Gary Sizer
Appearances
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
I grew up in the 1970s. I was raised by my mom, my grandma, and television. My real dad split when I was three, and my brother was one. Fortunately, Grandma and Pappy lived across the street. So much of my childhood routine consisted of staying up late with Grandma and Grandpa, watching monster movies, and then watching Star Trek.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
We were in the projects, and we were on welfare, and there were custody issues, and it was chaotic. And the way I coped as a young child with chaos was by imprinting on one of the characters from television, someone who was most likely to keep his head screwed on straight when shit hit the fan, the science officer of the USS Enterprise, Mr. Spock.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
The half human, half Vulcan science officer was famous for his ability to repress his emotions and use his logic to get through any kind of unpleasant situation. And even during the single digit years of my childhood, I latched on to, this is what's going to get me through. This is how I need to conduct myself. Well, that made me into a weird kid.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
And according to my therapist, it also made me into a weird grown-up. But somewhere in between, while I was a weird teenager, and when my brother and I were finally old enough to be left on our own, my mom started working on filling on that gap where the positive male role model used to be. So interesting thing that as a single parent, finding a new partner is often a group effort.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
So whoever she brought home had to meet the incredibly high standards of myself and my younger brother. And I don't know whether it was just by coincidence or if this is just how things are in my family. We have this nerdy side to us. Every man that my mom brought home during my teenage years was a little bit nerdy. There was a ham radio operator.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
an actual engineer, and one guy who bragged about having been an extra in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. So I joked with my mom as only a teenage boy could that she wasn't really dating so much as she was auditioning a new science officer for our tiny little enterprise. So we were really excited when she found Dale. He was not only our favorite, but also hers.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
Dale was a middle-aged middle school teacher who taught history and science. Their relationship blossomed and just as I was reaching the age where it was time for me to move out and go to college, they decided to get married. So when they finally did get married and consolidate households, I was already off in the dorms and only coming home on spring break and in between semesters.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
So I missed that whole angry period of slamming doors and saying, you're not my dad, you can't tell me what to do. We went straight to adult bonding. And it turned out that we had a lot in common. And not only did we become fast friends, but we became fast family. Because he was a teacher of history and earth science, Dale had all these wonderful collections.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
And we would spend hours in the basement together while I was home on break, looking at fossils and geodes and crystals, while talking about our favorite TV show together. You guessed it, Star Trek. Now Dale was more of a fan of Next Generation, and we often argued the merits of who was cooler, Spock or Commander Data.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
I always thought Data was manufactured, which made his problems a little less, I don't know, a little less real. But these are the things we bonded over. And another thing that we really had in common was that Dale was a huge fan of wordplay and puns. And because he was a teacher, he had this deep, booming voice. So whenever he told a joke, no matter how stupid it was, everyone paid attention.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
Would you like to hear one? Dale would say things like, he didn't write these, but he had a collection of them.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
I remember one time we were in the basement looking at artifacts of some kind, and I was really, I was feeling, I was really feeling familial, and I said to Dale, I said, you know, I can't call you Dad, but because your name shares many of the same letters as that word, and it sounds like it, I just want you to know every time I say Dale, I mean Dad. And Dale said, That'll work.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
And it was the first real positive reinforcement I'd have from a male role model in my life. So I was crushed years later when Dale passed from lung cancer. While he was dying, my wife and I were in North Carolina. My parents lived in Pennsylvania. My mom called and said, you know, we were near the end. It had been dragging on for months. We knew the end was near.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
And she said, you know, I think it's time for you guys to come up. And Dale says, you need to hurry. He said that he's dying to see you. This is just how he worked. So we made it just in time. It was almost like he was hanging on just to see us. And he got his last moments with me and his last moments with my brother and his last moments with his kids. And he was so squared away.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
He had everything perfectly arranged. His will was made. The insurance was taken care of. So that when he passed, there was nothing left for us to do. And he left a request with my mother that I would speak a few words. He didn't have a funeral. He had what he wanted to call a celebration of life. And he asked me to speak the words at his celebration of life. And of course, I agreed.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
And I remember when that day came, just being amazed by how many people were in the room. I had no idea that so many people had been affected by his life, all of his former students, in addition to our extended family. There were as many people in that room as there are here tonight. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.