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It’s The Little Things- Transcript

Transcript of Moth Radio Hour- It’s The Little Things. 

Storyteller- Camille Woods

so I never realized that the most important promise ever kept me would be from a stranger that I had met and spoken to for about 20 minutes. It was the day after I driven back from Alabama when I had found out that I had lost my son. We went to the funeral home to start all the proceedings which is really an interesting and morbid... clearly, process. Her name was Judy and she was about like Yay big, and she had blond hair and she was  maybe... 35, and she had blue eyes and she was the sweetest thing. She handed me this book with all these caskets in it and a book with urns and all this shit that I had no idea about, except, that I was supposed to choose something and create something out of the loss of like, the best thing that ever happened in my life.

 So we sat speaking, and  it had been about less than 24 hours how to fly and pick me up and drive back to Michigan and I hadn't seen him. And I wanted to know where he was, I just wanted to be with my son. And I remember in my head thinking, I don't give a crap about any of these books. I don't give a crap about the funeral, I don't give a crap about this place. it was this very quiet and almost sterile kind of building. Just a building I knew existed next to Red Lobster on Carpenter Road and happened to be a funeral home. And that's where we ended up. And I couldn't stop crying and I kept saying, when can I see him? when can I see him? when will he be here? We had seen him on a video screen earlier that day. Because I live in Wayne County and in Wayne County you're not allowed to see a body up close. So they send you in a room with Kleenex and a TV screen and then your son comes up on the screen, swaddled, looked like he was sleeping and wasn't nearly as traumati- fuck it. It was very traumatic. But I just wanted to be with him.

 So I looked at her and she looked at me, and she said “let me talk to somebody.” and she left the room.  She came back a moment later, and I was saying the same thing…” when can I see him I want to see him” and she said “well they're going to bring him here tomorrow” I said “so when can I see him” “well I'm not sure” I said “when can I see him” she said “give me another second” and she walked out of the room and I'm sitting there with my brother and I'm sitting there with my ex-husband and I said again “when can I see my son I don't want to see him in a casket, I don't want to see him when you've... done things to him I want to see him now.” and she looks at me and she says “tomorrow around two, I promise he will be brought here and I will find a way for you to see him I promise” that's why I heard her, and I'm a pretty easy-going person and, even in that moment I agree to believe her. I went home and you know my house is full of people cuz it's going to be right? Someone died. So we're going through photos the next day, we're going through photos were trying to figure out what the funeral look like I don't give a crap. There was people all over the place and it was 2:05, actually, 2:05 and she said “he's here you have to come now because we have to get him ready'' which I didn't know what the hell that meant and I said, okay I will be right there. My sister was going down the stairs with Judy leading the way and she held my hand she held my hand I won't forget that she held my hand we came down the stairs and across the room was this big bag, because my son was six foot five and four hundred pounds.  We walked across the room and I realize that the only thing out that I could see was my son's left arm and I said “where is the rest of him” and my knees buckled my sister kind of help me she said and this is something you don't learn until you lose someone, she said “I'm sorry I can't show you the rest of him.” I said “why?”  “They do an autopsy and... we, put him back together. I can’t show him to you.”

 But as awful as it sounds the 20 minutes I spent holding chubbiest and that I've ever held in my life, and got to rub the most beautiful arm that I had ever had on the earth, meant everything to me even though I couldn't see the rest of him it was the only time I was able to see the real him. Hold who he really was. God bless Judy for making the most awful beautiful tragic promise kept in my life