been?

I was a nanny, I was a flight attendant.

I was a cashier at a 24-hour caf in downtown Los Angeles.

(laughs) Theresa, I've had... like I change jobs every year, so it's been like that since I was, like, 18.

That's probably not the best thing for my current job to know right now, but... (laughs) Retail-- Adidas, J.Crew.

What's one of the jobs that's really stood out for you?

One of the most impactful jobs you've had?

The most impactful job was the nanny in Beverly Hills.

I learned so much just about being a parent and having children, and I just felt like I was growing with that child.

He was nine years old, and that was such a (chuckling): um, impactful time of my life and his life as well.

He was an only child and so, I just learned so much from him.

I was a freshman in college and...

I had just met the perfect girl.

She had beautiful hair.

She's intelligent, she was kind and she had a Southern accent.

Her name was Amber.

She was on the dance team, and she had many suitors.

And to be completely honest with you, I had no chance with her.

She was way out of my league.

But I had one thing that other guys in college didn't have, which was persistence and patience.

Amber posted on Facebook one day that she was looking for volunteers to go running with her at 6:00 a.m. before class.

(laughter) I signed up immediately.

Didn't even think twice about it.

My roommate and I, we disagreed on my tactics.

He felt that I should have just told her from the get-go that I liked her, because he said, "Women appreciate honesty."

And I told him that dating is a marathon, not a sprint.

And I learned that from The Notebook.

(laughter) I ran with Amber for three really long months and on January 1st of 2012, I decided I was going to ask her out to Valentine's Day.

So I asked her, and she said yes.

And so I had almost two months to plan the most perfect Valentine's date with my dream girl.

And I don't know what happened, but I didn't.

I, I... (laughter) I got to Valentine's Day, and I said I was going to make this plan.

So, I found a restaurant on Yelp, two and-a-half stars, which in Mississippi, that's five stars.

(laughter) They had a Valentine's dinner, 20 bucks for two, which was great, because all I had in my account was $31.

And so, the whole plan for me with the date is to start it off by getting her some $5 roses from the guy who sells them on the side of the road, in between traffic stops.

After that, we are going to go to dinner, 20 bucks for two, and then we're going to swing by McDonald's and get a $3 McFlurry.

We're going to share it.

And after that, if all goes well, I'm expecting a kiss at the end of the night.

And though I was very confident in this plan, I was actually, I was very nervous and scared.

I didn't get to go on any dates growing up.

And so, this was my first date ever and it's on Valentine's Day.

I was so nervous that I called my mom and I stayed on the phone with her two-and-a-half hours of her trying to pep talk me for this date.

And, like, it's cute, it's cute and all, but it was too long.

I was an hour-and-a-half late to picking up Amber.

(laughter) Yeah, um... (laughs) I picked her up and she wasn't happy, but I gave her the flowers, and that kind of helped.

And then we drove to the restaurant, and we got there, and there was a line outside of the restaurant that was very long, and I didn't make reservations.

So, she wasn't happy about that either.

(laughter) We went down the street to the next restaurant.

We got food, we sat at the table, and I, I wasn't focused.

I, I'm going to tell you what I had on my plate.

I had string beans, kiwi, and shrimp.

I just grabbed random things.

My main focus was getting money into my account because this new restaurant was not budgeted for.

So I'm texting my mom underneath the table and Amber is not happy.

I can tell that she's very mad.

This date is not going well.

But I've watched enough Lifetime movies with my mom to know that I can fix this situation.

So without hesitation, my brain came to the great conclusion that, on this first date with my dream girl, the only way that I could turn this around is by telling her that I love her.

(laughter) Yeah, yeah.

Um, but not in a weird way.

I got to do it sexy.

I got to do it sexy.

(laughter) So I grabbed my plate of leftovers and I had string beans and kiwi, and I wrote out the words "I love you" with the food.

And I turn this plate around and I push it towards Amber.

And she lifted up her head and looked at it and half smiled and said, "Thanks."

Not "I love you, too."

(exhales) After, after that, there's really nothing else to say.

We just kind of sat at the table.

We left.

My mom came through and paid for the bill.

And, um, we started driving home.

It was 35 minutes.

I didn't have a radio.

Cutthroat silence, we didn't say a word.

We get to the dorm, and I pull into the driveway and I know I got to say something, but I can't think of what to say.

So I just reached into the Lifetime vault and I said, "Amber, I had a really great time.

I hope we can do this again sometime."

And she said, "Esmond, I think we need some space."

(laughter) She got out of the car and walked into the dorm, and I drove back to my dorm, and I sat there in the car.

I'm not going to lie, I just played sad songs on YouTube for about 45 minutes.

And then, I see Amber walking across the field towards my dorm, which is an all-male dorm.

And part of me starts to believe that this is her coming to say, "Hey, I forgot to say this at the table, but I love you, too."

(laughter) Then I see a hockey player coming out of my dorm, and not only a hockey player, but a Black hockey player, So a unicorn in and of itself.

(laughter) They hug, they embrace, and then they go into the dorm.

And I like to tell myself that they were going to Bible study.

(laughter) But I wasn't invited.

And I just sat there in the car and I didn't move.

I, I didn't want to go inside the dorm, partly for two reasons.

One is I had been talking about this date to my roommate for months, and I didn't want to tell him how it went.

And the other part was, I kind of needed Amber to get out of my dorm.

You see, I wasn't going to go in there while she was in there because the walls in the dorm were super thin.

So if someone was having Bible study, you could hear all the verses.

(laughter) I sat in the car and I ended up sleeping in it overnight.

I woke up the next morning and said I would never, ever say "I love you" to anyone ever again.

I got to my senior year and I got a message from Amber, and she sent me a photo of the "I love you" plate that I made for her.

And she said, "Hey, was just scrolling "through my phone and I saw this.

Hope all is well."

And I met up with Amber shortly after that, and she said, "Esmond, I thought it was really cute "and I tell all my friends about it all the time."

She said, "I know it's been a couple of years, "but if you're up to it, "I'd love to go on another date with you, but I'll have to plan it this time."

(laughter) And...

I was in the cafeteria and I said, "Amber, I need just a second."

And I, I walked out of the cafeteria and I called my roommate, who had been making fun of me for four years.

(laughter) And I said, "I'm going to tell you something "and I'm never going to say it again.

Dating is a marathon, not a sprint."

Thank you, guys.

(applause) KOMJATHY: My name is Betsy Komjathy, and I live in a suburb of Boston.

I work at a local college, Babson College, in their speech resource center, and I work with students and graduate students in helping them prepare for pitches and presentations.

What is it like for you to prepare this story of your own to tell?

It's different, this is my first time telling a story.

I've been an audience member a number of times, and my husband encouraged me to, to sign up for a storytelling workshop.

I like trying new things and so I'm excited to try this and just have some fun with it.

So if there were other audience members of Stories from the Stage that were thinking about telling a story, what advice would you give them?

I would give them the advice just to go for it.

You know, I think one of the messages I hope people take from my story tonight is not to overthink things.

And sometimes, if there's an opportunity, just take it and enjoy it, and there, it could have a very fruitful result.

It's Christmas morning, and I wake up in a panic.

I've forgotten to do something really important for one of our kids.

Minutes later, while our sons are still asleep-- thank goodness they're teenagers and they sleep late, even on Christmas-- and my husband is groggily filling the stockings, I'm in my office on my laptop, desperately Googling the name of our son Teddy's birth mother.

Why had I left this to the last minute?

Teddy is 16, and recently has been asking questions about his birth history.

He knows that his birth mother, who herself had been 16 at the time, had been too young to raise him.

But it's as though he's starting to feel kind of a gap in his identity.

Over dinner a month or so ago, I offered to do some research so that when he was ready, he might have a way to reach out.

And rather than make a general promise, I said I would try to have information for him by Christmas.

Amidst all the busyness, this had completely slipped my mind.

And now, I'm realizing it's going to be a lot harder than I had thought.

The adoption agency we used went out of business, and they had been our only conduit for communication and connection.

We had met his birth mother and her family ahead of time, and we had been at the hospital when Teddy was born.

But ours was what was called a "partially open adoption," meaning we knew her full name, but she only knew us as Betsy and Andrew from Boston.

Each year, we would send a letter and photos to the agency, and they would forward them onto his birth mother, and she would often send letters to them that they would send to us.

The letters!

Yes, they had stopped when the agency closed, but we still had a bunch of them up until Teddy was about age ten.

An adoption counselor had suggested we put them away until he was older.

I rush down to the basement and there, high up on a shelf, is a box marked "Save."

I pull it down, my heart's racing.

I flip through all the folders, and there they are.

I run upstairs and show my husband, and together we write out a cover note, explaining what these are.

We wrap the cover note and the folder of letters in Christmas paper and tuck it under the tree.

It's not contact information, but it is something, and I feel like it'll buy us some time to do the sleuthing that I had promised.

After the other presents had been opened, we hand this gift to Teddy, and he slowly unwraps it and silently reads our note.

He looks a little confused at first, but then, as though it's dawning on him what these are, he asks if he can go upstairs and read the letters there.

A little while later, I stand at his bedroom door and I see that he has spread the letters out in a big arc on his floor, in order of dates.

They're all neatly written on school notebook paper, many with colorful hearts and rainbows.

It was clear that a lot of love and care had gone into them.

I take in the scene of Teddy absorbing all that's in the letters.

And since my older son and husband are absorbed in exploring their new gifts, I decide to go back to my laptop and continue searching.

The problem is, she has a fairly common name, and there are so many results all over the country.

Eventually, Teddy comes into the office and I show him all the results.

And he says, "Wait a minute.

"In some of the letters, "she talks about a person she's dating.

"Maybe they got married?

I think she mentions his name."

And he hurries from the room.

He comes back with one of the letters, stands beside me as I open up the Facebook search bar.

I type in her first name, the second name that we know, and this possible third name and hit enter.

One result.

Just one.

I click on the name.

Many people have private Facebook profiles where you can't see much at all.

Not her, everything was visible.

Lots of posts.

Beautiful pictures of her husband and young children, including a boy who looks a lot like Teddy.

Deep breaths, tears in my eyes.

"That's her, Teddy.

What would you like to do?"

"Let's send her a message," he says.

So I open up the chat box and I start typing.

"Sorry for this out-of-the-blue message.

"Teddy's been asking about his birth history.

"And lo and behold, we found you.

"We gave him all the letters that you had sent "and saw your married name.

"Sorry if this is creepy.

"He is an amazing young man.

"The adoption agency closed, which you probably already know, "so we haven't had a way of writing to you.

"We hope you are well, "and we wish you a very merry Christmas.

And I signed all four of our names.

My husband's, our older son's, Teddy's, and mine.

I look at Teddy for confirmation.

"Should we send it?"

"Yes," he nods.

"But what if she wants you back?"

"Mom, you're my mom!"

Like I've said something crazy.

So I hit send.

I know that at age 16, he can't legally be taken from us.

But there is this connection, a biological connection, that they share that I don't have with him.

All afternoon and evening, we wait for a response.

That night, when I say goodnight to Teddy, I hold him tight, wondering if I've made a huge mistake.

If she doesn't respond, maybe he'll feel rejected twice by his birth mother.

And then I start worrying about how she might feel, getting this out-of-the-blue message.

Maybe she hadn't told her husband and children about the adoption.

Maybe it was something that she had tried to put behind her, and I was opening up something really painful.

I should have given more thought before sending that message.

I get more and more anxious thinking about the maybes, the should haves, the shouldn't haves.

The next morning, still no response.

Then later, we're in the car and I hear that Facebook alert.

"Teddy, a message."

It's a long message that begins with "Oh, my.

I am so overjoyed that you found me."

She wrote how heartbreaking it had been getting her letters returned from the closed agency, and that she was starting to lose hope of ever connecting with us again.

There is so much love for Teddy in her message.

Several times, she wrote, "You have no idea how much this means to me."

And I don't know if she realizes how much her words mean to me and, of course, to Teddy.

The next few days, we pore over her Facebook posts, getting to know her life, her family, her spirit.

We learn that she has a charm bracelet with each of her children's names, including Teddy's.

There's a new calmness and confidence that I see in Teddy.

She was the one person who could help him understand his birth story, who could fill in that gap he was feeling.

It's as though he now knows a love that was unseen, but still so strong.

This feels to me like one more gift, one more precious gift, she's given our son.

(applause) THERESA OKOKON: The Stories from the Stage podcast, with extraordinary true stories, wherever you listen to podcasts.

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