WEBVTT - S1: Ep Bonus - Kelli 0:00:01.320 --> 0:00:04.680 I would like to bring out onto the stage America's 0:00:04.760 --> 0:00:11.520 favorite X noun skateboard riding, houseboat, dwelling, nurturing, sweet, adorable, thoughtful, 0:00:11.880 --> 0:00:28.320 thought provoking, anti racist comic, Miss Kelly Dunham. 0:00:21.800 --> 0:00:25.120 From a Cocoa Punch and iHeartRadio. This is the Turning America. 0:00:25.280 --> 0:00:25.560 Lance. 0:00:26.079 --> 0:00:28.639 There are still four episodes left this season, but today 0:00:28.880 --> 0:00:31.400 we have a bonus for you. It's a little different. 0:00:32.960 --> 0:00:35.560 So like most of you, I used to be a nun, 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:41.680 very relatable. That's very relatable and stand up comedy to 0:00:41.680 --> 0:00:43.120 get up on starts to talk about how you used 0:00:43.120 --> 0:00:46.400 to be a nun and people, you know, like sometimes 0:00:46.440 --> 0:00:48.200 in straight clubs, people will be like, oh yeah, whatever 0:00:48.240 --> 0:00:53.479 system Mary Bulldyke. But I used to be Ann with 0:00:53.520 --> 0:00:54.640 the outfit and everything. 0:00:54.880 --> 0:00:58.800 Uh So, you know Kelly Dunham. For previous episodes, she's 0:00:58.840 --> 0:01:01.120 a former sister who's missed. Told her she walked like 0:01:01.160 --> 0:01:03.880 her shoulders were angry. But there's so much more to 0:01:03.960 --> 0:01:06.320 Kelly's story, all these twists and turns. 0:01:07.080 --> 0:01:12.319 All of my happiest childhood memories were learning words. 0:01:12.800 --> 0:01:14.880 I remember asking my mom what does that bill? 0:01:15.000 --> 0:01:17.000 I mean? She goes, well, when do you feel like 0:01:17.040 --> 0:01:20.000 you both love something and maybe you don't love it 0:01:20.120 --> 0:01:23.119 so much all I wants and I, oh, my god, 0:01:23.240 --> 0:01:25.480 that's exactly how I feel about you. 0:01:33.120 --> 0:01:35.160 What does my mom had plants in here? You guys 0:01:35.160 --> 0:01:38.360 are oh. 0:01:38.400 --> 0:01:41.399 One of our producers, Emily Foreman, talked with Kelly about 0:01:41.400 --> 0:01:44.880 her life before the Missionaries of Charity and after about 0:01:44.880 --> 0:01:46.399 her faith, about her comedy. 0:01:46.959 --> 0:01:50.240 So I just want to go back, back, back, back, 0:01:50.280 --> 0:01:55.559 back back. Uh, what's the first joke you ever told? 0:01:56.520 --> 0:01:59.680 But mostly about her complicated relationship with her mom. 0:02:00.200 --> 0:02:01.559 So I'm the youngest of seven. 0:02:02.840 --> 0:02:06.440 My mom had had six other kids with as many 0:02:06.520 --> 0:02:09.120 alcoholic husbands, which I think is really impressive to find 0:02:09.120 --> 0:02:13.760 that one or two, but a number of alcoholics. Sometimes 0:02:13.760 --> 0:02:17.640 you just have our types, which you know when you 0:02:17.680 --> 0:02:20.840 think about life. Okay, so what the thought process like? 0:02:21.240 --> 0:02:23.880 You know, my last five marriages to alcoholics ended in 0:02:23.960 --> 0:02:28.480 financial ruin. But I've got the right alcoholic. So I 0:02:28.520 --> 0:02:30.919 really I appreciate my mom's level of hope. 0:02:31.040 --> 0:02:33.880 So that's a rural Wisconsin accent, and you hear in 0:02:33.960 --> 0:02:37.360 Kelly's voice she grew up there hard work and not 0:02:37.480 --> 0:02:41.040 talking about feelings with the family code. So was Dale Carnegie, 0:02:41.320 --> 0:02:43.600 the author of How to win friends and influence people. 0:02:44.160 --> 0:02:47.079 It was an incredibly popular book, and Kelly's dad made 0:02:47.080 --> 0:02:49.000 the books philosophy part of life at home. 0:02:49.440 --> 0:02:54.560 Well, first, my dad would frequently mornings. He would come down. 0:02:54.600 --> 0:02:56.720 We had to be sitting at the table at six am, 0:02:56.960 --> 0:02:59.119 and he would slap his hand on the table and say, 0:02:59.240 --> 0:03:01.680 acting through the ass. Second, you'll be enthusiastic, and most 0:03:01.680 --> 0:03:03.840 people are just about as happy as they make up 0:03:03.840 --> 0:03:06.160 their mind they're gonna be, which she would attribute to 0:03:06.240 --> 0:03:10.160 Dale Carnegie and sometimes to Abraham Lincoln, although I've since 0:03:10.240 --> 0:03:12.919 heard that it was Dale Carnegie quoting Abraham Lincoln. But 0:03:12.919 --> 0:03:14.919 it doesn't sound like Abraham Lincoln because Abraham Lincoln a 0:03:14.919 --> 0:03:17.320 clinical depression. I bet he did not say that most 0:03:17.360 --> 0:03:18.960 people are just about as happy as they make up 0:03:19.000 --> 0:03:20.440 their minds are going to be in the middle of 0:03:20.480 --> 0:03:22.680 the Civil War. You know, I have a feeling that's 0:03:22.760 --> 0:03:27.919 not true, but it's a good story anyway. Can imagine how. 0:03:29.600 --> 0:03:32.760 Kelly says her dad would run Dale Carnegie days and 0:03:32.800 --> 0:03:35.320 if you weren't following the b positive ethos, you'd have 0:03:35.360 --> 0:03:37.120 to go to bed early. She says, there are a 0:03:37.160 --> 0:03:39.880 lot of rules like that. He was strict, but the 0:03:39.920 --> 0:03:42.520 first time Kelly made her dad laugh, she knew she'd 0:03:42.520 --> 0:03:45.760 found an important tool. You could say her comedy career 0:03:45.800 --> 0:03:46.720 started in that moment. 0:03:47.520 --> 0:03:51.440 Being funny was like both a way to deflect things 0:03:51.520 --> 0:03:53.240 and a way to have positive attention. 0:03:53.520 --> 0:03:55.720 So whose attention were you hoping to capture? 0:03:56.520 --> 0:03:59.440 I mean maybe my mom's. Like hearing my mom laugh 0:03:59.560 --> 0:04:02.040 was really a nice, nice thing, you know. I mean 0:04:02.080 --> 0:04:04.000 also because my mom had a hard life. She had 0:04:04.040 --> 0:04:06.840 all these kids, she had like these useless husbands of 0:04:06.960 --> 0:04:09.480 varying degrees. You know, she had a hard life. So 0:04:09.520 --> 0:04:12.240 I wanted her to I don't know, I wanted her 0:04:12.240 --> 0:04:13.080 to be able to laugh. 0:04:13.200 --> 0:04:16.320 You know when you were a kid, were you aware 0:04:16.520 --> 0:04:18.840 of life being hard for her? Then? 0:04:22.880 --> 0:04:28.440 Only glimpses of it, especially when I was younger. I 0:04:28.480 --> 0:04:33.359 think her marriage to my dad also deteriorated as time passed, 0:04:33.680 --> 0:04:37.960 but she was I really don't think I saw her 0:04:38.000 --> 0:04:39.760 without her makeup till I was like in third or 0:04:39.760 --> 0:04:42.080 fourth grade. Like, she was always perfectly made up and 0:04:42.160 --> 0:04:44.400 perfectly put together. You know, she was a person who 0:04:44.920 --> 0:04:49.440 that was important to her, and she really maintained I 0:04:49.480 --> 0:04:51.600 don't know if it's a facade. She also didn't want 0:04:51.640 --> 0:04:53.640 us to be like frightened, and you know, she wanted 0:04:53.720 --> 0:04:57.839 us to feel secure. I think so. I think that 0:04:57.960 --> 0:05:01.919 I didn't necessarily know it, maybe felt it somewhere because 0:05:01.920 --> 0:05:05.839 I was a very sensitive kid. So what my parents 0:05:05.880 --> 0:05:09.480 needed at that time, they needed like a cheerful, very 0:05:09.520 --> 0:05:12.839 midwestern kid, right, what they got was me, and I 0:05:12.880 --> 0:05:17.040 came into the world screaming as a fully formed, whining, 0:05:17.120 --> 0:05:19.520 coastal sensitive queer. 0:05:22.680 --> 0:05:26.279 I was the kind of kid that when it rained, do. 0:05:26.279 --> 0:05:27.560 You know why when I was missed the bus when 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:30.279 it rained, because I would be picking up the worms 0:05:30.320 --> 0:05:33.000 off the pavement and putting the mac on the grass 0:05:33.000 --> 0:05:33.240 so they. 0:05:33.160 --> 0:05:36.080 Wouldn't get running out for it, like in a city. 0:05:36.160 --> 0:05:38.560 That's like, Okay, did you believe. 0:05:38.240 --> 0:05:39.640 In God as a little kid. 0:05:39.920 --> 0:05:44.360 Yeah, very much so. In fact, I can remember there's 0:05:44.400 --> 0:05:47.400 this Bill Gaither song It's God Loves to talk to 0:05:47.440 --> 0:05:50.320 little boys while They're fishing. It's a very sweet song, 0:05:50.360 --> 0:05:51.880 and I can remember when my mom used to play it, 0:05:51.920 --> 0:05:53.640 and I was, you know, thought myself more as a 0:05:53.640 --> 0:05:56.320 little boy than a little girl. But I would go 0:05:56.400 --> 0:05:59.680 to like one of the ponds, you know, and like 0:06:00.200 --> 0:06:01.840 just take a stick with a string on it and 0:06:01.880 --> 0:06:03.080 like throw it in there, and I was like, Okay, 0:06:03.120 --> 0:06:06.680 now God's going to talk to me. Well, I guess 0:06:06.680 --> 0:06:14.479 not out loud, okay. But I have this memory of 0:06:14.520 --> 0:06:17.440 my grandmother when we were staying with her. She and 0:06:17.480 --> 0:06:20.760 my grandpa built a cottage on towards Lake This this 0:06:20.880 --> 0:06:24.320 beautiful lake in northern Michigan that has like this crystal 0:06:24.360 --> 0:06:27.320 blue water, so it's spring fed anyway. So we'd go 0:06:27.360 --> 0:06:30.320 and stay with them during parts of the summer. And 0:06:32.240 --> 0:06:34.440 one time I was sleeping in the room where my 0:06:34.480 --> 0:06:36.040 grandma's because you know, there's a lot of kids there, 0:06:36.080 --> 0:06:37.719 so we were all like kind of doubled up, and 0:06:37.760 --> 0:06:39.120 I was sleeping in the room with my grandma, and 0:06:39.120 --> 0:06:42.240 I guess she couldn't sleep, and so she was praying 0:06:42.240 --> 0:06:44.880 aloud about all of us. And then I remember she 0:06:44.920 --> 0:06:46.120 came to me and I was like, oh, I gotta 0:06:46.160 --> 0:06:51.200 live really still, and you know, she was praying for me, like, oh, 0:06:51.440 --> 0:06:54.000 you know, help Kelly to know how much Kelly Sue, 0:06:54.040 --> 0:06:56.640 as my family calls me, help Kelly Sue to know 0:06:56.680 --> 0:06:59.200 how much you love her, and some other stuff too. 0:06:59.240 --> 0:07:02.440 I don't remember this, but I was like, whatever happens, 0:07:02.480 --> 0:07:05.320 my grandmother's really praying for me, so maybe I'll be okay. 0:07:05.480 --> 0:07:08.400 You know. I was like probably when I was eight 0:07:08.520 --> 0:07:12.920 or not, were you worried you weren't going to be okay? Well, 0:07:12.960 --> 0:07:15.080 I think there was like obviously I didn't fit in 0:07:15.120 --> 0:07:17.480 with my family, right. I was like my parents really 0:07:17.480 --> 0:07:19.760 tried hard with the gender stuff, like I was so 0:07:19.960 --> 0:07:23.720 clearly like a little boy growing up, you know, and 0:07:23.760 --> 0:07:26.120 they tried really hard. But also like the world was 0:07:26.160 --> 0:07:29.080 against that. You know, even now the world is against that. 0:07:29.320 --> 0:07:34.840 So doing better. But yeah, and also they were worried 0:07:34.880 --> 0:07:36.480 for me, Like I think they thought that the world 0:07:36.560 --> 0:07:39.800 was going to crush me, you know, but they just 0:07:39.840 --> 0:07:41.640 didn't know what to do. It was like who gave it? 0:07:41.760 --> 0:07:43.720 You know, it was like somebody gave them a wolverine 0:07:43.760 --> 0:07:47.400 to you know, to race. What do we need a wolverine? 0:07:47.400 --> 0:07:47.880 We don't know. 0:07:49.960 --> 0:07:54.560 And so so you moved from Wisconsin to Florida, and 0:07:54.760 --> 0:07:57.320 at this time, what's what's your faith situation? 0:07:57.920 --> 0:08:01.400 So my mom wasn't you know, when we were little, 0:08:01.520 --> 0:08:04.480 was not a Christian, but she became a born again Christian. 0:08:05.880 --> 0:08:09.280 And then when we moved to Florida, I went to 0:08:09.480 --> 0:08:14.400 my mom sent us to a Christian school, and everyone 0:08:14.560 --> 0:08:16.440 was like, oh, okay, like this is a queer kid 0:08:16.440 --> 0:08:18.760 in the making, Let's see what we can do. And 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:22.440 I got actually really involved in my church, and you know, 0:08:22.520 --> 0:08:27.119 I would say that I was interested in what God 0:08:27.160 --> 0:08:30.280 wanted for me in my life. And I felt like, oh, well, 0:08:30.640 --> 0:08:32.760 if there's a God, there must be some reason for me. 0:08:33.080 --> 0:08:35.000 You know, I don't really know what it is, but 0:08:35.040 --> 0:08:37.680 there must be, like some reason that I exist, and 0:08:37.720 --> 0:08:41.280 there's something I'm supposed to do. When I was in 0:08:41.360 --> 0:08:43.800 high school and most of my peers were drinking zeema 0:08:44.200 --> 0:08:47.360 it was the eighties and giving each other what I 0:08:47.400 --> 0:08:52.640 now know to be was horrible blowjobs. I was attending 0:08:52.720 --> 0:08:56.480 church three times a week, wearing a no Surfing in 0:08:56.600 --> 0:09:03.160 Hell t shirt and asking complete strangers, excuse me, have 0:09:03.200 --> 0:09:07.320 you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior. I was 0:09:07.360 --> 0:09:11.679 a big bananas born again Christian and my mom was 0:09:11.720 --> 0:09:14.840 a big bananas born again Christian, so that made her 0:09:14.880 --> 0:09:18.920 really happy, except for I was also a big, huge, 0:09:19.000 --> 0:09:22.520 lifelong tomboy, and that made her very sad. 0:09:23.720 --> 0:09:26.040 One day, Kelly came home and found a note from 0:09:26.080 --> 0:09:29.240 her mom. It said, this sounds like something you would love, 0:09:29.840 --> 0:09:32.280 and there was a glossy brochure for a missionary training 0:09:32.320 --> 0:09:35.520 program the Lord's boot Camp. Kelly looked at all the 0:09:35.600 --> 0:09:37.880 pictures of smiling teenagers and thought. 0:09:37.840 --> 0:09:40.000 Oh my god, this looks like something I would love. 0:09:41.679 --> 0:09:43.800 When I arrived at the Lord's boot Camp, it was 0:09:43.880 --> 0:09:53.600 essentially an unimproved Florida wetlands and there was we washed 0:09:53.600 --> 0:09:58.600 our clothes by hand in sulfur water we pumped. And 0:09:58.800 --> 0:10:02.959 also the place that we were supposed to like wash up, 0:10:03.040 --> 0:10:08.200 they called it a God's bathtub, was just this little 0:10:08.280 --> 0:10:12.720 area of the swamp that was attached to another area 0:10:12.720 --> 0:10:15.920 of the swamp with this tiny little drainage ditch, and 0:10:16.000 --> 0:10:18.319 in the other area of the swamp were two alligators. 0:10:20.480 --> 0:10:22.959 When we questioned our leaders about it, they were like, now, 0:10:23.000 --> 0:10:25.760 do you really think that an alligator? Those alligators are 0:10:25.800 --> 0:10:28.679 gonna eat five hundred teenagers? And I don't really think 0:10:28.679 --> 0:10:31.400 any of us thought they were gonna eat five hundred teenagers. 0:10:35.720 --> 0:10:37.679 But doesn't even one seem like a lot. 0:10:41.080 --> 0:10:42.880 One of the main features of the camp was an 0:10:42.880 --> 0:10:46.760 obstacle course. They'd run it at five am every morning. 0:10:47.559 --> 0:10:50.600 There is a series of physical challenges based on biblical themes, 0:10:51.040 --> 0:10:53.520 all designed to help them become better disciples. 0:10:54.480 --> 0:10:57.000 The last obstacle in the obstacle course was just called 0:10:57.000 --> 0:10:59.640 the wall, and it was a series of walls, and 0:10:59.720 --> 0:11:02.720 they each were painted with something we would have to 0:11:02.760 --> 0:11:05.520 get over in order to effectively serve Jesus. 0:11:06.040 --> 0:11:07.080 It started. 0:11:09.000 --> 0:11:12.080 With lust, and then pride and then gluttony, and the 0:11:12.160 --> 0:11:15.000 last wall was sexual confusion. 0:11:16.040 --> 0:11:18.920 When they weren't running an obstacle course, they took classes 0:11:18.960 --> 0:11:22.400 in how to tie steel, lay bricks, run power tools, 0:11:22.800 --> 0:11:26.079 even mix concrete by hand, all in the service of 0:11:26.160 --> 0:11:27.640 learning how to build God's kingdom. 0:11:28.600 --> 0:11:40.160 I was having a fantastic time. It was an entire 0:11:40.200 --> 0:11:43.280 summer of being a tomboy, and I returned home with 0:11:43.360 --> 0:11:47.120 this newfound zeal, also with a new haircut. I had 0:11:47.200 --> 0:11:50.040 a spiral perm and I had also attempted to bleach 0:11:50.120 --> 0:11:54.480 my hair surfer blonde with actual bleach, which meant by 0:11:54.480 --> 0:11:56.080 the end of the summer I couldn't even get a 0:11:56.080 --> 0:11:58.560 comb through it. So one of my fellow team members 0:11:58.800 --> 0:12:01.400 took a razor and off almost all the hair on 0:12:01.440 --> 0:12:03.320 the sides and a lot of the hair on top, 0:12:03.400 --> 0:12:06.080 which of course leaving me a rat tail in back. 0:12:06.679 --> 0:12:13.800 And I looked fantastic when I walked onto my mom's 0:12:13.840 --> 0:12:18.160 front porch, dragging my stinky backpack. I said, Mom, don't 0:12:18.200 --> 0:12:22.160 I look like a new person in Christ And she said, 0:12:22.520 --> 0:12:26.560 you look a lot the same. So the teen Missions 0:12:26.559 --> 0:12:29.920 thing is like a general evangelical thing, but it was 0:12:29.960 --> 0:12:32.480 being used as like a de facto conversion camp, like 0:12:32.559 --> 0:12:36.040 my mom had hoped that I would come home, you know, changed. 0:12:36.520 --> 0:12:39.920 I mean, they had these classes on like from Grubby 0:12:39.920 --> 0:12:42.720 to Grace and God's Gentlemen, which now I realize were 0:12:42.760 --> 0:12:47.040 like gender appropriateness classes. It was like, you know, just 0:12:47.080 --> 0:12:49.320 like the world's toughest summer camp. It was like it 0:12:49.400 --> 0:12:51.200 was like if the missionaries of charity around a fucking 0:12:51.240 --> 0:12:52.480 summer camp. That's what it was like. 0:12:52.800 --> 0:12:54.680 So who did she want you to be? 0:12:55.040 --> 0:12:57.160 I don't know, maybe her, you know, like I think 0:12:57.160 --> 0:13:00.480 she was worried. She never thought of me is like 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:02.199 a mask on female. She thought of me as like 0:13:02.240 --> 0:13:04.520 an ugly female, right. And my mom was a very 0:13:04.559 --> 0:13:08.800 beautiful person. She was a very attractive person, and that 0:13:09.160 --> 0:13:11.240 helped her in life. She knew how to use it. 0:13:11.360 --> 0:13:14.080 She knew how to use that attractiveness and it was 0:13:14.080 --> 0:13:15.920 her kind of also, her kind of her stick, you know. 0:13:16.559 --> 0:13:20.240 And I can remember watching my mom put on her 0:13:20.240 --> 0:13:22.640 makeup her whole life. Like I've watched her put out 0:13:22.679 --> 0:13:24.240 her makeup and talked to her while she put on 0:13:24.240 --> 0:13:26.280 her makeup. I mean, even the smell of makeup like 0:13:26.320 --> 0:13:27.640 makes me think of my mom, you know. 0:13:28.600 --> 0:13:30.840 And so what were you searching for then in joining 0:13:30.840 --> 0:13:32.040 the MCS. 0:13:32.200 --> 0:13:34.280 Like I, you know, I was looking for a life 0:13:34.320 --> 0:13:34.959 that made sense. 0:13:36.000 --> 0:13:38.120 And what did your mom think of you joining? 0:13:39.040 --> 0:13:40.920 I think, you know, she wanted me to have health insurance, 0:13:41.000 --> 0:13:43.800 you know, Like, so she was a little bit like, Okay, 0:13:44.080 --> 0:13:44.400 you know. 0:13:47.320 --> 0:13:49.640 So you already know. Kelly joined the MCS and it 0:13:49.679 --> 0:13:52.480 didn't work out, But what did her life look like 0:13:52.520 --> 0:14:19.480 after she left? Kelly was incredibly impressed by the Missionaries 0:14:19.480 --> 0:14:22.280 of Charity when she first encountered them. She admired their 0:14:22.280 --> 0:14:25.120 hard work, and she thought she'd found her community. She 0:14:25.160 --> 0:14:28.840 converted to Catholicism, joined the order, but found she wasn't 0:14:28.840 --> 0:14:31.440 welcomed like other sisters. Maybe some of it was her 0:14:31.440 --> 0:14:34.200 sense of humor, maybe it was her appearance or her 0:14:34.320 --> 0:14:38.520 angry shoulders. One sister described her as scary and in 0:14:38.600 --> 0:14:40.920 the end, not fitting in took a toll on her physically. 0:14:41.520 --> 0:14:43.640 She left flunked out as she puts it. 0:14:44.240 --> 0:14:47.000 Yeah, I was so sad when I laugh, you know, 0:14:47.040 --> 0:14:49.720 because I was like, all right, well do you guys 0:14:49.720 --> 0:14:51.400 think this is working out? And they're like, let us 0:14:51.440 --> 0:14:53.400 think about it. No, you know what I mean, Like 0:14:53.480 --> 0:14:56.840 everyone else that left, they were like begging them to stay. 0:14:56.920 --> 0:15:00.200 Not me, they were like bye. And I remember or 0:15:00.280 --> 0:15:02.600 my mom was with my sister when she picked me up. 0:15:02.640 --> 0:15:04.520 She was like, you seem like you're grieving, like that 0:15:04.600 --> 0:15:06.360 was the word she used. And I was like, well, 0:15:06.400 --> 0:15:08.520 first of all, it's like this big dramatic goodbye, I'm off. 0:15:08.440 --> 0:15:09.800 To marry Jesus. Goodbye. 0:15:09.920 --> 0:15:11.800 Oh hi, I'm back now, you know what I mean. Like, 0:15:13.000 --> 0:15:15.080 so first it was like kind of anti climactic, but 0:15:15.120 --> 0:15:16.720 it wasn't even just that. It was just like it 0:15:16.800 --> 0:15:21.400 just felt like it just felt like you're here, Oh here, Jesus, 0:15:21.440 --> 0:15:23.000 here is my life. I give it to you, and 0:15:23.080 --> 0:15:25.440 Jesus is like smack. Everybody watched your dumb gift of 0:15:25.440 --> 0:15:26.480 your dumb life, you know. 0:15:27.480 --> 0:15:30.680 After she left the MCS, she started nursing school, joined 0:15:30.720 --> 0:15:33.880 a softball team, and spent time with the Catholic Worker Movement, 0:15:34.400 --> 0:15:37.240 a progressive faith based group, and she was talking to 0:15:37.280 --> 0:15:38.400 a friend there one day. 0:15:38.520 --> 0:15:41.480 And she was like, Kelly, like, I know people who 0:15:41.520 --> 0:15:48.240 are trying to suppress their sexual orientation and I watched 0:15:48.280 --> 0:15:50.080 them not be able to love the people around them 0:15:50.120 --> 0:15:52.400 the way they should because that's where all their energy 0:15:52.480 --> 0:15:55.400 is going. And I was like, you know what, that's true, 0:15:55.400 --> 0:15:56.840 and I've seen that a lot, and that's not what 0:15:56.920 --> 0:15:59.760 I want. Like, if I really believe in love, if 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:02.400 I think that love is something that changes lives and 0:16:02.480 --> 0:16:05.440 helps people, then I just have to be myself. 0:16:06.800 --> 0:16:07.160 Okay. 0:16:07.240 --> 0:16:12.400 So I was raised a strict evangelical Christian and when 0:16:12.440 --> 0:16:15.160 I came out to my mom, she ripped up my 0:16:15.160 --> 0:16:16.960 birth certificate and sent it to me. 0:16:18.520 --> 0:16:21.200 Yeah, and I was complaining about it to my therapist. 0:16:21.240 --> 0:16:22.960 So I'm like, oh, that was so passive aggressive, and 0:16:23.000 --> 0:16:27.320 she's like, no, killing that was aggressive, assive. So I 0:16:27.360 --> 0:16:29.440 took it to the countercler's office and he looked at 0:16:29.440 --> 0:16:31.080 me and then looked at the pieces and looked at 0:16:31.080 --> 0:16:33.120 me and then looked at the pieces and he thought 0:16:33.120 --> 0:16:36.240 for a minute, and he said, we get a lot 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:41.400 of this from people who look like you, which tells 0:16:41.440 --> 0:16:43.680 you my mom was not as original as she thought 0:16:43.720 --> 0:16:48.040 she was. My mom would say that that is not 0:16:48.080 --> 0:16:56.120 what happened. Different narrative. My mom was a dramatic person, 0:16:56.160 --> 0:16:59.200 you know. It was a very dramatic reaction, like okay. Also, 0:16:59.560 --> 0:17:01.160 even when she sent it to me, I was like, 0:17:01.200 --> 0:17:03.640 this doesn't You can send me my birth certificate all 0:17:03.640 --> 0:17:06.359 you want. It doesn't make me not your kid, you 0:17:06.440 --> 0:17:08.280 know what I mean? Like, that's not how that works, 0:17:09.320 --> 0:17:11.080 you know. And we didn't really have a relationship for 0:17:11.119 --> 0:17:13.320 a long time, Like I went long periods of time 0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:17.680 without seeing her. I think it didn't really even become 0:17:17.720 --> 0:17:23.080 comedy early in my comedy career because it was still 0:17:23.080 --> 0:17:27.200 so unresolved. I think it was still to raw and 0:17:27.320 --> 0:17:29.000 me for other people to laugh at it. 0:17:33.680 --> 0:17:36.680 Kelly met Heather at the Newark Airport Hotel during a 0:17:36.760 --> 0:17:40.439 queer conference. They both went to Christian high school. They 0:17:40.440 --> 0:17:42.119 both knew all of the words to the chorus of 0:17:42.160 --> 0:17:45.320 the Trumpet of Jesus, and that was that they started 0:17:45.359 --> 0:17:50.719 dating long distance. At the time, Heather wasn't remission from 0:17:50.760 --> 0:17:54.280 ovarian cancer. Within the first six months of their dating, 0:17:54.480 --> 0:17:57.680 it came back. Heather would call Kelly to get through 0:17:57.680 --> 0:18:00.480 the night, to keep her distracted with stories and jokes 0:18:00.520 --> 0:18:03.040 until she could take her next dose. Of a heavy painkiller. 0:18:04.240 --> 0:18:06.399 It became clear that she was going to die, you know, 0:18:06.440 --> 0:18:08.800 maybe not right away, but eventually. Like this wasn't a 0:18:08.800 --> 0:18:12.160 long term relationship, you know, and Heather struggled at first, 0:18:12.240 --> 0:18:15.040 like she was like, well, who starts a relationship when 0:18:15.080 --> 0:18:18.760 they're so late in life? You know, it just doesn't 0:18:18.760 --> 0:18:23.280 seem like it follows the rule book, like she you know, 0:18:23.600 --> 0:18:25.159 I think she didn't know if I was going to 0:18:25.160 --> 0:18:26.760 be able to stick it into the end. I knew 0:18:26.800 --> 0:18:28.040 I was going to be able to stick in to 0:18:28.119 --> 0:18:29.840 the end. I knew what I'd been through, you know, 0:18:32.800 --> 0:18:35.520 But there was something really beautiful about being able to 0:18:35.520 --> 0:18:37.480 be the right person at the right time. 0:18:37.800 --> 0:18:38.359 That was. 0:18:40.080 --> 0:18:41.520 In the same way that like the mission of the 0:18:41.560 --> 0:18:43.119 charity just felt like, oh, I'm like, oh, this is 0:18:43.160 --> 0:18:45.560 what I'm supposed to be doing, this is this is 0:18:45.640 --> 0:18:48.640 I'm answering this call. I felt like I was answering 0:18:48.640 --> 0:18:51.080 the call. We kind of try to have sense of 0:18:51.160 --> 0:18:53.520 humor about it or in the house. I mean, I'm 0:18:53.520 --> 0:18:56.320 a standup comic and she was a total smart ass. 0:18:56.359 --> 0:18:59.000 So it was the two of us, Like, for example, 0:18:59.000 --> 0:19:00.439 one day when she was really she had been on 0:19:00.480 --> 0:19:02.160 chemo for a long time, she wasn't feeling that well, 0:19:02.200 --> 0:19:04.800 and I called her from the supermarket and I said, 0:19:05.640 --> 0:19:08.399 is there anything okay ring you? And this is a 0:19:08.440 --> 0:19:13.440 long silence, and she said, yeah, how about. 0:19:13.119 --> 0:19:15.040 A quarter pound of a Will to Live? 0:19:15.880 --> 0:19:28.240 Oh god wine. So I was like, well, she's going there. 0:19:28.240 --> 0:19:30.080 I'm gonna go there too. And I was like, oh, honey, 0:19:30.119 --> 0:19:32.040 you know how it is. I'm gonna Trader Joe's and 0:19:32.440 --> 0:19:37.640 they only had organic and now they're all out. 0:19:38.800 --> 0:19:41.639 To just write that. She came back. She's like hot, damn. 0:19:47.440 --> 0:19:50.479 Kelly calls the Day How the Died Pudding Day, how 0:19:50.520 --> 0:19:53.120 they chose to end her life, surrounded by chosen family 0:19:53.640 --> 0:19:56.640 with a lethal dose of medication mixed into a pudding cup. 0:19:58.359 --> 0:20:01.800 All this time through the real relationship had There's Illness 0:20:02.240 --> 0:20:06.399 nursing school comedy sets, Kelly's relationship with her mom remained 0:20:06.440 --> 0:20:10.920 strained until her stepfather's dementia became worse and she flew 0:20:10.960 --> 0:20:14.160 home to help. He was a retired army colonel and 0:20:14.200 --> 0:20:18.280 everyone still called him the colonel, And so most people. 0:20:18.280 --> 0:20:20.760 When they developed dementia, they forget. 0:20:20.560 --> 0:20:22.560 The names of their kids or where they live, or 0:20:22.720 --> 0:20:25.639 you know, they're most fun childhood memories. That is not 0:20:25.680 --> 0:20:27.760 what happened to the colonel. The colonel forgot. He was 0:20:27.760 --> 0:20:31.879 a jerk, I think, because he forgot where the scotch was. 0:20:33.520 --> 0:20:36.520 So I went to my mom's home and helped her 0:20:36.560 --> 0:20:37.360 sent up hospice. 0:20:37.520 --> 0:20:39.520 And the colonel was lovely Timmy. 0:20:39.560 --> 0:20:41.720 It was like, oh color, I just I love your 0:20:41.800 --> 0:20:46.800 I love your haircut, soldier, I love the ultimate compliment, I. 0:20:46.760 --> 0:20:49.840 Love your haircuts. Sold her. That's oh man, that's fantastic. Ah. 0:20:50.200 --> 0:20:53.360 And we thought that he might not make it until Christmas. 0:20:53.359 --> 0:20:56.720 And he was really so you know, cognitively impaired at 0:20:56.760 --> 0:20:58.760 that point that he couldn't even follow a sigcom. So 0:20:58.800 --> 0:21:01.240 my mom loot the christ this tree and he asked 0:21:01.240 --> 0:21:02.560 her just to turn off the lights, and he just 0:21:02.600 --> 0:21:05.000 watched the tree, and every so often he would say, 0:21:05.000 --> 0:21:05.920 that's a heck of a tree. 0:21:06.000 --> 0:21:08.199 Ads, that's a heck of a tree. 0:21:08.280 --> 0:21:10.400 And so I would sit with my mom watch her 0:21:11.480 --> 0:21:13.560 as she would put on bakeup, and I wanted to 0:21:13.600 --> 0:21:16.240 tell her it was gonna be okay, but I knew 0:21:16.280 --> 0:21:16.960 it wasn't, and so. 0:21:18.600 --> 0:21:20.480 I just sat with her. 0:21:21.680 --> 0:21:24.919 I don't know something really changed that year. We just 0:21:24.960 --> 0:21:26.879 talked about our lives and you know, kind of what 0:21:26.920 --> 0:21:29.920 was important in life and what wasn't and not having 0:21:29.960 --> 0:21:32.960 any regrets, and it healed in a way that I 0:21:33.000 --> 0:21:36.159 had never thought was possible. So the colonel died a 0:21:36.200 --> 0:21:40.120 few days before Christmas, and when people came to drop 0:21:40.160 --> 0:21:43.960 off food and say, you know, send their condolence, says 0:21:44.560 --> 0:21:46.840