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Related Pieces
Piece Description
What's left after someone passes on? Photographs and phone messages. The reality of death hits hardest when the loved one no longer calls you on the phone. Every 100 days, Roberts saves the phone messages of her mom who passed away five years ago as a living memorial and as a way to still get a phone call from her mom. Memorial follows the caretaking and illness of Chu-Yin Roberts through the phone messages. This piece can be aired on Mother's Day or Memorial Day. Could also be appropriately during holidays for those who have lost loved ones. Also appropriate for Asian History Month in May. There is one minute of music tail to read credits to close a magazine show with.
7 Comments
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Review of MemorialThis piece had me engaged right from the beginning until the last kick "end of message." Dmae's relationship to her mother is easy to connect with. The piece is particularly poignant as an audio piece since its focus on memorializing the mother is through her voice. Dmae's voice is also powerfully engaging. |
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Review of MemorialLike the very best radio, this piece is both funny and sad. It also manages to be both matter-of fact, and tender…. and so intimate, it’s painful. The writing is just great, too, and Dmae’s reading is shockingly sweet yet also nuanced. At something like five minutes it has more to say about life, death and family than most feature length films. It’s a throat punch to the heart, guaranteed to leave you choked up. Dmae’s mother is everybody’s mother. |
Broadcast History
Aired on individual stations on the 1stPerson.org: Stories of Loss, Hope and Peace special in 2002.
Transcript
My story has been intrinsically linked to my mom's story--a world war two Taiwanese woman who never had a childhood because she was sold as a baby to be a servant to other people-her adopted step-parents.
The short story is she suffered childhood abuse, met my father, left Taiwan and had two children my brother and me. She worked as a millworker, had her husband die and then when she retired got breast cancer.
The longer story is that she who needed a parent so badly got me to take care of her the last three years of her life as she fought this disease. Three or four days out of the week I lived in Eugene at my mom's home--two hours away from Portland. My brother Kirby lived with her as the live-in caretaker. I was the traveling one arranging, keeping track through phone messages when I wasn't there.
(Are you there? Message From Mommee)
My mom talked by yelling. She didn't...
Read the full transcript
Timing and Cues
The piece is actually 4:50 with one minute tail of music if you want to use it for end credits to a news magazine show.
Musical Works
Near the Edge by Aaron Meyer at aaronmeyer.com
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D. Cameron Lawrence
Posted on March 30, 2005 at 01:32 AM | Permalink
Review of Memorial
This is a really lovely piece. I welled up with tears as I listened early this morning; it brought back for me my own father's illness and passing. Dmae's memorial to her mother mixes nice writing, a soft delivery and recordings of phone messages to take us very quickly into a time of sorrow and heartache for a family. Yet the recordings of Dmae's mother's phone messages made me laugh. She had a cute way of speaking.
The piece ends with some healing words of wisdom, solace for the pain life brings all of us. This is good story-telling, personal and universal, an invitation to come in and then a light turned on in the darkness.