A Perfect Match

VALERIE GAGLIANO: He said, "What are you doing tonight?"

I said "Nothing."

He said, "Well, why don't you come down to the operating room?"

I was like, "Wait, really?"

CARLA KATZ: And I'm starting to panic-- what if my mom's not in the casket?

What if she's still in Pittsburgh or, or Palestine?

And I'm freaking out.

ANDY DAVIS: But when it comes to our view of the world, our hopes for the planet, we're gloriously alike.

♪ THERESA OKOKON: Tonight's theme is "A Perfect Match."

Finding the right match is not always easy.

Whether created at birth or later on in life, our bonds will be challenged.

Some of those connections are gonna hold, and some of them will just fall apart.

But it's those strong connections that make life so much richer.

From birth to death, tonight's tellers are sharing their stories of the matches they forged, challenged, lost, and kept.

♪ DAVIS: My name's Andy Davis.

I'm a storyteller based in the southeastern corner of the White Mountains in Tamworth, New Hampshire.

Until recently, for 22 years, I had been co-director of a multigenerational family camp and retreat center devoted to peace and social justice called the World Fellowship Center.

Can you tell me about how you got into storytelling?

Well, I've always loved opportunities for us to come together as a community and entertain each other, and expand each other's horizons, and I was always a person of words, and so that, that seemed like my way in.

Do you have a favorite kind of audience to tell stories to?

I particularly am drawn to middle school audiences.

That's such an age of being still connected to childhood, but coming alive intellectually, and beginning to have a sense of the, the broadness of the world, - Mm.

- And if, if you can get their attention and hold it, it's such an opportunity for an interchange.

Yeah-- what do you love most about storytelling?

I love that it's an act of co-creation, that even though the words are coming from me, the images are being formed in every individual audience member's, um, mind.

It's hard to think of another art form that is so completely an act of co-creation.

My brother and I are standing on a dusty path in the heart of West Africa, watching the sun sink toward the horizon, and we're absolutely befuddled as to which way to go.

We hold our bicycles by the handlebars and look back... and forth.

And it occurs to me that it's not unusual for me myself to get myself in a bind by improvising, but my brother start... usually starts with a clear, well-thought-out plan.

Did I mention that we're identical twins?

When people hear that, they often ask "How identical are you?"

Well, the answer is, in ways that are obvious and superficial, pretty darn identical.

But he's the type A twin.

When we were babies, I was content to crawl along on my belly indefinitely while he came out with a clearly thought-out workout plan so he could learn to walk as quickly as possible.

When we shared a room, he folded his underwear, while I dumped my clothes out on the floor so I could find things more easily.

When we ran our first marathon together, he came in under our goal time while I undertrained and brought up the rear.

He has enough advanced degrees for both of us.

But when it comes to our view of the world, what we hold sacred, our hopes for the planet, we're gloriously alike.

And we've always looked for opportunities in our adult lives to get together and have experiences which would become reference points in our common culture.

Which is how I happened to be visiting him at the tail end of his stint in the Peace Corps in Burkina Faso.

And of all the time we spent together on that trip, that one magical afternoon stands out in our common memory.

After he was done his work day at the high school in Koudougou, we hopped on bicycles and pedaled north out of town, past the big Catholic church, past herds of sheep and goats who were nibbling the green grass that had popped up after the first rains a few days before.

And a couple of kilometers out, we took a right between two spreading baobab trees, and continued to zigzag down the path across the savannah grasslands, past mud-walled family compounds, past farmers in conical hats, working the soil with broad hoes, preparing for planting in the next few days.

And that afternoon took on the timelessness of childhood, but it was a timelessness of childhood with the additional factor of alcoholic beverages.

Because each hamlet we passed through, some generous soul would wave us in under a thatched roof to enjoy a calabash of dolo, homemade millet beer.

And after several such visits, we noticed that the sun was getting alarmingly close to setting.

And the timelessness evaporated, because we realized with all those calabashes of liquid hospitality, and all the turns we had taken on our bicycles, we had no idea how to get back to my brother's house in Koudougou.

So at the edge of the next village, we asked if there was a French speaker nearby, and we were led to the house of the chef du village, sort of a mayor.

We were welcomed into the relative cool of the living room and we sat down around a long, low table.

They offered us tea.

We were relieved it wasn't millet beer.

And then as we began to sip, they asked us questions about where we were from-- the United States, was it a neighboring country to France?

It's important that you understand that these were men who had built their own houses, grew all their own food under challenging circumstances, raised their own livestock, lived in a complex cosmology that connected them to the ancestors, and those around them, and those to come.

They just didn't know international geography.

It also bears pointing out that it was my brother and I who were lost.

They knew exactly where they were.

So my brother crouched down next to the table and began to move the metal teapot and the glass tea cups to give a sense of scale, he said, "Here we are.

"And if you cross the Sahel, and cross the Sahara, you'll get to the edge of the Mediterranean."

Now, he gestured across the table.

"If you cross the Mediterranean, "you get to France and then hang a left, "and travel twice as far as you've already traveled, you get to where we live in the United States."

The two men smiled and shook their heads in confusion, and then the chef du village said so softly we could barely hear, "Que Dieu est grande."

"God is great."

Well, a few days later I traveled home by the route my brother had sketched out, but that simple phrase has stayed with both of us across all the long years since.

"Que Dieu est grande," "God is great."

No matter how many times we've heard similar words come from the mouths of true believers of all stripes with dangerous certainty, we remember that humble expression of awe at the grandeur of creation, and for us it's like a talisman against human arrogance.

And now when my brother and I get together on a mountaintop, or in a canoe at dawn as the first rays of sunlight are cutting through the mist, one of us is bound to turn to the other and whisper, "Que Dieu est grande."

And our smiles are identical.

♪ GAGLIANO: My name is Valerie Gagliano.

I'm from New Jersey, and I work at a caregiver center, and I work with families, families who are caregivers of their family members that are in the hospital.

And I just help provide support and resources and just help them along their journey and take care of them.

And before you became a caregiver liaison, you had a different path in your life.

Can you tell me a bit about that path?

I used to be on stage.

Um, my last gig before I turned in my dance shoes was I was Dora for "Dora the Explorer: The Pirate Adventure."

I toured 96 cities in seven months.

I did all of Canada in two months, and, um, it was just, you know, just going to different towns, seeing different families, watching different kids react to such an amazing show.

And I never realized how loved Dora was at that time.

What did it mean for you personally to be Dora, be performing as Dora?

- Well, Dora and I, we're both Latinas, and I just felt like I was very connected to the culture, and the music, and it was just amazing.

And I mean who wouldn't want to be a seven year old who's best friends with a monkey named Boots?

♪ It's a Friday night and I get a phone call from the neuro-ICU.

They told me to come down and to meet a family.

The patient that was brought in by helicopter had a brain bleed, and as the clinical team is working on giving her a fighting chance of survival, they want me to take the family to a safe place and give them some comfort.

Minutes turn into hours, and their faces are pale with tears running down their cheeks.

All I can do is hold them, give them a shoulder to cry on, and just give them comfort.

The patient was declared brain dead with no chance of survival.

(sighs) My job is to be there, and support them, when that time comes.

I am the caregiver liaison, and my job is to help navigate all caregivers with resources and be the bridge between them and the clinical staff.

One conversation I get to be part of is the topic of organ donation.

We speak to the families about how important it is to carry on their family's legacy in someone else.

It's just so beautiful and meaningful.

The families have to come together for this agreement, but also the conversations are lengthy because they're so shocked at what just suddenly happened.

But when they decide to do it, it's beautiful.

We talk about their personality, their likes and dislikes.

We talk about the music they loved, the food they loved, and I get to know this patient as we're speaking, and I want them to live on as well.

After that meeting, I looked at the surgeon and I said, "How can I get into a case like this?"

I always end hugging the family and saying goodbye, but I never get to see what happens behind the scenes.

He said, "Well, what are you doing tonight?"

I said, "Well, nothing.

I mean, I have no plans."

He said, "Well, why don't you come down to the operating room?"

I was like, "Wait, really?"

I mean I always wanted to witness what happened during the operation and the organ donation, but I never asked, I never thought I could go.

So I went home, ran to my house in my car, took the dog out, did a quick workout, and ate and showered.

It's now around 10:00 p.m.

I came back to work.

So I walked down the hallway with the biggest smile on my face.

I couldn't believe this was happening.

When I get to the O.R., the O.R.

staff who was there met me and asked if I was there for the case.

I said, "Yeah."

He said, "Okay, here you go."

He gave me scrubs, a bonnet, booties, a nail brush to clean my nails, and soap.

He said, "Scrub up."

I said, "Wow, scrub up."

I feel like I'm on the set of Grey's Anatomy!

So I scrub my nails and I clean them as if I was a surgeon, and I couldn't believe it.

And I walk into the room, and when I get in there, everyone is in a shield and mask and they stare at me and say "Hello."

And I said "Hi" in my quiet voice.

They ask my name to document that I was in the room.

And then the ceremony began.

We bowed our heads in honor of that patient.

And everything that we had said, and the family told us prior, was told in the exact same way.

And after that, they played her favorite song on the surround sound as they began to operate.

I was like, "I am too emotional for this."

My eyes were definitely salty.

Now the organ that the patient was gifting was to a recipient that was two hours away.

It was her liver.

So the O.R.

team was taking that vital organ out for hours as the anesthesiologist pumped her with artificial air.

It was amazing.

So when he got a piece of the liver, they looked at me and said, "Hey, would you take this down to the pathologist for us?"

I was like, "Me?

Seriously?

Yes!"

They said, "Okay, here's a piece of the liver on the test tube.

Come back, we don't have much time."

I walked so carefully down with that test tube and I thought, "Val, stay focused.

"Please don't trip and fall.

"This is so important and you're gonna help someone else two hours away."

I got to the pathologist and I hand it over to him.

I ran back to the operating room, and just waited for the pathologist to call to give us the verdict.

The phone rings... (exhales) It's the pathologist.

It's a match, oh my gosh!

We all screamed and jumped up and down.

So now the team could definitely take out the liver.

They took it out right away, they put it in a cooler, and they drove it two hours down to where the recipient was.

The liaison called the surgeon and the hospital and said, "Have that patient on the table in two hours."

Wow!

Now it's 3:00 a.m., and I have to get home to get some sleep for work the next day.

I have so much adrenaline pumping through my veins, I knew I wasn't going to sleep.

I just drove home in a daze with the hugest smile on my face.

I just got to witness the most precious gift someone can give another person.

♪ KATZ: My name's Carla Katz, I'm from New Jersey.

I'm a storyteller, an actor, a labor lawyer, and a professor.

What do you teach?

I teach labor and employment law, I teach collective bargaining, I teach negotiation.

I teach conflict resolution-- so many things.

So when you think about the story that you're sharing with us this evening, how did you pick this story to tell?

This is one of my favorite stories.

I wrote it in the almost immediate aftermath of my mother's unexpected death.

It sort of grew out of the eulogy that I wrote for her service because when I was thinking about what I wanted to say there, I didn't want it to be completely maudlin.

I mean, there was still a lot of tears.

(Okokon chuckles) Um, but I wanted it to also make people laugh, and I started thinking of all the little, many things over the years that my mother did, that were funny or quirky.

And after that period of sort of initial mourning, I felt like I wanted to continue to write about it and honor her.

♪ My mother's name is Angelina Josefina Scarlotta Arlotta.

She's Jewish.

She started out as a Catholic, but she wanted to marry my Jewish dad, and both of their families were really against it.

But we're from New Jersey, so they cut a deal, and my mother agreed to convert to Judaism, and my father agreed to raise the kids as Catholic.

So this Jew learned to do the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost twice to form a Jewish star.

And as a kid, it was really confusing.

I went to church with my Italian cousins, and at seven years old, I made my first Holy Communion.

I'm in my little white bride's dress and veil and they told me I was getting married to Jesus.

And I thought it was weird for a seven year old to be getting married, and I figured it was probably cool, since Jesus and I are both Jews.

And like a lot of immigrant parents, my mom is really overprotective.

I mean, she's always calling-- and I love her-- she's always calling, "Carla, did you lock the door?

You never know!"

"Carla, did you look in the backseat of the car?

You never know!"

And about ten years ago, Mom had a stroke, and so we moved her from Jersey to Pittsburgh so she could be closer to my brother, who's a doctor.

And she still calls all the time, but now she has dementia, and she's a little paranoid.

So instead of saying "Did you lock the door?"

She says, "Your brother is a murderer."

And she says that, but I know he's still her favorite.

And she did have some trepidation about moving into assisted living.

But it worked out when she realized that assisted living is just like a college dorm.

I mean, you move into a place with a bunch of people your own age, it smells weird.

You spend a lot of your time watching TV and playing board games, you day drink and you black out.

And they even have this kind of unusual yellow card system for safety where you put a long yellow card underneath your door by 10:00 at night, and then you have to pull it back in by 10:00 a.m.

If your card's still out past 10:00 a.m., you're probably dead.

And one morning my mom's neighbor, Doreen, still had her card out past 10:00 a.m., and it caused full-on geriatric pandemonium.

I mean, ladies are screaming, their wigs are half on, it was like "Golden Girls Gone Wild."

And finally, after about 20 minutes, Doreen came out of Mr. Peterman's room.

Doreen is definitely not dead.

And my mom developed kind of a weird obsession with the Israelis, which I'm sure has nothing to do with her conversion to Judaism.

But she would call and say, "Carla, "the Israelis have poisoned my food, it tastes like gefilte fish."

I said "Ma, you're eating gefilte fish."

And she even called 911 to tell them that the Israelis had put a bomb in her apartment, and when the cops got there, she thought they were the Israelis, and they get her out, they get her to the hospital, and my brother rushes to meet her, but they don't let him in because my mother told security he was an assassin for Mossad.

And a few years ago I turned 60, and my mom still called me on New Year's Eve to tell me to be careful, and not take too many shots.

(chuckles) I said "Ma, I just turned 60.

The only shot I'll be taking is a Five Hour Energy."

And the next morning my phone rings bright and early, and I'm kind of hungover because I don't really listen to my mother, but I pick up and say, "Happy New Year's, Mom."

But it's my brother calling to tell me that my mom had died that morning.

Yes, that woman really knows how to wreck a holiday.

And she was 82, but it was still unexpected, and we didn't have a plan.

And so I asked my brother what to do.

He says, "Call assisted living.

And they give me her nurse, Patty.

And I said, "Patty, what happened?"

And she said, "Well, your mom was awake, she was eating, and then she fell over and she died."

I said, "Great story, Patti."

And then she said, "Well, you need to get your mother out of here today."

And I said, "What does that mean?"

And she said "Well, she can't stay here, she's dead."

And I said, "Well, I'm 400 miles away in Jersey.

What do you usually do?"

And she said, "What do you mean?"

I said "It's assisted living."

And she said, "Oh, well, we don't really have any protocol."

Apparently, death is the end of the assistance.

And the thing that I do know is that we have a plot in a Jewish cemetery in South Jersey, next to where my dad's buried.

But Mom, for the past two, three years, has been saying she wants to be buried in a Catholic cemetery, and I want to honor her wishes.

So I call my brother back, and say, "Alan, what do we do?

And he said, "Well, we can't really worry about it.

She's never gonna know."

So I call the Jewish cemetery, it's closed, and I'm running out of time, and I just jump on my computer and I Google how to move a body from Pennsylvania to New Jersey, and there was a lot more information about moving bodies out of New Jersey, and I'm desperate.

So I'm like even going with FedEx-ing the dead when it absolutely, positively needs to be there overnight.

And finally the phone rings and it's... the cemetery put me in touch with Howard from the funeral home.

And I just give them the whole spiel, "I gotta move Mom," gotta be today, gotta..." "Just calm down, calm down.

"I got a guy.

I got a guy out in Pittsburgh that I use to move the Jews."

And I'm thinking, "What is that, Jew-ber?"

(chuckles) But, but I'm relieved, and the next morning Howard sends me pictures of caskets.

And I had no idea there were so many.

I mean, I'm on the spin bike in the gym, and I'm, I'm scrolling through and there's hinged tops and, and glass tops, and mahogany oak, and oak oak, and I, I see the guy on the bike next to me looking over, and I just smiled and said, "Tinder."

And the next morning, bada bing, Mom is back in Jersey, and we set the funeral for Friday.

And it's, it's beautiful.

I give the eulogy, and I feel like my mom really, really would have loved it, except maybe for the location of her eternal rest.

But when it's all done, Howard walks over and he shows me this little hospital bracelet with my mother's name on it.

And he said, "I just wanted you to know that it's really your mom in there."

And this was not something I had wondered about, at all until now.

(chuckles) And I'm starting to panic-- what if my mom's not in the casket?

What if she's still in Pittsburgh, or, or Palestine?

And I'm freaking out.

I'm a lawyer, so I'm pretty sure that bracelet is not actual proof that my mother is in the casket.

And I walk to the hole and I'm looking down, and I hear my mother's voice.

"Carla, you should've gotten the glass top one.

Because you never know."

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