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Story-telling is a thing right now, but it wasn’t when I sent a one-minute pitch to The Moth in 2013. I had been listening to the Moth on public radio stations for years: “True stories, told live, no notes.” And at the end of each Moth episode the host says, “If you have a good story to tell, call 1-800-THE-MOTH and leave us a two-minute pitch. We listen to every one of them, and we may get back to you.”

So I did that one day, I left a message, I didn’t think anything would come of it, but six months later I received this email:

“I am a producer at the Moth, we received your pitch, call me because I’d like to hear your story.”

I called this woman, told her the story over the phone, and she said without hesitation, “Okay, you’re in.”

“What do you mean I’m in?” I asked.

“We’re coming to Burlington, Vermont on a Saturday night in September, we’ll be flying in four of our best storytellers from around the country, you represent Vermont.”

I live in Vermont and work in Burlington, the state’s largest city, and I knew the theatre at which The Moth would be held. It’s the biggest one in the state. So there I was, a few months later, on stage alone with over 800 people staring at me. The story I told was related to the work I do as director of Spectrum Youth and Family Services with teenagers and young adults who are homeless, runaways, and addicted to drugs or alcohol.

I guess my story, “This Church,” was well-received because The Moth ended up playing it on their podcast three times, which is very unusual.

I then learned about other storytelling shows and podcasts such as RISK!, Strangers, Stories from the Stage, contacted them, and ended up in front of audiences in Massachusetts, Montreal and Brooklyn. One thing kept leading to another, and in October 2019 I had my own one-night, one-person show on Broadway, followed six days later by a one-person show back in Burlington.

Then Covid hit, and the shows came to an abrupt halt. But I remembered what so many people had said to me after each performance: “When do we see these stories in book form?”

So I decided to do just that, to put these stories into print, as a memoir.

Writing a book is a lot of work. It takes hundreds and hundreds of hours writing, rewriting, editing, recording an audiobook, selecting a cover and everything else. It is also a lot of money since I decided to self-publish.

Called: A Memoir came out in May 2021. Book readings were not possible because the Delta Variant was cascading throughout the country, so I did my best to sell the book via podcast and radio interviews, as well as reviews in newspapers and magazines.

I hoped that because of The Moth and all my other storytelling gigs that, while it might not be a New York Times best-seller, it would still sell well.

It did not. A few thousand copies were sold. That was it. This was a disappointment for me. All that work – for what?

When Called came out, I decided to give a free inscribed copy to anyone who was in the book. Many of the chapters were about formerly homeless young people I have worked with over the years, some going back literally forty years. I had asked permission of each person to write about them and to use their name or a pseudonym.

One chapter in the book is a about a young man whom I called Matthew. I wrote about his years in Orlando, Florida when he became addicted to drugs, overdosed on heroin twice and almost died. His family flew him back to his home state of Vermont, where he managed to find his way to Spectrum. He came into our Drop-in center for some food, we found out he had nowhere to live, and fortunately for him we had a bed open in our 12-bed shelter. We helped him find a job, he began to see one of our counselors for his substance abuse disorder, and managed to stay clean. He progressed well enough to move over to our supportive apartments where we taught him how to budget his money, start a bank account, cook for himself, and learn other life skills. He also returned to school. He left us after about two years, enrolled in college, got his bachelor’s degree and found a full-time job in retail in Burlington.

I kept in touch with him, and one afternoon we went out for coffee. He told me that while he was doing well financially in the business world, what he really wanted to do was work with the youth at Spectrum. I replied, “Great idea.” He applied, became a counselor in one of our residences, and turned out to be one of the best staff members we have ever had.

He left after a few years, but he and I kept in touch by text and email. I asked if I could include his story in my book if I changed his name, and he gave the okay. When it was published, I offered to buy him a coffee so I could give him a signed copy. We set a date.

He didn’t show up. He had also missed another coffee date a few months earlier, so this was two in a row which I knew was not a good sign. I suspected relapse. I tried again and this time he did show up. As soon as I saw him, I knew my suspicions were correct.

He looked terrible. He wore a mask because of Covid, but even with that, he looked thin, sickly, pale, exhausted.

I didn’t even have to ask him.

“I’ve relapsed,” he said.

“What are you using?” I asked.

“Anything I can get my hands on,” he replied, “but mostly Methamphetamines and Heroin. Every dollar I have goes to drugs. I get my meals at a local food shelf. I live in a tent in a homeless encampment. There are guns in there, weapons, prostitution, every drug imaginable.”

I leaned over to him.

“Matthew, you have to go to rehab.”

“I know,” he said, “but I’m not ready.”

“I’ll take you myself,” I said.

“I’m not ready,” he repeated.

I sat back. “Well when you’re ready, I’ll go with you. I mean it. This is no way to live.”

I slid my book over to him, bookmarked at the chapter in which he is featured.

“You need to read this,” I said. “I don’t care if you don’t read any other word in the book, but you need to read this chapter because it’s about you. It’s about how great you were when you worked with those kids. You were excellent with them. You cared about them. You had compassion for them. You could relate to them. When they’d say, ‘You don’t know what it’s like…’ you could reply, ‘Oh yes I do…’ You made a real impact on the lives of so many young people at Spectrum.”

He took the book, we talked a few more minutes, I hugged him, and then he left.

I felt terrible, so sad.

Two days later I received this Facebook message from him:

“I’m in tears, Mark. I can’t tell you how much I needed our little coffee date and the timing of it (and your book) couldn’t be more perfect. Thank you for reminding me where I’ve come from and what I’m capable of.”

“Amen!” I wrote back.

Five months later he contacted me again:

“Just a heads up … I am meth and heroin free, on my way to Orlando. This past Sunday it dawned on me that I’ve been living across the street from a church for the past two years, and with the number of times I saved a life from overdosing in my apartment, along with the number of times I should’ve died but didn’t – PLUS the fact that I was then sleeping under that church’s bell tower on holy ground, desolate and hopeless, crying and pleading to not have to live that life anymore … God was always with me Mark. I just hadn’t looked up and seen that. But I see it now. All those things I went through were happening because I wasn’t letting God in.

“I volunteer every Sunday on the parking team for this church. It’s been part of my ‘penance’ so to speak that a friend I made has put in place so that I am surrounded by good people.”

I was so so happy to get that message from him.

The next time I heard from him was on Christmas Eve:

“Just wanted to say thank you again for giving me a copy of your book. I am very proud and blessed to be included in your memoir, and it will most definitely remind me of both the good I’ve done, and that not everything from my past has been traumatic, chaotic or horrifically negative. Thank you so much for the impact you’ve had on my life Mark – as both a youth, AND as an adult. I will never forget our coffee breaks and early morning get-togethers! Hoping you and your loved ones have a very Merry Christmas!”


Do I wish that Called had sold millions of copies, maybe even been made into a movie or documentary or something? Of course I do. I’m human. I would have liked that. Actually, I would have loved that.

But the reality is that I got something greater, something no best-seller designation could ever achieve: my book helped to save a life. It reminded someone that he was bigger than his addiction. It reminded someone of who he once was, and who he might yet become again. It helped to get him out of the world of meth, heroin, exploitation, manipulation, sex trafficking and everything else that goes along with it.

So yes, I now know why I spent hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars on my book. It was for Matthew.

Postscript: Matthew’s last text to me was on May 14, 2024 telling me he has been hired as a Peer Support Specialist at a Florida organization which employs recovering addicts to help those still batting addiction. He is connecting people to treatment programs, mental health services, support groups and case management.

Mark Redmond lives in Essex, Vermont with his wife Marybeth and is the author of Called: A Memoir.


Image: Adobe Stock. By Comeback Images.


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Mark Redmond has worked in the field of caring for homeless and at-risk youth for over 42 years, starting as a member of the Covenant House faith community in 1981.  He is presently executive director of Spectrum Youth & Family Services in Burlington, Vermont.  

He has published columns in ForbesThe New York TimesThe Washington PostHuffington PostCommonweal, The National Catholic Reporter and America.  He is also a storyteller.  His story “This Church” was onThe Moth Radio Hourand podcast, and he has had stories on other podcasts such as The LapseFamily Secrets, The Goodness Exchange, Outside the Walls and Risk!  A story he told for WGBH’s Stories from the Stage played on most public television stations around the United States, and his one-person show on Broadway,So Shines a Good Deed,premiered in October 2019. Six days later his one-person showThe Moustache Diariespremiered at The Flynn Space in Burlington. He has performed on stage in Boston, Brooklyn, Montreal and Burlington.

His first book,The Goodness Within: Reaching out to Troubled Teens with Love and Compassion(Paulist Press) was published in 2003 and his latest book,Called: A Memoir(Onion River Press) came out in May 2021.

Mark graduated from Villanova University in 1979 and from New York University with a masters in 1986.

Mark lives in Essex, Vermont with his wife Marybeth and son Liam who is a junior at the University of Notre Dame. 

www.markredmondbooks.com

 

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