Marc Moss: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Tell Something podcast. I’m your host, Mark Moss, founder and executive director of Tell Something. The next tell us something event is October 7th, 2025. The theme is, welcome the Wild Side. You can learn about how to pitch your story and get tickets at Tell us something. Dot org this week on the podcast.

Hammy: That was the first thought I have gonorrhea. The second immediate thought was the place I need to go to treat this gonorrhea is my first day at the health department. I thought, oh my God, this is gonna suck. I get dressed. For some reason, I decided to put on white underwear. To this day, I don’t understand why I chose white.

Katie Van Dorn: And I probably should have figured it out, but I didn’t. And I came outta surgery with my right leg, an inch and a half shorter than my left, and I was pod to say [00:01:00] the least, and a doctor said, well, that’s the way it has to be. So it just was

Marc Moss: four storytellers share their true personal story on the theme.

Lost and found.

Karna Sundby: When I found his body, I just started screaming and screaming and ran into the house, grabbed the phone, and started dialing my parents in Illinois. When I realized I can’t just keep screaming when they answered the phone and I can’t stop, I hung up. I look over and there’s a copy of the kinmen.

Kara Adolphson: The campus newspaper sat right there and on. It is a photo of the art exhibit from the day before Kismet. I’m gonna read that, so I drag it over. And I unfold it so that the page drops down and that’s what I see underneath the photo.

Marc Moss: Their stories were recorded. Live in person on June 30th, 2025 at Ogren Park at Allegiance Field in Missoula, Montana.

Closing out Pride Month. On this episode of the podcast, we’re trying out something a little [00:02:00] different. Tell us something. Board member Beth Ann Osteen generously offered to bring in a professional sound engineer to better capture the feeling of a live event. We’re going to try to keep the essence of the live evening by using the storyteller introductions as I introduce the storytellers the night of the event.

As usual, I’ll give a little teaser of the story before the storyteller shares their story. We’d love to hear from you what you think. Shoot me an email and let me know how you like the new format. You can email me at info at tell us something. Dot org. Love it. Hate it. Let me know what you think. Thanks.

Huge thanks. Goes out to the Greater Montana Foundation who encourages communication on issues, trends, and values of importance to Montanans. We are so grateful to the Greater Montana Foundation for their support to make the June event possible. Tell us something acknowledges that this land where Ogre Park, [00:03:00] uh, ogre Park now stands, is the ancestral territory of the Salish and Kalispell peoples who have stewarded it for generations.

Summertime is traditionally the primetime for indigenous peoples to gather various berries and roots that are in season while the bitterroot are already harvested. Now is the time for processing and storing any remaining bitterroot that have been gathered. Another staple canvas bulbs are being dug and prepared for storage huckleberry’s service.

Berries and choke cherries are ripening and being harvested for immediate consumption and for drying to preserve in winter. We take this moment to honor its land and the native people in the stories that they share with us to honor them, you can support the ongoing efforts of the Confederated Salish and Kni tribes by learning about their cultural initiatives.

And advocating for indigenous rights, more information can be found@kskt.org.[00:04:00]

In our first story, hammy shares his tale about family faith, and finding yourself what starts as a journey of self-discovery after a life altering decision. Takes an unexpected turn leading to a hilarious and surprising public health crisis on the very first day of a new job. Sometimes life’s most challenging moments can also be the most liberating.

Hammy calls his story, Ham’s First Day at the Health Department. Thanks for listening.

Hammy: Hello everyone. My name’s Hammy, and before I begin, I need to tell everyone that I just grew up loving my family. I, me, my mom, my brother, my sister, my dad. We were all so very close. Um, also, I never really heard my parents fighting at all, which was pretty cool. They would always fight about religion, though.

You see, my [00:05:00] dad was Roman Catholic and my mom’s a Jehovah’s Witness. And, uh, their son had a secret. Um, so I always knew that I had to, I always knew that one day I was gonna make this decision. And I, I tried, I prayed, I, I did the baptism, I did the conversion therapy. And when I was 27 years old, I finally realized I couldn’t do it anymore.

So I, uh, kind of, kind of came out. I, I started downloading the dating apps. I started dating. And I met this boy. There’s this beautiful man in Indiana and I decided to, to get married. Someone go, woo Indiana. Yeah. Um, don’t hear that often. So, uh, he, he just completely swept me up. And I, I came out and, uh, sure enough, my church gave me that phone call and they excommunicated me and my mom, my brother, my sister, my cousins, my friends, everyone.

Dead. That’s it. They just, I believe the church said they handed me over to [00:06:00] Satan. And I’m like, that is a little dramatic. I’m the gay one. Easy there, Satan. Um, but anyways, we were married for five years. We had a good relationship and till one day he decided that he didn’t wanna be married anymore. And so I thought, well, I, I left my family to marry you and, and you change your mind and, and that’s okay.

But what am I gonna do? I knew I wasn’t staying in, in, in Indiana, so, um, I, I wanted to go home. Everything in my body told me I gotta go home. I have to go home. And I knew that if I went home, I would get sucked into the church again. And I knew I would just end up killing myself. ’cause I would just, I would be conflicted.

So I decided to do one of those, you know, eat, pray, love things and just go find myself. But I really don’t like Europe, so I just came to Montana instead. So I got, I got a job at Yellowstone and in Big Sky and I did all those kind of things of working seasonal [00:07:00] jobs. And I finally decided what I wanted to do more than anything was.

Work in public health. I was in a first responder and then in occupational health and now I was in public health, so I got accepted back into a public health program online and I got a job at the Gallatin County Health Department. And so my very first day, right, well, let me actually back up just a minute.

After I, um, came off the mountain, uh, the girl was in heat. Let me tell you. I was divorced. I was in a new city. It was, I was feeling good about myself. You know, the grinder notifications were rolling in. So, uh, I had a lot of fun that first weekend. Now that morning, on my first day at the health department, I woke up and I went to go take a piss and I thought, shit, it started burning.

I said, this can’t be good. Maybe I’m just dehydrated. So I hop in the shower and I look down and this discharge is coming out. Well, you know what? We don’t need to get too [00:08:00] graphic, but I think I knew exactly what it was. That was the first thought. Shit, I have gonorrhea. The second immediate thought was the place I need to go to treat this gonorrhea is my first day at the health department.

I thought, oh my God, this is gonna suck. So I go to the I I, I get dressed. For some reason, I decide to put on white underwear. To this day, I don’t understand why I chose white, but I loaded up on underwear and I headed into work. And I thought, I don’t know what I’m gonna tell them. I don’t know if I’m gonna just keep it kind of quiet.

Um, but then they’re all gonna know they’re gonna do the contact tracing. So I met the health officer and she says, hello James. Welcome my, my real name’s James. She says, hello James, welcome. And I said, hello, and I have gonorrhea and I’m gonna have to talk to someone. And she says, okay, um, let’s get your boss, who’s the communicable disease manager.

Uh, and I’m like, of course, that makes total sense. So I tell her. I’m like, Hey. And then I kind of do it like at, by [00:09:00] that point I kind of go on like this one man show where I’m just telling everybody they got the first two out. So like epidemiologist, you knew front desk reception. I was letting her know, I just had to own that story.

So they, they arranged the, they, they do the, the follow up and contact tracing at the health department, but they do actually the testing, uh, at a different party. So I go down. Hey, I go get tested, um, and the doctor comes in, I’m like, I have gonorrhea. And she’s like, okay. So I pulled down my pants and then I look down and she looks down and we both notice a bump.

Now this was August, 2022. If anyone in public health knows what was happening around August 20, yes, there it is. Monkey px, m MPOs. She looks, I look, she says, I’ll be right back. Come leaves the room. She comes back in looking like monsters ink. It was head to toe, PPE, the mask, the shield, the gloves. The runway category was PPE, and she crushed it.

So she’s coming in and [00:10:00] so she like takes, you know, and, and. She, she, she starts slicing it. And I’ve only been in, yes, exactly. Oh, because I’ve only been in one public health class my first semester and three days at the health department. And inside I knew, I’m pretty sure it’s a swab, but I’m not gonna tell you like, Hey, by the way, doctor, I’m new to public health.

This is what to do. So she cuts it and as she cuts it, there’s like gonorrhea dripping out of my penis. It is a whole Hello. Yes. Um, there is a whole, it’s, it’s a whole production. So now I gotta call my boss on my way home and be like, Hey, um, they think it might be Empo and I have to quarantine. So Do you guys have like a remote or a computer?

Yeah, like a pickup. They were very great. The, the health department, I’ll tell you when, when they say you have, these, were all strangers and you have to rely on, on the, the compassion and kindness of strangers. They were all absolutely amazing. And, uh, they just re reaffirmed my life. And, uh, the people [00:11:00] in Butte, that queer people were being taken care of because there was no stigma.

There was no judgment. They were just right to the facts. Um, so. I get a phone call a couple days later. It’s, it’s negative. Um, for em, PX, gonorrhea, we all knew. Yes, that was, we, we had that one coming. So we get there and she’s, um. So I go back, I go back in and they say, okay, you gotta do your follow-up test.

Or I do my follow-up test and uh, they call me back. They say everything’s negative. We just wanted you to come back in one last time for a shot of penicillin. I thought, okay, that’s fine. Gimme a shot of pen penicillin. I wait a couple weeks. I go on another date. Now I have to go to Butte for this date. I go to Butte.

I first time, I think it’s really fun. Here I go. Have a nice beautiful morning with Clayton. His name was a wonderful man. We’re just having some coffee and he says, you know, we like to get lunch. He. I said, yeah, I just want to let you know I’m allergic to seafood. And he says, okay, well we’re in Butte, so relax.

Um, and [00:12:00] then, uh, I said, are you allergic to anything? He said, it’s just penicillin. And I said, okay, well, we can’t have sex after lunch because I might give you penicillin. Uh, I had gonorrhea. And they had, it wasn’t, but then thought it was monkeypox, but it wasn’t that, but it was gonorrhea actually. So if I can transmit it, I’m not, I’m only in my, like, third week of public health right now, so I don’t really know how all of this works.

Um, he said, I just want, I just wanna buy you lunch. So, uh, good guy. So that, that’s, that’s thinking about that now, you know, getting lost. Getting found was I, was I lost when I came out here? I think a little bit, and I think we’re always a little bit lost, right? Because that’s so, it makes life kind of exciting.

And, um, have I been found? Well, I found a really good therapist. Um, thank God for her. Uh, uh, I, uh, found a community. A [00:13:00] family. My partner Clayton, he stayed with me by the way. Uh, great guy by the way. Doug is here. Oh. Um, by the way, every interaction since then is always that of me being like, I have a wild story.

And him being like, sure. So it’s like the perfect relationship. Uh, and, uh, I, I found a great community in, in Butte. Uh, it’s such a wonderful town. Thank you to Missoula. Butte. It’s able to hang a pride flag. We got that passed. So thank you guys. Thank you Missoula for that. Um, but. In, in conclusion of this story, I, I try to talk openly about this.

I don’t want us to feel like we ever have to hold in that shame, that darkness. ’cause I know what that darkness does when we bring that darkness to the light in front of strangers. Um, just sharing our stories, we’re able to own that, right? So thank you guys so much for having me here. I appreciate it and I hope you guys enjoy the rest of this time.

Thanks, Marc.[00:14:00]

Marc Moss: Hammy is thrilled to be sharing his story tonight. He works in occupational safety, health and risk management. He is the founder and creative director of Queer Butte Arts and Culture, a new group celebrating local, queer art, queer culture, and local queer history. Last year he was named one of Southwest Montana’s 20 under 40, and this year he was honored as the young professional of the year by the Butte Local Development Corporation.

He is a homosexual and he lives in Butte with his partner Clayton. Also, a homosexual

ham is passionate about harm reduction, ending stigma, and walking on his hands. Above all, hammy believes that storytelling can save lives. In our next story, Katie Van Dorn recounts a childhood marked by an unexpected physical challenge to a life defined by adventure and a [00:15:00] relentless pursuit of wellness.

Katie’s journey is filled with extraordinary feats, unexpected setbacks, and profound self-discovery. Katie calls her story, the cracks are how the light gets in. Thanks for listening.

Katie Van Dorn: Wow. The only time I hold a mic like this is when I am in a room all by myself. So now I’ve gotta see all these faces. Anyway, um, well, good evening everybody. Have you ever heard the joke about the lost dog with three legs blind in his left eye, missing an ear and no tail? Well that dog answers to the name of Lucky and my, my brother used to call him.

Say that I was that dog named Lucky. And, and the reason for that is, is it began at birth. I was born with a dislocated hip and I was a [00:16:00] cesarean baby. So either the doctor pulled too hard or they, um, or somehow they didn’t check my hip at birth. So around. Age two, my parents finally discovered that I had a dislocated hip when I fell and couldn’t get up.

And, um, so I was braced, just, uh, just tucked in and kept in a brace. And I would be standing in the yard in the patio just spreading, go like this with my brother and sister running all around me. And a little tiny dog named Clyde would just knock me over flat on my back. And, uh. And so anyway, I, um, that actually did wondrous for me.

It, it sent me on my way. And I, because I grew up in Lala as Mark said, I, um, I was able to swim and, and surf body surf, and. Hike and run and all that. My childhood wasn’t affected, but at high school I started to have a lot of hip pain again, and so [00:17:00] I went to the orthopedic surgeon and he said, well, you need a pelvic osteotomy.

In other words, a total restructuring of my right hip, and basically it just rotates your. Acetabulum your socket straight down instead of down and out. And that actually six weeks, um, in a body cast, then seven months on crutches. And the body cast was like, my parents had to have a baby all over again.

They had to come give me the bed pan and water and food and everything. And I, um, I was not a happy baby. Um, and so anyway, I, uh. I got through that and it was like, I felt like the lucky dog. It was pretty miraculous. I was able to run, I was, I started school at the University of California Davis and I was able to run a half marathon and I just really got into running and I also got into swimming.

Um, I used to swim in the ocean, but I started swimming in a pool with a master’s program and the coach [00:18:00] there asked me if I wanted to do a race from. Lanai to Maui in Hawaii, swimming across the channel. And so I did that and it was a pretty neat experience with huge swells. And some of the, some of the swimmers were seasick ’cause the boat had to go as slow as the swimmer.

But I did it and it just fueled my love of adventure and my desire for more. And soon thereafter, I was invited to cook at a guest ranch in the cell way, bitter wilderness. And that was my introduction to Montana. And so I went back and cooked for five summers. I loved it. I would run along the river’s edge and jump into big pools.

And so for five years, I alternated summers in the cell way and winters cooking at a guest or at a restaurant at the top of Aspen or snow mass. Mountain and then I decided, okay, I gotta, I need a real job. So I went back to school in exercise physiology and learned about how, how exercise and nutrition [00:19:00] and all sorts of things factor into.

Staying healthy. And uh, but then soon after I graduated for my, got my master’s, once again, my hip was bothering me. So now I was facing surgery number three, and this was from the femoral side instead of the pelvic side. And I probably should have figured it out, but I didn’t. And I walk, came outta surgery with my right leg, an inch and a half shorter than my left, and I was.

POed to say the least. And, um, the, the, you know, doctor said, well, that’s the way it has to be. So it just was so, I just learned to use poles for hiking and I put lifts in on, in and outside of my shoe and I got a lot of body work. And my name used to be Katie Bodywork, van Dorn. And to this day I live by that principal, but I met my husband around that time and he also loved hug.

Hiking Ray, he’s up there [00:20:00] and, um, so we did a lot of adventures that involved hiking, trapper Peak, Lolo Peak, et cetera. And he, if I got sore, he would give me a piggyback and just bounce my, my hips around until I was. Good to go again. And, uh, so anyway, that, uh, went on. And then around 2001, when I was 45 years old, I decided to have a hip replacement.

And to tell you the truth, that was a very lucky experience because to this day, I still have that hip and it works wonderfully. I might have a. Funky gate, but it still works. And, um, and so because of that good surgery, we decided to do this ski trip from Finland, in Finland, from Russia to Sweden. And we skied about 40, uh, about 40 to 50 miles a day for seven days.

And that, again, was, was quite an adventure. And what I realized with both swimming and [00:21:00] skiing is that they’re very rhythmical. And so if you just put a piece of music like Taco Bell’s cannon in your head, you can just. Get into the flow. And so, um, so we, I did a lot of skiing and then I, um, because of this funky gait, I found myself needing knees, two of them in 2014.

And so I went back and I had, um, knee surgery. And again, that was so fortunate. It just flowed. So well, and, um, I had, I still to this day have the knees and the hip, and they both do really well. But what happened a few years later was that I started to have foot pain, left foot pain, and I, um, and I consulted doctors after trying ibuprofen and tons of steroid shots.

I kept pushing myself, pushing myself, and finally the doctor [00:22:00] said, you know what? You’ve, you’ve your foot. Uh, talus bone, which is your landing pad, has collapsed and your only option is amputation. Cut that off. And I said, I’m gonna cut my head off before I cut any foot off. And I, um, I meant it. And, um, so I.

Um, and this was the first time that there wasn’t a solution. There was always solutions to all these things. This is the first time when I thought, okay, you’ve got to figure this one out for yourself. And um, Henry David Throw once said that, not until we are lost. Can we begin to find ourselves? So I sought out, um, a lot of alternative medicine.

I got stem cells and prolotherapy and platelet rich plate plasma, and I, I sought it all out to try to help the foot. At least structurally. And then my mom passed, happened to pass away in the middle of all this. So I had time to [00:23:00] just go inward and think about, okay, what, what have I done wrong here? Maybe I’ve been, um.

Not a nice person because I lost my SOLE, but I felt like I needed my SOUL saved, and so I tried to do a lot of meditation and studying neuroscience and y. Um, how meditation can help that. And I studied energy medicine and I studied restorative yoga. And I, I just went, just went deep for three years. I just kind of hid out and all my friends up there were with me when, you know, I, Ray would put on his, his ski closer, his running shoes, and go to, to go out and exercise and I would start crying and I just would always be in tears.

And finally after a lot of work and it internally and a lot of outside work, little by little my foot started to be a little less blue [00:24:00] and so did I, and less swollen. And gradually I was able to do more and more. First I could walk without the brace. I had a A FO brace on my foot, and then I could. Walk a little bit longer and then I could double pull cross country skiing.

And finally, in 2022, I hiked to jump top a jumbo for the first time and I just wept. And um. With joy and gratitude. And ever since then I’ve really thought, okay, you’ve gotta be grateful for this body. ’cause you know, it’s, it’s pieced together. Lots of, lots of replaced parts, and so you’ve gotta take good care of it and honor it.

And when it doesn’t wanna do something, let go. Just let it go. And so. I wanna summarize my story, my lost and found story with a, a little verse from one of my favorite Museum, museum [00:25:00] musicians, Leonard Cohen. And the song is called Anthem. He says, ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering.

There is a crack in everything, and that’s how the light gets in. Thank you.

Marc Moss: Katie Van Dorn

is originally from Lala, California. Katie studied exercise physiology at the University of Montana. She is passionate about the outdoors and is a compassionate real estate agent who has been caring for home buyers and sellers alike in Missoula for over 20 years. Katie loves hiking, cross country skiing, swimming, gardening, and cooking.

You may have heard her freeform show on Montana Public Radio, where she is a rotating host and producer of Thursday freeform coming up after the break.

Karna Sundby: When I found [00:26:00] his body, I just started screaming and screaming and ran into the house, grabbed the phone, and started dialing my parents in Illinois. When I realized I can’t just keep screaming when they answered the phone and I can’t stop, I hung up.

Kara Adolphson: I look over and there’s a copy of the caman. The campus newspaper sat right there and on. It is a photo of the art exhibit from the day before Kismet. I’m gonna read that, so I drag it over and I unfold it so that the page drops down and that’s when I see underneath the photo.

Marc Moss: That’s next on the Tell Us Something podcast.

Remember that. The next tell us something event is October 7th. You can learn about how to pitch your story and get tickets@tellussomething.org. Thanks to our media sponsors, Missoula events.net and Missoula Broadcasting Company. Learn more about Missoula Broadcasting Company and listen [00:27:00] online@missoulabroadcastingcompany.com.

Thanks to our in-kind sponsors, float Missoula. Learn more@floatmsla.com and Joyce of tile.

Joyce Gibbs: Hi, it’s Joyce from Joyce of Tile. If you need tile work done, give me a shout. I specialize in custom tile installations. Learn more and see some examples of my work@joyceoftile.com.

Marc Moss: Alright, let’s get back to the stories.

You are listening to the Tell Us Something podcast. I’m Marc Moss, opening up the second half of this episode of the Tell Us Something Podcast. Karna Sundby goes on a blind date in Seattle, which leads to a whirlwind, romance and a life that feels like a dream when an unimaginable tragedy strikes. One woman’s world shatters, forcing her to confront the deepest of despair, follow her incredible journey through loss, unexpected healing, and the profound discovery of purpose amidst the pain.

Know that Karna’s story speaks frankly [00:28:00] about suicide. Karna calls her story, finding the gift. Thanks for listening.

Karna Sundby: Hello everybody. Can you hear me?

Come with me to Seattle. It’s after work and I’m on an escalator, headed up to a restaurant, and I’m feeling anxious and wondering why am I doing this? I get to the top and sitting on a couch is a very handsome man. Eyeing the escalator, he stands up, flashes me. A big smile, has perfect teeth, and maybe this blind date isn’t such a bad idea.

After all, we sit in the bar for hours telling stories about our families, our sales careers, his love of sailing, my passion for skydiving and all of our bizarre blind dates. Later, we would [00:29:00] agree that it seemed like a reunion. Like we already knew each other, maybe from some other time. His name was Ed, and his gentle spirit won my heart.

We spent almost every weekend on his sailboat, which was so relaxing and so exhilarating when you’re keeled over and the spinnaker’s out, slicing through the the swales, and then there’s nothing so tranquil as being lulled to sleep. By waves slapping against the hull of a gently rocking boat. Eventually we moved into a guest house, I mean a, a house on the Puget Sound, and it was summer in Seattle.

We were so happy. Life was so good. As I got to know him over the next couple years, I felt we had the happiest relationship of anybody that I knew. He was more quiet with other people than he was with me, and so I started [00:30:00] thinking of him as the strong, silent type. We were both in sales and I realized that he never should have been.

There was just too much pressure, too many quotas, too many, too much selling, and so I wish that he had had some different kind of career. We never had an argument. I never saw him upset or. Depressed until one November night. And then when I asked him what was wrong, he said it was his job. And I said, well, ed, you can find a different job, but I’d never seen him despondent like this.

And I didn’t know how to support him. So I just thought, well, I’ll just let it be. Let him watch Monday Night football and we’ll talk about this more tomorrow. But for us, there would be no, tomorrow I was 42 years old. Living a charmed life with the man of my dreams. Those dreams died the next day when I came home from work and found him dead.

[00:31:00] He had chosen to end his life. When I found his dead body, I just started screaming and screaming and ran into the house, grabbed the phone, and started dialing my parents in Illinois. When I realized I can’t just keep screaming when they answer the phone and I can’t stop, I hung up. Yeah, just then my neighbor shouted.

I called 9 1 1 and whoosh. All of my freaking out parts just came rushing back together and I thought, help us on the way. Maybe he’s not dead, maybe they can save him. The firetruck came very quickly and got him out of the, the car. We’re trying to resuscitate him on the driveway. It was so unbelievable. I ran into the house to get a pillow for his head.

I remember standing against this post just praying out loud. I swear I could hear the sound of my life shattering on the concrete. When I realized he was gone. I now know [00:32:00] that he’d been fired from that job for not making his sales skull. And later I would find a box of mail that he didn’t want me to see.

Debts a recent bill from the IRS with six years of unpaid taxes. The strong, silent type with secrets that I would never find answers for the next year was hell, full of dark emotions, sorrow to pray, despair, hopelessness, and I needed community to heal. So I went to visit some dear girlfriends in the LA area and happened to be there when the Northridge earthquake happened.

We were talking until late into the night when suddenly the earth just started quaking. The walls were shuttering, shirking violently back and forth, and it was dark as a tomb, and there was this dead silence except for my friends shouting, are you okay? Are you okay? They were [00:33:00] diving for door jambs and hiding under fufu furniture.

I was laying on the ground spread eagle in front of a plate glass window that went from the floor to the ceiling, hoping that it would shatter and kill me. And I’d made an instant decision that if it broke and didn’t kill me, I’d take a shard of glass and slip my juggler vein and no one would know that I had done it.

That’s how much I didn’t wanna be here. I wished that I could die, but I knew the pain of suicide. There was just this constant ache. This. Empty, endless hole that nothing could fill. And there were the nightmares that first year. It was a supportive family, friends, grief counseling and a spiritual connection that got me through the tough times.

I wanted to be free of the bad dreams. So I went to a professional. That first session was pretty scary because she wanted to take me back into the garage. The source [00:34:00] of the, the sight of the. Bad dreams where I would wake up in a cold, sweaty panic, sometimes screaming. But what she said made sense that I had, I was reliving it because that’s the way my brain had recorded it and that we needed to rewire my brain.

So she taught me how to disassociate in a healthy way from the event so that I could observe it instead of live it. After two sessions, I never had a nightmare again. After a few more sessions, I was blown away at how much better I was feeling no longer merely surviving. I was thriving. The modality was called NLP, which stands for Neural Linguistic Programming, and I decided I wanna help people heal from their trauma.

So I went to school, became a master practitioner of neural linguistic programming. [00:35:00] And when I first started working with clients, it was the most fulfilling thing I ever experienced in my life. It was such a gift, and there were other gifts that came from this tragedy, the gift of compassion. When I felt such deep pain, it led me to such deep compassion for human suffering.

I don’t know if I could have become someone who cares so much what people go through if I hadn’t gone through so much myself. That was such a gift, and another gift that I received was learning how to forgive. If I hadn’t been able to forgive the people that I wanted to blame, I think I’d still be haunted by this tragedy stuck forever in the past.

Maybe even using it as an excuse for why I couldn’t be happy or successful in life. But I like what Nelson Mandela says about forgiveness. To stay [00:36:00] in a state of non forgiveness is like me drinking poison, expecting the other guy to die. I didn’t wanna drink the poison, so I became someone who can forgive easily, and that is a great gift.

Another gift that I received was I learned how to feel all my feelings, no matter how dark they were, without being afraid of feeling them. I learned the truth of grieving, which is this, to heal you must feel. When I, when Ed first died, I never thought I’d be happy again, and I sure never thought I’d fall in love, but maybe it’s because I was willing to so deeply feel that I was able to truly heal my broken heart and create new dreams.

I’ve been with my amazing husband, Kirk, now for 24 years. Actually, it’ll be [00:37:00] 24 years on July 7th, and I would need that my whole 10 minutes up here to tell you what a wonderful man he is. I’m gonna start crying. So communicative. So reliable. So passionate about life and handsome. With perfect teeth.

When I first met Kirk, I realized that for me, some of the grief work was only gonna be completed when I was in a relationship again, and he was willing to walk that path with me bringing us so close able to talk about everything. I created new dreams with him, like moving back to Missoula where I went to college.

Our life is so good and I’m so grateful that I didn’t die in that earthquake. That I live to find this joy and I love my work. I love to help people transform. And when I help somebody heal their trauma, their depression, their PTSD, you know, the [00:38:00] really deep stuff, it means the world to me. I feel like I’m doing the work that I’m meant to do.

Do I think about Ed very much? Not so much when there’s a, some, you know, anniversary. Yes. When I hear of another suicide, yes, but when I heard that the theme tonight was lost and found, I thought maybe I would like to tell my story. I lost so much. I lost the man I loved. I lost my hopes. I lost my dreams, and I found so much.

I found my passion. I found meaningful work. I found my life’s calling, and maybe I was destined to work with people to help them heal their trauma. And maybe I wouldn’t have found my destiny without this tragedy. So the whole experience has brought me to develop kind of a new core belief in life, which is that when the really tough times happen, maybe there’s a gift in there [00:39:00] somewhere.

And if we can just keep our eyes and our ears and our hearts open, maybe somehow will be guided to find a gift amidst the pain. Thank you.

Marc Moss: Karna Sundby’s journey of self-discovery has led her to explore various paths in life. From teaching meditation to a successful career in corporate sales, what has always driven her most is the desire to make a difference. Often the toughest times in life are the ones which break us open and forge within us a deep well of compassion.

Her story tonight is about one of those times when a terrible tragedy led to a precious gift. Closing out this episode of the Tell Us Something podcast. Kara [00:40:00] Adolphsen is a college freshman, grappling with a secret grief. Kara vows to herself that she will navigate her new life and grief silently. But on the anniversary of a profound loss, an unexpected invitation leads to an art exhibit, a surprising discovery and a breakthrough moment of joy and healing.

Kara calls her story finding humor after loss. Thanks for listening.

Kara Adolphson: Hello out there.

The first day of my freshman year in college was on the six month anniversary of my best friend’s death, and I had just come from this small Montana town where all of my day-to-day interactions had shifted from, Hey Kara, how’s it going? To, Hey Kara, how are you? [00:41:00] And I became so desperate to get away from that, that I moved as quickly and as early as I possibly could here to the University of Montana campus.

And as I arrived in the town that my friend and I had planned to move to together without her. I made a solemn vow to myself that I would tell no one that I was grieving, not only because I was so tired of these other sum interactions that I had been having, but also because at 18 I really didn’t have the words to explain what I was going through.

So it became my closest kept secret, and I told no one. I didn’t tell my professors. I didn’t tell my new bosses. I didn’t tell any new peers that I met. I didn’t even tell my [00:42:00] roommate that I lived in a proverbial shoebox with. It was truly a secret, but the thing about grief is that it tends to show up even when it’s uninvited, especially when it’s uninvited.

And my grief really showed up in my poor academic performance my freshman year. I had a hard time attending my classes, let alone doing anything to pass them. I practically flunked out my very first semester. I lost all of my academic scholarships, and while that was really difficult to hold. For anyone out there who has experienced grief, you can corroborate that.

One of the more difficult emotions to hold when you’re grieving is surprisingly joy. These two seemingly opposite emotions are hard to balance at [00:43:00] the same time, and it’s something that took me years of practice to master. But one thing during this year that really cracked open this joy for me was I, of course, met a boy and he really brought that glimmer back into my life.

I could tell that he could see through the facade that I was offering, and he was treating me like a normal person. And even so still, I couldn’t tell him about my grief. And as the year continued on and the seasons changed, and winter was preparing to give way into spring, there was this horrible date that was approaching, which was the one year anniversary of my friend’s death.

And I could tell pretty quickly that I wasn’t gonna be able to handle it very well. So I was [00:44:00] making plans of how I could kind of cancel the day and pretend that it. Didn’t even happen. And on the night before the one year anniversary, I was sitting in my dorm room predating calling out of work, canceling my classes, shocker, and just hiding away in my room.

And that’s when I heard a familiar ping on my laptop. A Facebook message because the year was 2013 and we still, Facebook messaged each other to communicate. And so I went over and it was a message from this boy and it said, Hey, what are you doing tomorrow? I thought, well, nothing. And he said, how would you feel about coming to one of my classes with me?

I thought, well, that’s really bizarre. Um, but what class? And he said, just show up. You’ll find out when you get there. So I agreed, [00:45:00] having no idea what I was agreeing to. The University of Montana offers over 300 different courses, including things like acrobatic trampoline class, so it really could have been anything.

But the next morning, instead of hiding away from the world as I had planned, I went out into it. And I went over to the social sciences building on campus, which is a kind of catchall building for a lot of classes to meet this boy. I went up to the third floor to a room that I knew was a lecture hall, hoping that I could walk in and blend in with the crowd.

But when I opened the door to that room, there was maybe 15 people in that room. There was no blending in, but I went in anyway and I sat down next to this boy and I said. Where am I? And he said, well, this is my art history class. I said, okay. [00:46:00] And right then the professor says, well, class, as you know, today is our big field trip day, so gather your belongings.

We’re leaving right now. Okay, so I get up with the rest of the class and we leave and we go all the way downstairs in the same building. There are student art exhibits on the first floor, and the class was to go around and just meander around the exhibits and make of them what you will. And this boy, he was beaming, so excited.

Because at some point over the last several months, I had told him that I love art, but what he doesn’t know that’s more salient to me on this day is that my friend, she really loved art. And so somehow on the one year anniversary. [00:47:00] I’m there at an art exhibit and as we go in, I’m pretty novice to the whole art exhibit scene.

So I’m breezing past the artist statements and I’m really taking like a vibes based approach to what’s in the room. And I walk into the very first exhibit. In The first display is this giant block of ice being melted by sound.

And I thought, oh no, I have no idea what this means, but I’m staring at this block of ice and this boy is staring at me staring at the block of ice. And I think you gotta say something brilliant. So I say something to the effect of, well, we’re all blocks of ice and. We’re all slowly melting. I’m having a rather existential day.

Mind you. [00:48:00] And he loves it and it encourages me to go authentically through the rest of the exhibit. So we go through serpentine all of the different art that’s on display until we enter the final room. Which is this magnificent display of all of these different hourglass shaped ceramic sculptures in all different shapes and sizes.

There’s one that’s four feet tall. There’s some on pedestals, like flower vases. There’s a hundred of them pinned up in a grid system, repeating over and over again, and I tell him how very. Warhol that is or something, and we spend a lot of time in this exhibit. We’re really enjoying it. And at the end, there’s this huge container of tiny versions of this sculpture that the viewers get to take home.

Perfect. We dig [00:49:00] through this container. We’re reaching to the bottom. We’re pulling them up to see how the glaze shines in the light. We’re rolling them in our palms to see the texture and the weight, and he finds one that he thinks speaks to him. I find one that speaks to me. We slip them in our pockets and we leave.

And as I made my way back to my dorm room, I was overcome with gratitude, how on a day that I had planned to disappear, I had been seen and really seen. And that night as I laid down in bed, I took my sculpture and I gave it a big kiss and I tucked it under my pillow, just warmed by the events from that day.

The next morning I even took it with me to the food Zoo for breakfast, and I went to the Food Zoo, the campus cafeteria, and I sat down with my cereal and my orange juice [00:50:00] and I look over and there’s a copy of the Caman. The campus newspaper sat right there and on. It is a photo of the art exhibit from the day before Kismet.

I’m gonna read that. So I drag it over and I unfold it so that the page drops down and that’s when I see underneath the photo in rather large writing. University butt plug exhibit is a huge success, and that’s when I realized that my sweet sculpture is in fact, yes. And I let out the biggest belly laugh that I had in a very long time, and it was during that time of tremendous loss for me that I found my sense of humor about life again.

Thank you,[00:51:00]

Marc Moss: Kara Adolphson. Kara is a Montanan community member, therapist and storyteller who finds joy in the arts, the outdoors, and Bluebird days in Missoula. She believes in the power of vulnerability, humor, and shared experience to bring people together, a lover of language and listening. Kara is committed to fostering connection, whether it is in the counseling room on a trail or around the dinner table.

Coming up in the next episode of the Tell Us Something podcast.

Aunvada Being: I asked him if he wanted to open up and he jumped at it. He was thrilled and that was shocking to me and also terrifying. And I’m, I wish that maybe I had been a bit more terrified.

Jilnar Mansour: Here I am in a refugee camp in Palestine with four other Americans, and what we’re doing is we’re witnessing the let up of a curfew.[00:52:00]

Curfew is. Something that was happening then and is still happening now where people are not able to leave their home for hours or days at a time.

Steve Schmidt: I take position on the left side of the doorway. My partner fills in the position of the right side of the doorway, and we fill this space naturally. Our guns are drawn because we’re searching this residence.

And I yell, sir, on the sixth day, I, I got a phone call and there

Lauren Tobias: was three kids on the other line and they were calling from the Wolf Point Pizza Joint. I was like, hello? They were like, all they said was, we found your dog.

Marc Moss: Listen to the concluding stories from the June, 2025 live event that closed out Pride Month.

The theme was lost and found. Subscribe to the podcast so you’ll be sure to catch those incredible stories. You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Blue Sky and visit Tell us something.org. To explore 14 years of our story archives [00:53:00] and let me know what you thought of the new format. You can email me at info@tellussomething.org to share your thoughts.

Live recording by the recording Studio in Missoula, Montana, podcast production by me, Marc Moss Remember that the next tell us something event is October 7th. You can learn about how to pitch your story and get tickets@tellussomething.org.

00;00;10;01 – 00;00;35;00
Marc Moss
Welcome to the Tell Us Something podcast. Tell Us Something is a nonprofit that helps people share their true personal stories around a theme. Live in person and without notes. I’m Mark Moss, your host and executive director of Tell Us Something. Have you ever felt that tug towards a place, a memory, or maybe even a person? That feeling of going home, that feeling of going home isn’t just about a physical location.

It’s about belonging and connection. It’s about finding that piece of yourself that’s been missing. On this episode of the Tell Us Something podcast. We explore all the different ways we come home to ourselves and the world around us. We’ll hear stories of journeys, of second chances, of rediscovering what truly matters. So buckle up and get comfy. Join us as we embark on these heartfelt adventures.

This episode of the podcast was recorded in front of a live audience at the Glacier Ice Rink and Pavilion on June 11th, 2024, as part of the Missoula Pride celebration. Eight storytellers shared their true personal stories on the theme Going Home.

00;01;19;02 – 00;01;30;05
Michelle Reilly
It was like looking through the most beautiful kaleidoscope I had ever looked through all these vibrant colors and shapes and patterns of fractals and wonder.

00;01;30;05 – 00;01;48;03
Adel Ben Bacha
As she answers the phone, she softly says hello. And then silence. That silence felt like forever. But she breaks that silence with a delicate sob.

00;01;48;03 – 00;01;59;15
Zeke Cork
I didn’t know what it meant, but I couldn’t shake it. I thought maybe it was about my family, so I try to write about it, but there was always something missing. It stayed with me for years.

00;01;59;15 – 00;02;06;01
Ashley Brittner Wells
The coolest thing you could do in town was go to the games. And I desperately wanted to be cool, so I went.

00;02;06;01 – 00;02;37;00
Marc Moss
That’s coming up. We are currently looking for storytellers for the next tell us something storytelling event. The theme is Never Again. If you’d like to pitch your story for consideration, please call (406) 203-4683. You have three minutes to leave your pitch. The pitch deadline is August 9th. I look forward to hearing from you. We’re also looking for volunteers to help with the event.

If you love Tell Us Something and you love helping out, visit. Tell us something. Morgan. Volunteer to learn more and to sign up.

We were gathered at the Missoula County Fairgrounds in the heart of Montana amidst the vibrant energy of early June. As we remembered that we took a moment to acknowledge the traditional stewards of this land. We stand on the ancestral homelands of the Salish and Kalispell, people who for countless generations have nurtured and cared for this place. The place of the small bull trout.

Their deep connection to this land is woven into the very fabric of this valley. We honor their resilience, their knowledge of the natural world, and their enduring presence here. Acknowledgment alone is not enough. Let’s also commit to taking action ways that you can do this if you live in Missoula, or to learn more about the native tribes who still inhabit this land.

You can visit the Salish Kootenay College or the Missoula Children’s Museum to deepen your understanding of the Salish and Kalispell cultures. You can visit the Missoula Art Museum, where the exhibit We Stand with you. Contemporary artists. Honor the families of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous relative crisis runs through September 7th, 2024. You can support cultural events hosted by local tribes and explore opportunities to volunteer with their initiatives.

We can always be looking for opportunities to incorporate indigenous knowledge and practices into our everyday lives, whether it’s sustainable land management or traditional food systems. We can commit to moving beyond mere words and work towards building a more respectful and inclusive future. Honoring the legacy of the Salish and the Kalispell people on whose land we stand.

Remember this. Tell us something. Stories sometimes have adult themes. Storytellers sometimes use adult language.

We ate. Tell us something. Recognize the privilege inherent in our platform and while we love sharing a variety of voices, it’s important to amplify marginalized voices. That’s why during the event on June 11th, I stepped back and passed the mic to our friends from Missoula Pride. Devin Carpenter, who shared his story at last year’s event, and Kiara Rivera from the center, performed the honors of seeing the evening’s event.

On the podcast, you’ll hear them giving the bios for the storytellers.

Michelle Riley finds herself homeless in 10th grade in a challenge that begins a lifetime of challenges after earning a PhD. Despite her alcohol use disorder, she struggles to overcome addiction and finds unexpected hope. In an online ad, sensitive listeners, please note that Michelle’s story contains mentions of suicidal thoughts, which may be distressing for some listeners. Please take care of yourselves.

Michelle calls her story heroic measures. Thanks for listening.

00;05;41;05 – 00;06;29;18
Michelle Reilly

I found myself homeless for the first time when I was in 10th grade. My sisters and I came home from school and our father’s truck was parked there. But our father was never home this time of day. So we walked inside. Hello. Hello. No answer. We walked up the stairs and the door to my parent’s bedroom was cracked, so we pushed it open and my father was there, kneeling at the foot of his bed with all of his guns, a row of guns laid out neatly on his bed.

My mom was gone. She left. See, I grew up in a small town in rural Appalachia, and my parents were young parents. My mother had three daughters by the time she was 21. So I guess by 35, she didn’t want to be a mother anymore. And home became not so homey anymore. I started sleeping at friends houses or sleeping in my car.

Sometimes I didn’t sleep at all because by 11th grade I was working 3 or 4 jobs. I’d rotate between two afterschool jobs, and then I’d go to work third shift at a diner. And diners in Appalachia weren’t the most wholesome place for a 16 year old girl to be. So I dealt with far too many sexual propositions from older men.

There. I’d get off at 6 or 7. I’d go to school, shower in the locker room, and then I’d sleep either in homeroom or in my car. And I don’t remember thinking about these things. It was like I was just on autopilot doing them. After high school, I started undergrad with the same unwavering autopilot and schedule. I was working 5 or 6 jobs and taking 18 to 21 credits a semester.

And I was introduced to the underground rave scene in Pittsburgh and started experimenting with party drugs. I was also drinking a lot during this time and sleeping even less. I’d started drinking at a young age after my mom left, and I was given a fake ID, but I lived in a small town, so I’d frequently run into friends of my father’s at dive bars, but they knew his mental state after my mom left, so either they never told him or if they did, he was too depressed to say anything to me.

After undergrad, I moved to Reno and started living out of my car again. And then at 27, I applied to grad school and earned a master’s of science from Johns Hopkins University. And then I was offered a research position. So I moved to Flagstaff and earned my PhD and four years.

Underneath the accomplishments and overcome struggles. I was completely empty and numb, still completely out of touch with any emotions and just doing doing all the things that I know needed to get done. Doing all the things I needed to do without feeling anything. And during this time, I was still drinking a lot like a fifth whiskey a night was not uncommon.

I was still over performing at work, exceeding expectations and producing high quality products. But my behavior was erratic and my emotions were frequently uncontrolled outbursts of sobbing or rage. And I felt that uncontrollable spiraling. It’s like I was in a dark box and there wasn’t a top or bottom, and there wasn’t a way out of this box because the box was everything.

It’s like those car compactors at scrap yards. The force and pressure needed to smash a car into this tiny package of metal. That force and pressure is what it felt like all around me, all of the time in this torque box. And I couldn’t climb out of this box because the darkness was everything.

It was so isolating and I felt so alone. I became completely dysregulated and at times suicidal and really lost hope.

One day I was scrolling through Instagram and I felt an emotion, a glimmer of hope, a tiny seed deep down that I barely felt safe acknowledging. I filled out an online form for a clinical trial titled Psilocybin Treatment for Major Depressive Disorder with Co-occurring Alcohol Use Disorder.

Fast forward several long months of getting physicals, providing psychological examinations, getting bloodwork and providing a detailed drinking history. And I was told I was accepted into this trial. I started meeting twice a week with my guides, a licensed social worker and a psychologist. And there wasn’t a single meeting that I didn’t cry at, just endless tears streaming down my face.

But hopelessness was still. I felt.

On September 18th, I walked into the Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Behavioral Research for my last Credos interview, and I was asked a series of questions on a scale of 0 to 10, how important is it for you to change your drinking right now? Ten? On a scale of 0 to 10, how confident are you that you can change your drinking right now?

At this point in my life, I felt like I had drank more days. I’d been alive than not drank, so my confidence was pretty low. I think I gave the question a 3 or 4. More evaluations and discussions and meditating. And then I was handed a wooden chalice and I put on a blood pressure monitor. I shades and headphones and I waited.

And if you’re familiar with psychedelics, the dose I was given was a high dose. It’s what they call a heroic dose.

The music began to entice and overwhelm me, and I was being pulled by curiosity into a world completely unfamiliar to me. Although I had a fair share of experience with party drugs, I had no experience with psychedelics.

I began to see so many fantastical things and found myself invited deeper and deeper into my internal psyche. So many interesting patterns and curiosities and a feeling of weightlessness.

It was like looking through the most beautiful kaleidoscope I had ever looked through, all these vibrant colors and shapes and patterns of fractals and wonder.

The texture of the music became the vibrant colors, and I could feel all these colors and patterns in a very intense way. The kaleidoscope became five dimensional and the universe became five dimensional. And I was a part of that.

I could feel so much depth and breadth and heights, but also time both forward and backwards and resonance. And every cell in my body was suddenly alive and vibrating with the resonance of these mutating colors and the kaleidoscope. My body became warm and endless without boundary, and I felt so much openness, like an untethered ring. Like the layers just being pulled off of me.

All that crushing heaviness. That only thing that I had felt for so long was being pulled out of me and lifted off of me and replaced with this beautiful radiance. And this warm, golden light was being poured into me and filling me and spilling out around me into this beautiful reflective pool. At some point, I don’t know the timeline, but I felt as though I was being embraced by the universe, and I felt a presence.

And I felt this presence tell me or show me that I was not alone, that I was being held, always held, and that I was loved. And I saw darkness from my past in a new light. But I felt safe there, and I felt as though I was not alone. But I was being guided through this darkness and fear was replaced with curiosity.

I explored unending time and a continuum of life, and I felt more at home than I had ever felt in my entire life. The details of the experience are inexplicable, as often is said about life changing psychedelic experiences. It was ineffable. I had one other treatment three months after my first, and I have not had the urge to numb reality through drinking since my first session.

I still carry with me that peace and comfort I felt during my first session, and I’m learning a new sense of self filled with generosity and acceptance. And I’m so grateful that I found my way home to my self-worth.

00;16;36;03 – 00;16;52;04
Devin Carpenter
Michelle Reilly is a wilderness specialist and wildlife ecologist who has lived in Missoula for 8 years. She is a wildcrafter, avid backpacker, and devoted mother. If she isn’t deep in the mountains or paddling the rivers, you can find her in her yard tending her gourmet mushroom gardens. She also runs a Missoula Ladies’ Dinner Club and enjoys entertaining in her backyard. Sensitive listeners, please note that Michelle’s story contains mentions of suicidal thoughts and the her father contemplating suicide, which may be distressing for some listeners. Please take care of yourselves. Alright, please welcome Michelle Reilly.

00;16;52;10 – 00;17;06;17
Marc Moss
Up next Adele Ben Boccia shares a vivid tale of family nostalgia and a life changing phone call that redefines the meaning of home. Adele calls her story plus 206. Thanks for listening.

00;17;06;17 – 00;17;35;07
Adel Ben Bacha
Hello, everyone. Before I tell you my story, I would like for all of you to close your eyes, at least for one part, because I want this to be a shared experience. So my story takes us back. Eight years ago in France, in the little city of my family and I are all gathered for a Thursday dinner, as my mom loves to make them.

Everyone understands what she has prepared for dinner. It’s everyone’s favorite meal, a delicious couscous that looks like perfection. So she’s in the kitchen. We are all in the living room. We are a big family of eight people, and I’m the youngest in the living room. You can hear the loud voices, some jokes being thrown at people, and very loud and heavy arguments.

So she’s in the kitchen. The dish is getting ready, and as she brings the plate in the living room, everyone just stops. They’re astonished by this red vivid color. This color comes from the spices she puts in it. The tomato sauce, the harissa. Very spicy that day. By the way. And everyone dies in. Everyone stops. And the room is filled with the sound of clinking spoons.

And so I try a very timid. Bon appétit that can be heard. Have you ever felt that ignored. If not, that hurts a lot. So everyone dives in and eats peacefully. The noise is getting louder as it was before, but suddenly the phone rings. My mum rushes through the phone to the phone and I see her eyes widening, and as they get bigger, we all see this number.

This number was longer than usual on the phone and we could all see the country code. And I remember vividly the numbers two, one, six. Answering that phone took her instantaneously back to her childhood until she was 17. As she answers the phone, she softly says hello. And then silence. That silence felt like forever. But she breaks that silence where they delicate sob.

Me and my siblings look at each other and we understand what happened. And something very bad happened. After a sleepless night, my mom boards us on the first plane. She finds to Tunisia the place where she was born. As the plane lands, her head is still up in the clouds. She walks through the airport and all she sees is just lifeless figures walking around the airport.

She goes out of the airport. And then she hops into the first taxi, and she is starting to get prepared to her two hour drive to take her to her hometown, a small village now become a city called Dubai. As she is on her way, she looks through the window and she notices that a lot of things have changed.

The palm trees are higher, the buildings too, and the traffic is heavier, making the journey even longer. She finally gets there, knocks at the door and suddenly the memories in her head start rushing as well as if it was a race. Each memory wanted to be the one, the one to be remembered. The first thing she would tell her sister.

But eventually none of them won. The door opens and my mom sees her sister. Red eyes still filled with water, without a word. She is welcomed with a heartfelt hug and welcoming eyes filled with filled with sympathy. Without saying anything, she follows her sister in a very dark room, and you can tell that the room was very dark, because the only light you could see was the swaying of the curtains through the rare breeze.

And then she enters and she sees the lifeless body on a mattress. As she sees it. She can’t help it but rush to the body. She holds her and hugs her tightly and kisses her repeatedly. On me. On me. Meaning mom in Arabic. I’m here now. You’re safe. After saying that, the only thing we could see is a tear that has been shed on my grandmother’s cheek.

One of her siblings goes to the body and closes the eyes, and you may now open yours. The reason why I chose this story is because, like my mom and the youngest of the family of eight, and I’ve always felt that it was hard to find my voice and to step up for my ideas. Because when you’re young and you have a lot of big brothers that would tell you what to think because you’re too young, you don’t know anything.

You’re naive. But now, thinking back, I think that this story shaped me in a way because I didn’t want to feel the regret and guilt that my mother felt of not being there enough for her own mom. So when I was about 18, I already knew that I wanted to be a teacher, and I’ve always made a promise to myself.

I said that whenever I get my first job as a teacher, I will buy a house and make sure that my mom is safe with my dad and that they left the small apartment we have been living all our life. So that’s what I did and I thought that would help them. But as I was growing older, I was getting, harder and harder on my siblings.

As I was repeating the process, I had been I had been living before, and now I’m thinking back, and I was hard on them because my mom wishes they called her more and visit more because she was expressing her own grief as if life could stop at any moment. So I get into a lot of arguments with my siblings, telling them that they should call mom more often because you never know what can happen.

But now I understand why I felt that. And most of all, why I shouldn’t feel like that. Because today we’re here to talk about home. And my vision of home changed. My siblings didn’t call my parents that often because they now have a family husband, wife, children. So this is now their home. But it doesn’t mean that they love my mom any less.

So what I do today to avoid that happening again is calling my mom anytime I can. And being here now. Far away from home. Only for a month. Still, I make sure that I call my mom every day because I have understood something very important. We tend to think of home as a building, something that has been built, something that protects you from the outside.

A geographical space. But I have now understood that a home is actually not a geographical place. It could be a spiritual place. So now when I call her, I always make sure that even if we don’t have much to say every day, that I get to hear every detail of her day. This way, when it’s my time to go home, I don’t feel like she felt the buildings getting higher and the trees higher to thank you.

00;25;44;02 – 00;25;54;09
Kera Rivera
Adel Ben Bacha is a 29 year-old French English teacher in Dijon, France. You must have heard of the mustard! He teaches in highschool, university and for masters’ programs, among other activities . He loves meeting new people, traveling and discovering new cultures, going out with friends and family.

00;25;54;09 – 00;26;01;02
Marc Moss
We’ll be right back after this short break. You are listening to the Tell Us Something podcast.

00;26;01;02 – 00;26;12;14
Zeke Cork
I didn’t know what it meant, but I couldn’t shake it. I thought maybe it was about my family, so I try to write about it, but there was always something missing. It stayed with me for years.

00;26;12;14 – 00;26;18;28
Ashley Brittner Wells
The coolest thing you could do in town was go to the games. And I desperately wanted to be cool, so I went.

00;26;18;28 – 00;26;22;10
Marc Moss
That’s after the break. Stay tuned.

Thank you to our story sponsor, the Good Food Store, helping us to pay our storytellers. Learn more at Good Food store.com. Thanks to Golden Yolk Griddle, who also showed up as a story sponsor. Learn more about them at Golden Yolk griddle.com. Thank you to our accessibility sponsor, Parkside Credit Union, allowing us to hire American Sign Language interpreters at this event.

In order to be a more inclusive experience, learn about them at Parkside fcu.com. Thanks to our artist sponsor Bernice’s Bakery, who paid our poster artist. I learned about them and their delicious baked goods at Bernice’s Bakery mty.com. Thanks to our media sponsors, Missoula Events, Dot net, the Art attic, The Trail Less Traveled, and Missoula Broadcasting Company including the family of ESPN radio.

The trail 133, Jack FM and Missoula. Source for modern hits you 104.5. Thanks to our in-kind sponsors. Float. Missoula. Learn more at float msl.com and choice of tile. Learn about Joyce at Joyce of tile.com. Please remember that our next event is September 18th at the George and Jane Denison Theater. The theme is Never Again. You can pitch your story by calling (406) 203-4683.

Tickets are available right now at Tell Us something.org. Please follow us on all the standard social media channels and subscribe to our newsletter. In order to be informed about all of our events. Welcome back. You are listening to the Tell Us Something podcast. I’m your host, Mark Moss.

In our next story, Zeke Cork returns to Missoula after many failed escapes to face his demons, find love and embrace his true self. Sensitive listeners, please note that Zeke’s story contains a mention of a suicide attempt, which may be distressing for some listeners. Please take care of yourselves. Zeke calls his story. Ezekiel cried. Thanks for listening.

00;28;25;09 – 00;28;39;09
Zeke Cork
Speaking. Got a short king? Yeah, sure. King on the premises? Yeah.

Thank you, Devon. And thank you, everybody, for coming.

After trying to be someone else anywhere else, I came back to Missoula. This town owns me. No matter how many times I try to run from here, it would find me and call me back and was never kicking or screaming that I’d return. It was more like tail tucked between my legs, begging for forgiveness with a promise to be better.

See, I grew up here. My handprints are in concrete. My footprints cast in the local trails. My tire tracks on the gravel roads. I went to Paxson and Roosevelt, then Hellgate High School. All my first year here. My first communion. My first kiss. My first awkward mechanics was sex. My first love, and my first heartbreak. I left my first boyfriend, who I wanted to be more than I desired, for a girl who had dumped me in the pig barn right here at the county fair.

So surrounded by the smells of shit and cotton candy. I stumbled through the sounds of the midway games and the blinking lights, where I ran into friends who tell me it was going to be okay. And then I made a girl underneath the Ferris wheel who I watched devour of candied apple with a passion I could only envy.

And I swear, she rolled her eyes at me, seeing the pathetic loser I was instead of the swaggering, give a shit start, I tried to present. Now my parents, they were educators, active members of the Democratic Party in Saint Anthony’s parish, and they pushed me to become anything that I could imagine, at least until their marriage failed. When I was a teenager.

And trust me, it needed to end. But I lost my way. I didn’t know who to be without them showing me. I think maybe later, when we’re adults ourselves, we figure out that our parents were just people trying to find their own way. But I followed my father to Portland. I blamed my aimlessness on him, and I wanted him to fix it.

I was a disaster. My once perfect father was consumed with finding his own last year, and he was really nothing more than Peter Pan chasing after his shadow. So I came back to Missoula, trying to find the promise that others had seen in me. I enrolled at the university. I was pretty focused for a while until I fell in love with that girl I’d met underneath the Ferris wheel, so I’d follow her to Chicago and then Seattle.

But she’d become this plank for me to cling onto, and an ocean of confusion and grief. That was a lot to expect of someone who was just trying to make it to shore themselves. So I packed up my books and my records, and I drove back to Missoula again. But there’s something that happens for me every time I enter this valley from any direction.

When it opens up and the neighborhoods pop into view, and whatever season it’s in presents itself in all its glory, like the royal robes of fall lilacs in the spring, the ice choked rivers in the winter, and the brown hills of late summer. And I just let out this long breath I’ve been holding. And I know, I know that I’m home.

But I can never sustain that comfort. I could only see my reflections in shards, slivers of broken glass. I couldn’t name the ways I was fractured. I only knew that I was. So I took up drinking as a hobby. And there was lots of what Beyoncé calls those red cup kisses when I’d meet a girl, and then another, and then another, hoping they’d be the one that would fix me.

But they were just crooked. Rusty nails tried to hold it together themselves, and we all kind of wanted the same thing, but the weight of it was too much for anyone to hold. And one night I had a dream about the prophet Ezekiel, the one in the desert who commands the bones to rise up out of the sand.

The one in that old song. That old gospel song. Ezekiel cried. Them bones, them bones, the ankle bone connected to the knee bone. Yeah. That guy. I didn’t know what it meant, but I couldn’t shake it. I thought maybe it was about my family. So I try to write about it, but there was always something missing. It stayed with me for years, and I’d say, what is it?

Why does this haunt me? And then one late night in August, after one month of sobriety, I wandered out to the shed that belonged to the woman I was seeing at the time. And I took her shotgun with me, and I tore that place apart looking for shells. All I found was an empty box. But still I put the barrel of that thing in my mouth and I squeeze the trigger, hoping there was one in the chamber.

Well, I’m here today because there wasn’t. But the next morning I checked myself into rehab. Next month I’ll be 34 years sober.

But back then, I had to just try to make it through each day. So I stayed to myself, went to work, read, listen to music, played video games, and watched a lot of movies. But then I’d made a girl and she was cautious but intrigued. And I wasn’t a good catch. But she was beautiful, smart and strong. So we took it slow, and eventually I’d convince her to run away with me, and we moved to Seattle.

We came back to Missoula, and then we’d move to Texas, California and Alaska. Every time things got rough, we’d move. All we needed was a change of scenery. We even got married, and that meant something. Maybe that would be the thing that would save us. Where we strong enough to move back home, settle down in our family and friends again.

We’ve had so. But it was actually the opposite. It was the safest place to just let it end. See, the skeletons live here, and we’d return to the place where they’d dwell. And I still despise that broken person in the mirror. And I’d been asking someone else to love them without hesitation. Without question. Unconditionally. What a huge ask.

So, for the first time in a very long time, I was on my own and I stood on the top of Mount Sentinel, staring down at my hometown, listening to Josh Reynolds homecoming, humming along in the crisp column air. And I let the pastoral rolling. It was there that I understood what the dream she had left her countless times as a lost girl, someone’s daughter, sister, a wife, only to return to become something akin to the prodigal son.

And it probably would have been a lot easier for me to become myself in a place where no one knew my story. But instead, I asked people who had known me most of their lives to call me by a new name and address me as the man I’d always been, but repeatedly denied. And what I got in return was my family and friends wrapping their arms around me and saying, yes, this makes sense.

My ex-wife gave me my first testosterone shot and she’s my closest friend. Then I’d meet someone new. Yeah, I know, here we go again. But we’d both sworn off relationships. But that crackle and hum like power lines was pretty hard to resist. So she chose to move across the world and give me and my town a try. She liked us.

We got married in a ghost town not too far from here, and we’re trying something different. We’re helping each other unpack the baggage instead of helping and making each other lugging around. So far, so good. And I’m no longer a stranger in a strange land. I finally live in a body that I’m not at war with. And the mirror.

The mirror is now a full reflection of someone I recognize. Someone I know. I look at my perfect haircut from Compass Barbershop, who has been with me through the whole thing.

And I’ll run a razor down my neckline. And I’ll watch my shoulders broaden and my hips narrow. And I see my parents, both of them looking back at me. My mother, who’s 84, is still alive and well, and my father has passed, but both of them staring back at their son, proud of the man he’s becoming. And I have a tattoo on my chest, a line I borrowed from Florence Welch that says, I’ll show you what it means to be spared.

I landed in a safe space. Nestled between these foothills and held by this community. The place where Ezekiel Zeke rose out of a desert of despair and became home. And for me, this is what it means to be home.

00;38;37;04 – 00;38;43;13
Devin Carpenter
He lives in Missoula with his wife and two rescue mutts. He loves tacos and trucker hats.

00;38;43;13 – 00;39;05;10
Marc Moss
Wrapping up this episode of the Tell Us Something podcast. Ashley Britton or Wells is a self-described tomboy in the 1980s who finds courage in the Montana Lady Griz games. It took years to find her own place in the sands and be the inspiration for girls who are like she was then. Ashley calls her story made in Montana. Thanks for listening.

00;39;05;10 – 00;39;52;13
Ashley Brittner Wells
I’m sitting on the burnt orange carpet of my bedroom for new kids on the block, blasting from a tape deck in the background. Staring back at me from my bookshelves. Kristy’s great idea. Every Garth Brooks cassette tape known to humankind. And the eyes of 1 million porcelain dolls. I’m staring at my 1993 1994 Montana Lady Griz basketball team poster.

The shit is iconic. 15 players pose in their high school leather jackets on the University of Montana campus in front of their lockers. T’s blond perms, proofs of curly bangs scrunched at the front one with a feather in her hair. The team is historic. The tag line is made in Montana because that year all the players were from our states, and I would stare at it because it was a signal to me and my friends what Montana girls like us could grow up to be.

One day. I’m all Montana, too. I was born in the mid 80s and raised in East Missoula. And did I mention that I loved the Lady Grizz? I went to all their games. I went to their summer camps in the summer, and I tried to figure out which player I wanted to be. Their home turf, Delbert Arenas, nestled up against the base of Mount Sentinel on the University of Montana campus.

Our games I would run one hand along the brown, snaking metal railing that surrounds the court, balancing a piping hot personal pan pizza, on the other hand, slide my butt along the tanned plastic bleacher seating and get ready to be pumped at the opening chords of Pop Up the Jam. I would scream, and the players ran out to raucous applause from a full house decked out in copper and gold.

The games were the coolest thing you could do in town, and it was like my posters had come to life. The players were like my celebrities Shannon Cates, Skylar Cisco, Malia Kapp. The coolest thing you could do in town was go to the games. And I desperately wanted to be cool. So I went. I have always been trying to figure out who I am in a world that doesn’t totally feel like I belong in it.

I was bigger and louder than the other kids. I tried to do all the things the boys did. I struggled to fit in pretty much anywhere you put me. I was what we referred to in the 90s as a tomboy. I didn’t know which new kid on the block I had a crush on, but I knew that I had a crush on their rat tail haircuts.

So I got one of those with my mom in tow. The hair stylist twisted my thick blond ponytail into a giant hair tie at the base of my neck and cut the whole thing off. Save the rat tail, my mom cried. She still has that ponytail tucked away in a Ziploc bag in her floral hope chest. I sometimes think it’s the last remnant of the daughter that she thought she was getting, but who?

I quickly put a stop to it. My friends and I loved my rat tail, and at the games we would strut around the arena checking people out, looking to be checked out. the crowds back then and to this day are made up of everyday Missoula fans just like us. Families retire trees. Then there was the student section.

I thought the student section were so cool. They were in college, for example. They had they were sunglasses inside. They knew all the chants and cheers. T fans, lady Griz T fans. But there was this one couple that always stood out to me. One had hair short like mine and wore hoodies and baseball caps. The other had a tease perm, poofs of curly bangs and jeans, just like the players on my beloved poster.

But they weren’t just any other couple. They were queer. I would see them, and I would watch them as much as I would watch the games. I had never seen a couple like them in Missoula or anywhere else. I would climb to the highest corner of the arena and my second hand Nike’s, and I would watch them, and I would see them put their arms around each other’s shoulders, whisper in each other’s ears, cheer for the same players.

I cheered for. And I didn’t really know what I was seeing, but it felt really safe. It felt warm. It felt like coming home. It must have taken so much bravery for them to show up to those games 30 years ago to and be totally themselves. I don’t know what it was like to be queer in the early 90s in Missoula, except that I do, because I was I just didn’t know it yet.

Back then, it felt like people kept out of each other’s business in ways they just don’t anymore. And seeing this couple was really meaningful to me, because it made me feel like maybe someday who I was going to be wasn’t one of the players on the court. It was one of the people in the stands. When I was 24, I moved to Portland, Oregon and quickly realized why a couple like that would make me feel like I’d found myself.

You probably figured it out before I did. It wasn’t difficult to be a lesbian in Portland, Oregon. It didn’t feel like taking a chance, holding hands in public with Mal, who would become my wife. Once we went hiking up the Columbia River Gorge, and on the way home, we pulled over to stop and look at the river and as we got out of the car, I planted one on Mal’s face.

And in that moment, I noticed a man in iridescent sunglasses staring at us. Standing outside of his pickup truck. It was just the three of us out there and my breath caught in my throat. But then he gave me a smile and a wave and a thumbs up. And I thought maybe it was going to be okay, and maybe I could be queer anywhere, even in Missoula, Montana.

Shortly thereafter, we moved home. You can imagine how excited I was to take Mel to a Lady Grizz game. My mom was just as excited and bought us matching University of Montana hoodies just for the occasion. We loaded our arms up with personal pan pizzas, big bags of popcorn, fountain Diet Cokes as big as we could find, and took the back arena hallways to our seats.

Nowadays, those hallways are lined with posters from all of my beloved teams from the early 90s, and I showed them all the 9394 poster and told her about the team and the dirty ball contest at summer camp, where whoever had the dirtiest ball would win a prize. At the end of Lady Griz camp. So I would dribble the ball for hours in my driveway and practice layups and try to do whatever I could to prove how committed I was to the players.

I also told her about the couple, who, you know, I’ve always wondered who they were, where they ended up. All of these images came rushing back to me as I watched the current team on Robin solving court. A few months ago we attended the senior night game and the house was packed. There were families and the student section and packs of ten year old girls walking around the arena and matching sweatshirts shox a bright pink lipstick across their faces.

Seeing and being seen, listening to whatever it is I listen to now, it is. And this time I hesitated for my arm around my shoulders.

The Montana that I grew up in, and frankly, moved back to just a few short years ago has been replaced by a moral panic. Folks aren’t exactly keeping themselves out of our communities business anymore, but we must remain being seen. When you are true to yourself, you give others permission to be true to themselves, to.

It was our turn to demonstrate a little bit of bravery. Owing so much to that couple that I will never get to thank.

So I did, everybody. I put my arms around my shoulders.

Because she is my love. And those arena seats are my home where we get to be exactly who we are and who I always have been.

00;49;56;11 – 00;50;04;18
Kera Rivera
She is best known as Mel’s wife. she is a lifelong women’s sports fan.

00;50;06;26 – 00;50;20;03
Marc Moss
Thanks for listening to the Tell Us Something podcast. This episode was recorded live in person as part of the opening events at Missoula Pride on June 11th, 2024 at the Glacier Ice Rink Pavilion.

Please remember that our next event is September 18th at the George and Jane Dennison Theater. The theme is Never Again. You can pitch your story by calling (406) 203-4683. Tickets are available currently at Tell Us something.org. Please follow us on all the standard social media channels and subscribe to our newsletter.

In order to be informed about events and all things storytelling. Stream past episodes, learn more about upcoming events, and get tickets at Tell Us something.org.