Recently I was talking to this guy who told me how years ago because of medical condition. He had to give up beer You don't know casual beer drinker for this never give him beer much thought but now you can never beer He was thinking of beer all the time. He had a fantasy one like this. He goes to do a bar and he goes to beer That was the whole thing.
It's hard to think of that while there it was a three And it was time to give up pacifier the pacifier was comparing his speech And so it was time to give it up and it's not that mean in front slowly first You can only use a passifier upstairs then only upstairs in this room Then only upstairs in this room in the dead though enforcement hold bad things are gonna sign Anyway finally came to the day water announced he was ready to get rid of the pacifier And he threw it into the trash himself and it would be clapping if he hugged him and then go to a poster and they got him some special presents A toy tree house a cave there and that first night when it was time to sleep while it was brave You saw it right bed and any five minutes passed before he was out of bedroom and downstairs crying I'm newly sad he said His mom dad asked if anyone played with his employees for a while and tried that and then back that more sobbing and our passes two hours It breaks his parents hearts right if they still had the pacifier in the house They would hate to get into him so except but he had run into trash his grandparents That was on and then I thought for time is like Walter's life in his parents that it was the way they actually get to sleep The next that was a little easier. It's a little easier than that anyway after couple days while they're not successful request that you had for all the run of his life Your mom's grandpa's uncle's hands. The only next door. He wanted to hear their stories about when they did their pacifiers I told his daughter to a friend of mine.
I'm drinking a day ago. I just like boy while they're wanting to hear these stories And she's a man. That's just like a a the problem for Walter for that no adult really remembers giving up their own pacifier It's just a long ago right everybody you're talking about getting up other stuff They didn't remember giving them to blankets little kids one oddie after talking about a good smoking but she was one of that Or they just made up stories or madics stories about giving up pacifiers. There's no Walter It's company here other people's stories are getting happy.
It's just company at any age It makes it feel like it's possible And so this week we bring you four stories of people giving these up putting it out some of them are clearly some not No easy Chicago It's American life. It's true about public radio international on our glass at one of our monday do you hear why here in the act one And one teenage daughter and many many fish I two the journalism of deprivation several hours you do when I do that you're lucky You're ready read that three the call of the great indoors It would be here at defense of living inside. So you can see the art here. We have other pros and cons for You know in that like without heart One do you hear what I hear this is the story of being forced to go one thing and then giving up another by choice New bar.
I'll die on the other together with the drafty You know, I didn't talk about it for a long time because it's so abstract. It's like people can't imagine it But then like I'll be in a restaurant, you know, there's a lot of people talking issues All that's a long and restaurant How loud is it right now? I can't just I just Know that in your head Right now The very first doctor I saw this young here knows the throat guy and he you know, it's happening But he was examining me as if he were just going through the motions. He already knew he was gonna tell me So that's all the damnation.
He said well you had to know this and there's no cure for it You just know what I thought well, you know what you're talking about I can't look at this and I went through ten years of five other doctors a high priest and boss and hospital every alternative I mean there's four of either I'm sure as one dentist said well let me go I'm sure it's a work. It's not a question $19,000. It's a lot of work and some only path around these you know I might entire jar realigned by dentist over two years And then we had things like this guy come in who's read the Petri dishes all over our house and so all these Well, they're just in our house and fans and their fling those into the fires. So I've spent probably over ten years standing around I'm a photographer and you know this the first time up here around the same time I started working on this book of musicians called when he comes around you know I traveled around the world 25 different positions and all of a sudden I had to stop You know the first time here at the beginning of the project and the second time came the whole thing that so bad My career just came to us out, which is come travel Most completely disabled by these homes I'm trying to piano.
I think what I have on my right here is a D flat And in my left here a C went off the lower The right here is a D flat and the left here is a C The most madling part of this was when I was with this friend of mine as Jazzyshan and I described it to him And he threw his head on his hands on the table And I could see him that he completely understood how madling it was because he understood that the D flat was always trying to resolve it to see So can you play both of them at the same time? I might be able to play us Dad? Test. Okay, what do you say?
Um, well as we've been doing this piece I've been thinking it must I can imagine having a tone about your especially Like a pure tone, tones that don't stop like that So I can not even imagine what it must be like to have it all the time So what is it about that having the tone? Like you trapped inside your own head You're in a room with no doors and no windows and just a speaker of that sound Driving you literally up the walls I swear I would come ahead off or something I follow a random path and come on yourself This is an odd thing to say, you think Um, I'm somewhat grateful for the tone Of course, I don't feel grateful on that days But you know before you were born I used to travel constantly, honestly, all over the world And on good days when I think about it I think about the tone being a warning that I need to slow down And then you were born and I thought, no only did I need to slow down But I wanted to slow down Um, and on bad days I feel like, oh you know, okay, I've learned this lesson I'm slow down Now the tone can go away But it doesn't go away I'm reading through this outline of all the tapes that we have And you say, I cannot imagine losing my hearing And I was like, well, it's not that bad And then I realized it's sort of a reverse I haven't really looked with, but I'm preparing never so I can't compare But I just thought it was interesting that you can imagine losing your hearing I cannot imagine how it is Do you remember when you got your hearing aid? No You want to hear what happened? Okay I mean because it's that for Monday night it was like a huge event Because you know we have you gone through all the tests And we discovered that you indeed had hearing loss And that they were in a picture with hearing aid And before that you kept saying what all the time And either certain words that you couldn't pronounce Or certain sounds that you obviously wouldn't listen And that's what the audiologist and the doctors described to us So we went down to the Beverly hospital And when I was sitting in the room And she put the hearing aid in her ear and turned it on and made all the adjustments And then you slid off the chair and said, oh my god, I can hear them But sometimes I wonder what it would be like to hear everything perfectly You know?
Like to have that entire sound every like aspect of someone's voice Or music, every note to hear every single one Would be incredible to me And I don't know what that would be like I've never known what that would be like Let's just talk about you transcribed my hearing test Where you got your reaction to actually hear the sound that it was in my ear I can't hear what the sounds that you hear So you didn't hear what they were doing on my radio No, I can't hear the high one Because I'm missing that in my That's part of my hearing test I'm missing that I've been to that particular frequency in both my ears So you can't hear the sound I can't hear the sound that you hear all the time At all At all That's incredible, do you think? Yeah See what's your coincidence I can't be in high places Um It can be really nagging It can be in high places It's the thing though that I think is responsible for me taking a fly fishing Because it's the closest I can get To quiet You know, I'm out there, it's early one It's dark I mean my boat I push off into the current, you know, on the engine You know, the river is waking up and there are little sounds The birds and stuff going on Then there's me with my fly line going back and forth and back and forth And I'm focusing on the fly line trying to get out 100 feet And there's a sound that it makes That I can sort of attach to And so I'm really focused on that And it takes me away from the sound in my head And that's what quiet is to me That's the most quiet that I can hear Anything else you want to say about it? Just that I think maybe it's taught you patience And because I didn't know you before you had this So I wouldn't know but I would think that it might have taught you something About sowing Or acceptance Because I remember you told us a story about how you went to all these doctors Straight over the first time you went to Hope you there's no care you can do anything And so you spent tons of money seeing all the public other doctors Which I always tell you things and finally you just realized that the first time to say And I guess that was probably your acceptance part of it And it's also that you were working so frantically before And then you got to know this and you had to stop And I got more of you Because I do remember you traveling a lot And I remember how much you were gone And I remember asking mom when you come home But then you came home and you stay home and you played with me And you were just picking the school every day And I think that was really good for our actual family You weren't happy I was on you They put you in the best way of doing what I translated Or if you want to learn how to put you there a radio story They explain how to do it at transfer org They're starting to find a corporation for public broadcasting I too The journal was in the deprivation I wrote today about doing that this or that And our contributing editor Sarah Val brings us this report on publication that he's read it out lately The names of certain magazines are supposed to cheer a person up The glamour, lucky, gourmet, the lure Life of these titles suggest it's full of possibilities And then there's a magazine I read This magazine has the most downbeat name of any magazine since downbeat It is called living without Living without built itself as a lifestyle guide for people with allergies and food sensitivities Which sounds straightforward enough but the name living without is so depressing So for more in such a belligerent refusal to accentuate the positive But I don't know why its publisher is out just come clean and call it loser I read living without because I actually do live without I'm allergic to wheat On one hand, this is a fairly serious problem I'm always one bagel away from this panicky feeling of drowning My throat closes up and I'm hit with nausea that seems to affect every part of me As if my fingers and ears want to throw up On the other hand, nobody wants to hear about a disease With treatment consists of scrutinizing food labels and never leaving the house without a fruit snake Living without is a magazine that revels in the mundane details of my condition My favorite regular feature in Living Without is the column, Parals in the Pantry Which reads like a particularly over the top episode of the Monsters Just as in the Monsters Upside Downworld in which the pretty blonde cousin is pettied for her ugliness In Parals in the Pantry, supposedly cheerful events like parties and techniques are treated like the death traps they are Beware of summertime salads of the column horns, lurking under seemingly innocent lettuce Deadly crewed horns Parals at the party tell the horror story of one German themed inner party Even which the entire meal consisted of weiners and adult carowain noodles and bread Or as the weak sensitive might look upon the table, meat dusted with wheat, rectangular blocks of wheat and baked wheat The author's advice before going up to an inner party, eat first Living without featured one article about a family who had switched religions in search of a house of worship That provided the gluten-free communion wafer and the greatest elections during the recent times Not the Florida recount in Living Without In Living Without, the juiciest event in recent electoral politics was the 1998 race where we couldn't get under a message It's in which both the Republican and the Democratic candidates were allergic to wheat Living without makes me feel less alone, less of an oddball I don't have any weak reprints and since I hope to hang onto the friends I do have, I try and spare them The nitty-gritty details not to mention that most of them have an underwhelming grasp of the pros and cons of various brands of soy flour My friend Nick was perplexed when the last time we had breakfast together I asked the waitress if I could have a banana instead of toast when I asked Nick about it later He said a banana instead of toast why not ask for anything then anything of a similar monetary value to toast like a cassette tape At least I didn't find out I was sensitive to wheat gluten until I was over 30 The real heartbreakers in Living Without involved allergic kids and the terrified parents who love them Mostly it's one sob story after another the boy who accidentally bit into a peanut butter cookie and died The family of a first-brainer who spent part of their summer vacation at diabetes camp Mothers who write sentences such as my heart psych or I was standing right next to them when he ate that cookie and I couldn't save him Still one of my favorite things I've read in Living Without was written by the mother of a gluten allergic son Once a week family night in their household was called pizza night and they would all go out for pizza until young Alec was diagnosed They got pizza night with history until the mother finally figured out that she could just bring gluten-free dough to the pizzeria All happy endings in Living Without are like this Even the triumphs involve minor indignities like slapping your own crust in ten foil and going out for dinner The earnestness of this story of everything in Living Without is the main reason I find it so reassuring There are headlines that would seem ridiculous in any other magazine an article on gluten-free weddings called caviar cake A guide to international cuisine called the world is your rice noodle that concludes with a thought Bye-bye American pie. Hello pet high It's corny, but that's kind of what I like about it If the information in Living Without were conveyed more clinically in the dignified style of say the New York Times The information would feel less welcoming and it would also feel less true There's nothing dignified about being allergic to wheat It's a kind of annoying specific piggy food nuisance You can only really talk about with a one person on earth who truly gives a who what kind of cracker you prefer your mom The cornyness of Living Without is so comforting because it feels so maternal as if it's written by a gaggle A friendly midwestern mother who's warm cheerful kitchen smell like fresh baked bread Fresh baked bread made out of rice flour and potato starch So that was the other number of books most recently assassination vacation History is part of project adhering voices.com which is my name from the corporation for the broadcast At your name, Paul Braden doors There's some kind of living without it is really hard for much about the fandom In Boston, Chelsea versus in Pudding was somebody about one of those The first thing I noticed about Matthew were his fingernails They are so clean, much cleaner than mine and I'm humbled I have no excuse unlike Matthew, I have not been living on the streets for seven years Every Saturday we meet for lunch at BTS, which is the Spanish style Italian restaurant Every week we sit at the same table and every time our week was a success that we've made it in time for the lunch special People get free people on soft drinks a compliment regarding salad and a basket of rolls One time Matthew showed up 20 minutes late and the manager was giving him a hard time He was saying he better make it up to her and I lunch today And when we got to our table Matthew was laughing and he said he doesn't know I'm homeless He has no idea and even though Matthew was carrying a large cardboard box And that's in your back and two book bags He looks more like a college professor He's clean, he's tidy, he's organized, he's incredibly polite Every week Matthew tells these stories So every week I record him There was this time it rained and I'm stuck When that happens the shelters are just fill up And I don't know what kind of us waiting for two hours Eventually people start talking, where were you?
Yes, I was starting raining, oh I was over here We did you get in somewhere last night? No, I was outside or I went under a bridge or I did not So everybody's talking about this And one guy in the room was very quiet Someone started talking What'd you do? What'd you do? Yes, he's very thick in Spanish accent It doesn't speak English very well He told us he didn't know Boston at all He just arrived on New York, didn't know the streets, didn't know where to go And when he came from, what did he do?
Where'd you stay? I don't know Allie, allie, allie, allie Well the allie, oh just right, the next one The one block, one block But the only guy that's far is one block and he went into the alley See, see, oh wow, it's a weirdest thing in the alley I mean, is there any place you could sleep underneath or something He says something Box, box, box He's left in a box See, see, see Well cardboard box, I'm going to be soaking wet No cardboard, metal, metal No He's setting a metal box for you And he's saying, oh, dumpster, oh He's setting a dumpster No, no Did you get any sleep? No, no, no sleep I was like, oh, no It's afraid Afraid, afraid Seize Well, you afraid I mean, what, something might come and beat you up And it's muggy or what No, no But It's fine I was telling you, I tried to manage it Oh, you didn't see And I'm done, so you're not going to trash comp hacker And the tea, tea You were afraid, somebody was going to come to me And push a button Tea, tea And I heard that I was like at a new level And my feelings Understanding of this whole thing You're afraid, somebody might come to push the button And die a horrible death Once or twice a year, he gets the house at for an old friend Around Christmas, he got an offer to house it for one of the two weeks I meant it for lunch today that ended And he was back on the street I wanted to know what it was for him To have a comfortable place to sleep for a change Usually he can't count on any of his regular shots And sometimes he has his day of all night And he can't go to the production of dumb nuts Sleepers Such a large part of the whole experience Be homeless I should say sleeplessness You never get enough sleep You're so tired, so much of the time So what was it like your first night indoors? What was it like to sleep?
The first night is the best Because you know you've got 16 consecutive nights Uninterrupted Living indoors again Being able to come over to this apartment Open the door Unlock it with the key Open the door Go over to the sofa It's nice, huge, comfortable, soft sofa With eight large pillows In front of the TV set Whether we're not controlling everything It's like It's like when John Vowson Experience In the 1935 version Of the film Ladies are on With Frederick March, it's John Vowson After all those years in the prison A dally slave prison system, whatever He's released finally I think it's 14 years or something Which is sleeping on hard surfaces When he's finally starting the room where he's going to go to say When he's starting from go to sleep He looks at the bed In the years before I was homeless Whenever he'd seen his film I never noticed this He's looking at the bed That is like it's a soft surface A soft mattress of him It's a bed He hasn't slept in a bed for like 14 years And when he pops down in it He leans back He stretches out If I remember correctly his eyes closed And he's like savoring The comfort That's what it's like That's what it feels like That's what it felt like The first night I was in there For the 16-19 in a row Matthew's been in the streets of Boston for seven years This was an excerpt from the ongoing video of Project Chelsea Martin at the working line Going up We're just working into your health Part disease Or your own family Answers in a minute From childhood with a radio And public re-entranational When our program continues This is American Life in our glass You can do that for them of course We'll do something We're going to have a variety of different kinds of stories on that theme Today's program The stories are giving things up Looking without We're not We've arrived at a four-year program At four In a man It's not a few times You've got something And you've got to make sure That you're on idea or not As in this next story Make sure it's on our duty limits We're at the first chapter My boy What kind of son of you Ask to answer him And Nina says Your own flesh and blood What your mother will do for you And friend goes on She do anything for you Anything in the world And now you won't give just a little back For shame Says Aunt Nina The heat is stifling But she pulls her sweater closer We're sitting in the hospital waiting room Aunt Fran and Aunt Nina and I My mother suffered a heart attack this morning We're waiting to see her The aunt's and I The doctor told us her heart won't last much longer We can't fix it The doctor said She needs a new one The transplant Well then give her one The aunt's cried It's not that easy It's not that easy It's not that easy It's not that easy We need a donor The doctor's went away The aunt looked at me Oni Nina said What about your heart My heart I shot it Are you crazy? That started them both off on the bad son I was It's impossible to argue with Nina Especially with Fran to back her up I sit in the middle Aunt Fran and Claude just went on Aunt Nina the other They wept it first But now they sit grimly I started from a couple of coffee Steams next to my foot I can't reach for The aunt's don't care They're amazed that I bought it They're amazed that I can even think of coffee The time like this Aunt Fran wears a ball He sweat on his side The little shoes Her lips are pressed tight She taps her feet nervously For my other side, Nina looks Her lips are lit again again I saw it on 16 minutes Aunt Fran announces They put the heart in cooler But regular people cool Like we have a home And they rush it in the hot tub And they put it in And they put it in And they put it in And they put it in And they put the pipes and she's like Pawning You must be your mother to She'd talk to you I'm sure you are And Nina was in You're young, you're strong You're a college education You're a college education You should have started smoking Though Aunt Fran was on It's so bad to talk You should have thought about it When you started But what about me? I'd wear that finally That's what we're talking about We're talking about your heart And you said But what happens to me? I say again I can't believe you think I'm going to talk about this Aunt Fran's I need my heart You want me to die so my mother can live?
Of course we don't want that She's a friend So we love you so much She might die herself if you die We can't both have my heart I say Of course not Just me Think about those many hearts Without official art Think about the news about that I can't murder my nose Or I transplant for someone else Do you want your mother to have a stranger's heart? Or a monkey's heart? You have four mother Do you remember how she never used to take you to the zoo Because she couldn't stay and see the filthy monkeys? And you want to have a monkey's heart?
You would kill her Grandma She's so weak She needs a heart that will agree with her Anyhow Anyhow, but you always wouldn't Just wouldn't do But you You can handle anything You're going to use her own youth Have a college education I finish her And any of the layers And says You don't want to work herself in a bone for you But you could go to college You make something yourself And now when you do Have a college four years already You'll do a sit in front of the typewriter I'll tell you something right here Smoke on those cigarettes Now you're here And the first time you're mother And you're checking out Friends finishes You'll throw your back on her They both tighten their lips on my arm I do things from other all the time I begin One of the doctors appears at the end of the hall As he approaches my answer eyes Pulling me with them Is she alright? The man's family is still 20 feet away We found a donor Nina announces The doctor beats us He's a small man completely bald The eyes behind thick glasses are sad He stokes us out as he talks Save her in the field of it She's alright She's being monitored He says We will look for a donor But there's a long waiting list We've got a donor So be son He's in the prime of health And he says This is on me Friends finds The doctor studies me carefully Surely you don't do that sort of thing I say incredibly He gazes at me It's very rare Very rare indeed The son will be so good It's a donate it's hard In a few cases it's been numbered So rare to find such a son But rare and beautiful thing He takes off his glasses And polishes him on his sleeve Without them his eyes are small Take a sh- He puts him back on his eyes You're saying soulful once more You must love your mother very much He says Oh he does Friends says I shift my feet and knock over the cup of coffee And it spills in the floor The sudden ugly brownness is spreading over the empty white And her sleep just in the meantime So caring for my mother's lying attached And she needs to be executed And friend rushes to one side of the bed And he and the other I shuffle awkwardly through the bed I touch my mother's feet Silly, are you alright? The answer is right My mother opens her eyes There are purple circles around She looks pale But not so different from usual Hardly alerted Yeah She smiles all your sisters Obviously you look wonderful Just the same as they And she bays her eyes to me Oh, on you look terrible She says That jacket I told you to throw away I'll find you in the middle There's no reason to go around looking like a mess On he has some good news And he says Then why does he look like a thundercloud Says my mother On he's something bothering you Friends says On he wants to give you his heart I never said that I cry There's a pause Of course on you shouldn't You don't need to do that for me Really? You don't My mother says She looks terribly sad The answer faces are going so I never expected anything from you No Of course not like this I look down under feet Two motionless humps onto the blanket I'm considering another Really I am I want to find out more about it Before I decide it's all It's not as simple as changing Car battery or something Before some laugh No no slaves But the answer faces not a little My heart is pounding My mother closes her eyes You're a good boy on it She says Your father would be proud Under something tells us that we should let my mother rest her while And finally, I need to head back to waiting I walk up and down on the halls of dog white rotation shuffle And slow motion We'll in their IDs alongside them I can feel in the floor of the buzzing Vibration of motors Turning away somewhere in the heart of the building I take the elevator and wander until I find a paint phone I call it Mandy She picks up on the first ring Hi, she says Baby then My mother had a heart attack This morning I say And with the hospital Oh, I knew this would happen And he says I burned my hand on the radio this morning And right away Oh, and only Something that's gonna happen How was your mother?
57 I say Oh, that's young for heart attack And she wasn't fattering I feel like if my father should have warned you Was something Finally, I ask her to come to the hospital She says I'll write in hangs up I don't need to tell her where to go Mandy never gets lost She never has the weak line She remembers on the street talk to her She opts fall on her lap She's nice looking Freckles on her nose Good straight teeth She keeps telling me that my signs And Kate and her life will be on a big up swing So, then I'm just in a transition period right now I hope she's right I finally reach a lot of infuses I do Mandy comes bursting in the doors Beaming at me She doesn't smile She beams I knew I found you She says How's your mother? Have you seen her? Her breath in my face is like pine trees Yeah, she's alright for now Come on, let's go outside from it I'm gonna ask you something Outside, you have to know she's darkening the early evening We wander in the parking lot when the car's Talking softly like we're afraid we'll wake them It's cold I keep looking back and see if anyone's following us They say my mother's heart is bad I know Mandy She needs a new one They want me to donate my heart What do you think of that? Mandy stops her eyes are now open Wind whips her frizzy hair around her face She looks shocked I breathe a sigh of relief At last Someone can see reason But then she says Oh, Arnie How wonderful Can they really do that?
That's so wonderful Congratulations You only think I should do it Isn't technology incredible? Mandy says These days after they can do anything Now you can share yourself Really give yourself to someone In a way You never even thought were possible Before your mother must be thrilled But it's crazy I say She takes my hand in hers and looks up into my eyes Frankly Arnie I need to get ahead of you I'm really impressed Really I am Mandy I thought you could be realistic about this What about me? Do you want me dead? What am I supposed to do that hard?
Oh, I'm sure they could fix you up The important thing right now is how your mother She ends up to my jacket and presses her hand against my chest My heart pushes Flutters like a baby bird in her hands On a e-moth where I think to do this You should get back to your mother now I watch her go Risk to determine steps like a school teacher I finally wait back to the waiting room Someone's mopped at the coffee You'll bet it? Me and asked Made a decision yet? Frances Yes No I don't know I say They're both quiet Frances and me I don't think about this The hearts are a little thing really Less than a pound It's just a muscle You can't solve all the place Can't you stay at one? She looks earnestly in my face Can't you stay in a little bit of flesh?
And then they're crying Both of them Drop sliding down the wrinkles in their faces Later we go visit my mother again She looks worse But perhaps the four ebblets I say I'm again at the flipper bed I can see the veins and tendons on her neck So the bell gets so close to the surface You can snip them with scissors Bonnie She says softly You should go home and get some sleep And shave You'll tear them So tired Go I'll be here tomorrow I'm not going anywhere I drive home in the dark We go up to my apartment And turn on the lights I want to call Nandy And I realize I want to call her all Usually my mother calls in the evening Tell me about TV programs And weather changes I turn off the lights and sit in the dark I look at the ceiling at the smokey deck It has a blue light that pulses with a regular beat Like the blip on a cardi graph Early next morning possible I tell the doctor I want to do it Give her my heart Give me a long steady look I see you behind glasses I think you've made the right decision I do He says He says He says He says He says He says We can get started right away But what about the transplant for me I say Don't you need to arrange that first? Oh, we'll take care of that one the time comes I'll get your heart and your mother right away Before before Before watching my mind I say He hard to hear He's already deep in his plans He claps me on the back Have you told your mother yet? Well, go tell her Then we'll get to Cheshade and get started This is what I've realized All along I thought I'd publish a book Lots of books Get recognition Earn lots of money support my mother in style On her old age Give her a gorgeous grandchildren I thought that was a way to pay her back for everything I owe her But now it looks like I have to pay my dad to my heart instead Under these circumstances I don't have a choice I'm almost glad It seems easier this way I'll just give her a piece of muscle And I'll be free for forever All my dad to pay One quick operation will be so much easier There's nothing for the rest of my life To do back to her all the things she thinks she's done for me Seems like a good bargain When I tell my mother the news she cries a little And smile and says Oh, I didn't expect it Oh, not for a minute I wouldn't expect such a sacrifice when you want it I wouldn't dare to even mention such a thing It's more than any mother could expect it for some I'm so proud of you I guess I did have a job of raising you after all You've turned into such a fine good person I worried that I may have made mistakes when I was bringing you up but now I know I didn't On and on she goes And the ants, they cry, clutch my arms Not so tight as before And they say they doubted me but they never will again What a good son Thank you today Looking at them now they seem smaller than they did for Triveled I call Mandie and she dashes over the hospital She kisses all over my face with her cherry flavored chaps in She hugs me and presses her ear against my chest She tells me she knew I'd do the right thing I'm feeling pretty good now I like to say a rat She takes it away from me and matches it beneath her heel That belongs to your mother now She says They all give me flowers I feel like a hero I guess my mother's cheek I hop on a stretcher and they wheel me out They sedate me slightly, she's shaving And then they put the mask on and they're not being out good It's like I'm falling Falling down to deep well And the circle of daylight above me goes smaller and smaller and smaller Until it does a tiny white bird swooping and fluttering against the vast night sky How does it feel to have no heart? It feels light hollow around me It's something huge in the scene It feels an egg Like a ghost of a severed limb I'm still light inside so heavy on the outside I grab the increased 100 fold Grab the holding me to the bed like the ropes and pegs of a thousand millilcutians I lie at the bottom of a pool Up above I see the light on the surface It wavers, ripples, breaks, and comes together again I can see the people moving about Far above in the light I'm down here in the dark, cradle in the algae Curious fish needle my eyelashes After a while I see a smooth pink face above me The doctor Arne, he says The operation went very well Your mother's doing wonderfully She loves the new arne His words be in far away and drift closer Growing louder and louder until they plunk down next to me like pebbles Arne, he calls The pool surface shivers His face balloons, shrinks to a dot, then unfold itself Arne, about you We're having a little trouble There's a shortage of spare hearts in the country right now We're looking for some kind of replacement But don't worry You'll be fine Later I see Aunt Fannie Mae, Nina They lean close to huge, their faces bleed and run together like wet watercolors Your mother's doing so well they call She loves you Oh, she's so excited She'll be in the sea you soon And later it's my mother gliding in Her face paint her hair curled Arne, Arne, you good boy She calls And then they wheel her out They leave me alone for a long time I lie in the deep It's ways me like a hammock There's a deep low humming all around Like whales moaning My mother is not busy again Alone in the dark, no footsteps, no click of the light switch Then the doctor looms above me Your mother, he says He's not doing well The heart does not fit as well as we thought It's a bit too small He turns away, leans over again As for you, we're working on it There's nothing available at the moment But don't you worry And then try and lean our back How could you, they scream They're voice of shattering the surface And fragments Getting a mother of bad heart How could you, what kind of sound are you?
She's dying Your mother's dying All because of you They beat together For a long time no one comes I know without anyone telling me That my mother is dead It is my heart When it ceases to beat, I know The doctor comes to tell me how sorry he is She was doing so well at first But then it turned out the heart just wasn't enough I tell you though She was thinking of you when she died She asked for you He says quietly for a moment We haven't managed to find a heart for you But you'll be fine We've shot you up full of preservatives You'll say fresh for a while He goes away And famine and amening no longer does it Mandy? Gone I lie listening to the emptiness in my chest Like wind wailing through canyons He says the doctor comes in off at a chat with me One day he tells me a story You know When your mother died we managed to save your heart It was still healthy We thought about giving it back to you But there was this little girl here about a year old She needed a new heart too cute little blonde girl One time a bad people all started came in here It was his little TV cameras and photographers and everything She was in the paper the loud kid They were always sending her cards Anyway we decided to give her your heart She's only a kid after all She's got her whole life ahead of her Why should we deny her that? I'm sure your mother would've wanted it that way She was such a caring self as one I'm sure you've downed you one or two Don't you? Of course I do But it's a short story Yield Her third collection of short stories called Flyingly Her third book Nice big American baby It was possible last year Her story was read first by actor Matt Moie There was in too many movies Too possibly named here All of me Why not take all of me?
But I broke her mistake But I couldn't quickly myself without Splintering for this early time It's her k-neck Our senior producers, Julie Snyder I'll list my surroundings on our website But I'm not talking about something They are a child in the emergency Emergency Virtual Matthew And there's a couple of J-Allyson And a few islands and jurisdictions In Neene and to our get them And to our get them Our website, www.thismerican like.org We're gonna show us our absolutely free We're by CDs of them We know you can download today's program in our archives at audible.com This American Life This American Life is approved by Public Radio International Fund This American Life is brought by Volkswagen America And the new Beetle With this piece of encouragement It's someone else's new year Based on this whole It will all come back The new Beetle One more at forceofgood.com W-B-E-C-M-A-V-S-I-F-R-R-A-P-R-R-I-T-O I'm message to him Who shot you up full of preservative She will stay fresh for a while yet On our glass Back next week We must raise this American life. So why not- Why not take all of me?!