Speaker 1: I would like to bring out onto the stage America's
Speaker 1: favorite x non skateboard riding house about dwelling, nurturing, sweets, adorable, thoughtful,
Speaker 1: thought provoking, anti racist comic, Miss Kelly Dunham from a
Speaker 1: Cocoa Punch and I Heeart Radio. This is the Turning
Speaker 1: America Lands. There are still four episodes left this season,
Speaker 1: but today we have a bonus for you. It's a
Speaker 1: little different. So like most of you, I used to
Speaker 1: be a nun. Uh, very relatable. That's very relatable in
Speaker 1: stand up comedy to get up and starts to talk
Speaker 1: about how you used to be a nun and people
Speaker 1: you know like and sometimes in straight clubs people will
Speaker 1: be like, oh yeah, whatever, sister Mary bull dyke Uh
Speaker 1: but um, I used to being on with the outfit
Speaker 1: and everything. Uh. You know Kelly Dunham from previous episodes,
Speaker 1: she's a former sister who's missed. Has told her she
Speaker 1: walked like her shoulders were angry. But there's so much
Speaker 1: more to Kelly's story. All these twists and turns. Of
Speaker 1: my happiest childhood memories were learning words. I remember asking
Speaker 1: my mom, what what does that bill? I mean? She goes, well,
Speaker 1: what do you feel like you both love something and
Speaker 1: Nanny don't love it so much? All I want? And
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, that's exactly how I
Speaker 1: feel about you. What my mom had plants in here. Yes.
Speaker 1: One of our producers, Emily Foreman, talked with Kelly about
Speaker 1: her life before the Missionaries of Charity and after about
Speaker 1: her faith about her comedy. So, um, I just want
Speaker 1: to go back, back, back, back, back back. Uh, what's
Speaker 1: the first joke you ever told? But mostly about her
Speaker 1: complicated relationship with her mom. So I'm the youngest of seven. Um,
Speaker 1: my mom had had six other kids with as many
Speaker 1: alcoholic husbands, which I think is really impressive to find
Speaker 1: that one or two but another alcoholics. Um, sometimes you
Speaker 1: just have our types, which, uh, you know when you
Speaker 1: think about like, okay, so what the thought process like?
Speaker 1: You know, my last five merriages alcoholics ended in financial ruin.
Speaker 1: But I've got the right alcoholic. So I appreciate my
Speaker 1: mom's level of hope. So that's a rural Wisconsin accent.
Speaker 1: And you hear in Kelly's voice she grew up there
Speaker 1: hard work and not talking about feelings with the family code.
Speaker 1: So is Dale Carnegie, the author of how to win
Speaker 1: friends and influence people. It was an incredibly popular book,
Speaker 1: and Kelly's dad made the books philosophy part of life
Speaker 1: at home. Well, first, my dad would frequently um mornings.
Speaker 1: He would come down. We had to be sitting at
Speaker 1: the table at sixam, and he would slap his hand
Speaker 1: on the table and say, act him through the second
Speaker 1: you'll be enthusiastic, and most people are just about as
Speaker 1: happy as they make up their mind they're going to be,
Speaker 1: which she would attribute to Dale Carnegie and sometimes to
Speaker 1: Abraham Lincoln, although I've since heard that it was Dale
Speaker 1: Carnegie quoting Abraham Lincoln, but doesn't sound like Abraham Lincoln
Speaker 1: because Abraham Lincoln a clinical depression. I bet he did
Speaker 1: not say that most people are just about as happy
Speaker 1: as they make up their minds are gonna be in
Speaker 1: the middle of the Civil War. You know, I have
Speaker 1: a feeling that's not true, but it's a good story anyway,
Speaker 1: I can imagine. Kelly says her dad would run Dale
Speaker 1: Carnegie days and if you weren't following the b positive ethos,
Speaker 1: you'd have to go to bed early. She says, there
Speaker 1: are a lot of rules like that. He was strict,
Speaker 1: but the first time Kelly made her dad laugh, she
Speaker 1: knew she'd found an important tool. You could say her
Speaker 1: comedy career started in that moment. Being funny was like
Speaker 1: both a way to deflect things and a way to
Speaker 1: have positive attention. So whose attention were you hoping to capture?
Speaker 1: I mean maybe my mom's. Like hearing my mom laugh
Speaker 1: was really a nice, nice thing, you know. I mean
Speaker 1: also because my mom had a hard life. She had
Speaker 1: all these kids, she had like these useless husbands of
Speaker 1: varying degrees. You know, she had a hard life. So
Speaker 1: I wanted her to I don't know, I wanted her
Speaker 1: to be able to laugh. You know when you were
Speaker 1: a kid, were you aware of life being hard for her? Then?
Speaker 1: Only glimpses of it, especially when I was younger. Um,
Speaker 1: I think her marriage to my dad also deteriorated as
Speaker 1: a as time passed, But she was I really don't
Speaker 1: think I saw her without her makeup till I was
Speaker 1: like in third or fourth grade. Like, she was always
Speaker 1: perfectly made up and perfectly put together. You know, she
Speaker 1: was a person who that was important to her, and
Speaker 1: she really maintained. Um, I don't know if it's a facade.
Speaker 1: She also didn't want us to be like frightened, and
Speaker 1: you know, she wanted us to feel secure. I think so,
Speaker 1: I think that I didn't necessarily know it, I maybe
Speaker 1: felt it somewhere because I was a very sensitive kid. Um.
Speaker 1: So what my parents needed at that time, they needed
Speaker 1: like a cheerful, very midwestern kid, right, what they got
Speaker 1: was me. And I came into the world screaming as
Speaker 1: a fully formed, winding, coastal sensitive queer. I was the
Speaker 1: kind of kid that, um, when it rains, do you
Speaker 1: know what when I was missed the bus when it rained,
Speaker 1: because I would be picking up the worms off the
Speaker 1: pig and putting them back on the grass so they
Speaker 1: wouldn't get running like in a city. Did you believe
Speaker 1: in God as a little kid, Yeah, very much so.
Speaker 1: In fact, I can remember there's this Bill gaitheror song
Speaker 1: It's God Loves to talk to a little boys while
Speaker 1: they're fishing. It's a very sweet song, and I remember
Speaker 1: my mom used to play it, and I was, you know,
Speaker 1: thought more myself more as a little boy than a
Speaker 1: little girl. But I would go to like one of
Speaker 1: the ponds, you know, and uh like just take a
Speaker 1: stick with a string on it, and like throw it
Speaker 1: in there. And I was like, Okay, now guy's going
Speaker 1: to talk to me. Well, I guess not out loud, okay,
Speaker 1: but um. I have this um memory of my grandmother
Speaker 1: when we were staying with her. She and my grandpa
Speaker 1: built a cottage on towards Lake. This is beautiful lake
Speaker 1: in northern Michigan, has like this crystal blue water. It's
Speaker 1: spring fed anyway. So we'd go and stay with them
Speaker 1: during parts of the summer. And one time I was
Speaker 1: sleeping in the room where my grandma's because you know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of kids there, so we're all like
Speaker 1: kind of doubled up. And I was sleeping in the
Speaker 1: room my grandma, and I guess she couldn't sleep, and
Speaker 1: so she was praying aloud about all of us. And
Speaker 1: then I remember she came to me and I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I gotta lay really still, and you know, she was
Speaker 1: praying for me, like, oh, you know, helped Kelly to
Speaker 1: know how much Kelly Sue my family calls me, helped
Speaker 1: Kelly Sue, do you know how much you love her?
Speaker 1: And some other stuff too. I don't remember this, but
Speaker 1: I was like, whatever happens my grandmother's really praying for me,
Speaker 1: so maybe I'll be okay. You know. I was like
Speaker 1: probably when I was intern, Um, were you worried you
Speaker 1: weren't going to be okay? Well, I think there was,
Speaker 1: like obviously I didn't fit in with my family, right.
Speaker 1: I was like my parents really tried hard with the
Speaker 1: gender stuff, like I was so clearly like a little
Speaker 1: boy growing up, you know. Um, and they tried really hard.
Speaker 1: But also like the world was against that. You know,
Speaker 1: even now the world is against that. So doing better?
Speaker 1: But yeah, and also they were worried for me, Like
Speaker 1: I think they thought that the world was going to
Speaker 1: crush me, you know, but they just didn't know what
Speaker 1: to do. It was like who gave it? You know?
Speaker 1: It was like somebody gave them a wolverine too, you know,
Speaker 1: to raise What do we need a wolverine? We don't know?
Speaker 1: And so, um, so you moved from Wisconsin to Florida.
Speaker 1: Um and at this time, what's what's your faith situation?
Speaker 1: So my mom um wasn't you know, when we were little,
Speaker 1: was not a Christian, but she became a born again Christian.
Speaker 1: And then when we moved to Florida, I went to
Speaker 1: my mom sent us to a Christian school um, and
Speaker 1: everyone was like, oh, okay, like this is a queer
Speaker 1: kid in the making, Let's see what we can do.
Speaker 1: And I got actually really involved in my church, and
Speaker 1: you know, I would say that I was interested in
Speaker 1: what God wanted for me in my life. And I
Speaker 1: felt like, oh, well, there there's a God. There must
Speaker 1: be some reason for me. You know, I don't really
Speaker 1: know what it is, but there must be, like some
Speaker 1: reason that I exist, and there's something I'm supposed to do.
Speaker 1: When I was in high school and most of my
Speaker 1: peers were drinking seema it was eight and giving each
Speaker 1: other when I now know to be was horrible blow jobs,
Speaker 1: I was attending church three times a week, wearing a
Speaker 1: no Surfing in Hell t shirt and asking complete strangers,
Speaker 1: excuse me, have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior.
Speaker 1: I was a big bananas born again Christian and my
Speaker 1: mom was a big bananas born again Christians, so that
Speaker 1: made her really happy, except for I was also a big, huge,
Speaker 1: lifelong tomboy, and that made her very sad. One day,
Speaker 1: Kelly came home and found a note from her mom.
Speaker 1: It said, this sounds like something you would love and
Speaker 1: there was a Glassie brochure for a missionary training program,
Speaker 1: the Lord's boot Camp. Kelly looked at all the pictures
Speaker 1: of smiling teenagers and thought, oh my god, this looks
Speaker 1: like something I would love. When I arrived at the
Speaker 1: Lord's boot Camp, it was essentially an unimproved Florida wetlands
Speaker 1: and there was we washed our clothes by hand in
Speaker 1: sulfur water we pumped. And also the place that we
Speaker 1: were supposed to like wash up, they called it God's Bathtub,
Speaker 1: was just this little area of the swamp that was
Speaker 1: attached to another area of the swamp with this tiny
Speaker 1: little drainage ditch, and in the other area of the
Speaker 1: swamp were two alligators. When we questioned our leaders about it,
Speaker 1: they were like, now, do you really think that an alligator?
Speaker 1: Those alligators are gonna eat five hundred teenagers? And I
Speaker 1: don't really think any of us thought they were gonna
Speaker 1: eat five hundred teenagers, But doesn't even one seem like
Speaker 1: a lot. One of the main features of the camp
Speaker 1: was an obstacle course. They'd run it at five am
Speaker 1: every morning. There is a series of physical challenges based
Speaker 1: on biblical themes, all designed to help them become better disciples.
Speaker 1: The last obstacle in the obstacle course was just called
Speaker 1: the wall, and it was a series of walls, uh,
Speaker 1: and they each were painted with something we would have
Speaker 1: to get over in order to effectively serve Jesus. It
Speaker 1: started with lust, and then pride, and then gluttony, and
Speaker 1: the last wall with sexual confusion. When they weren't running
Speaker 1: an obstacle course, they took classes in how to tie steel,
Speaker 1: lay bricks, run power tools, even mixed concrete by hand,
Speaker 1: all in the service of learning how to build God's kingdom.
Speaker 1: I was having a fantastic time. It was an entire
Speaker 1: summer of being a tomboy, and I returned home with
Speaker 1: this newfound zeal, also with a new haircut. I had
Speaker 1: a spiral perm and I had also attempted to bleach
Speaker 1: my hair surfer blonde with actual bleach, which meant by
Speaker 1: the end of the summer I couldn't even get a
Speaker 1: comb through it. So one of my fault team members
Speaker 1: took a razor and himed off almost all the hair
Speaker 1: on the sides and a lot of the hair on top,
Speaker 1: which of course leaving me a rat tail and back.
Speaker 1: And I looked fantastic. When I walked onto my mom's
Speaker 1: front porch dragging my stinky backpack, I said, Mom, don't
Speaker 1: I look like a new person in Christ And she said,
Speaker 1: you look a lot the same. So the teen missions
Speaker 1: thing is like a general evangelical thing, but it was
Speaker 1: being used as like a de facto conversion camp, like
Speaker 1: my mom had hoped that I would come home, you know, changed.
Speaker 1: I mean, they had these classes on uh, like from
Speaker 1: Grubby to Grace and God's Gentlemen, which now I realized
Speaker 1: were like gender appropriateness classes. It was like, you know,
Speaker 1: just like the world's toughest summer camp. It was like
Speaker 1: it was like if the missionaries of charity around a
Speaker 1: fucking summer camp. That's what it was like. So who
Speaker 1: did she want you to be? I don't know, maybe her,
Speaker 1: you know, I think he was worried. She never thought
Speaker 1: of me as like a maskline female. She thought of
Speaker 1: me as like an ugly female, right. And my mom
Speaker 1: was a very beautiful person. She was a very attractive person,
Speaker 1: and that helped her in life. She knew how to
Speaker 1: use it. She knew how to use that attractiveness, and
Speaker 1: it was the kind of also her kind of her stick.
Speaker 1: You know. See, I can remember watching my mom put
Speaker 1: on her makeup her whole life. Like I've watched her
Speaker 1: put on her makeup and talked to her while she
Speaker 1: put on her makeup. I mean, even the smell of
Speaker 1: makeup makes me think of my mom, you know. And
Speaker 1: so what were you searching for then joining the MCS?
Speaker 1: Like you know, I was looking for a life that
Speaker 1: made sense. And what did your mom think of you joining? Um?
Speaker 1: I think you know, she wanted me to have health insurance,
Speaker 1: you know, Like, so she was a little bit like, okay,
Speaker 1: you know, so you already know Kelly joined the m
Speaker 1: CS and it didn't work out, But what did her
Speaker 1: life look like after she left? Kelly was incredibly impressed
Speaker 1: by the Missionaries of Charity when she first encountered them.
Speaker 1: She admired their hard work, and she thought she'd found
Speaker 1: her community. She converted to Catholicism, joined the Order, but
Speaker 1: found she wasn't welcomed like other sisters. Maybe some of
Speaker 1: it was her sense of humor, maybe it was her
Speaker 1: appearance or her angry shoulders. Once sister described her as
Speaker 1: scary and in the end, not fitting in took a
Speaker 1: toll on her physically. She left flunked out, as she
Speaker 1: puts it, Yeah, I was so sad when I left,
Speaker 1: you know, because I was like, all right, well, do
Speaker 1: you guys think this is working out? And they're like,
Speaker 1: let us think about it. No. I mean like everyone
Speaker 1: else that left, they were like begging them to stay.
Speaker 1: Not me, They're like by and um, I remember where
Speaker 1: my mom was with my sister. When she took me up,
Speaker 1: she was like, you seem like you're grieving, like that
Speaker 1: was the word she used. And I was like, well,
Speaker 1: first of all, it's like this big germanic goodbye. I'm
Speaker 1: off to marry Jesus. Goodbye. Oh hi, I'm back now,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Like, um, so first it
Speaker 1: was like kind of anticlimactic, but it wasn't even just that.
Speaker 1: It was just like it just felt like it just
Speaker 1: felt like you're here, oh here, Jesus, here is my life.
Speaker 1: I give it to you, and Jesus is like smack.
Speaker 1: Everybody wants your dumb gift of your dumb life, you know.
Speaker 1: After she left the m c S. She started nursing school,
Speaker 1: joined a softball team, and spent time with the Catholic
Speaker 1: Worker Movement, a progressive faith based group, and she was
Speaker 1: talking to a friend there one day and she was like, Kelly, like,
Speaker 1: I know people who are um trying to suppress their
Speaker 1: sexual orientation, and I watched them not be able to
Speaker 1: love the people around them the way they should because
Speaker 1: that's where all their energies going. And I was like,
Speaker 1: you know what, that's true, and I've seen that a lot,
Speaker 1: and that's not what I want. Like, if I really
Speaker 1: believe in love, if I really think that love is
Speaker 1: something that changes lives and helps people, then I just
Speaker 1: have to be myself. Oh yeah. So I was raised
Speaker 1: a strict evangelical Christian and when I came out to
Speaker 1: my mom, she ripped up my birth certificate and sent
Speaker 1: it to me. Yeah, and I was complaining about it
Speaker 1: to my therapist. So I'm like, oh, that was so
Speaker 1: past aggressive, and she's like, no, Kelly, that was aggressive.
Speaker 1: So I take it to the countercler's office and he
Speaker 1: looked at me and then looked at the pieces and
Speaker 1: he thought for a minute. He said, we get a
Speaker 1: lot of this from people who looked like you, which
Speaker 1: tells you my mom was not as original as she thought.
Speaker 1: She was my mom would say that that is not
Speaker 1: what happened. Uh, different narrative. Um, my mom was a
Speaker 1: dramatic person. It was a very dramatic reaction, like okay.
Speaker 1: Also even when she sent it to me, so I
Speaker 1: was like, this doesn't you can send me my birth
Speaker 1: certificate all you want. It doesn't make me not your kid,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Like, that's not how that works. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know. And we didn't really have a relationship for
Speaker 1: a long time, Like I went long periods of time
Speaker 1: without seeing her. Um. I think it didn't really even
Speaker 1: become comedy early in my comedy career because it was
Speaker 1: still so unresolved. I think it was still to raw
Speaker 1: and me for other people to laugh at it. Kelly
Speaker 1: met Heather at the Newark Airport Hotel during a queer conference.
Speaker 1: They both went to Christian High school. They both knew
Speaker 1: all of the words to the chorus of the Trumpet
Speaker 1: of Jesus, and that was that. They started dating long distance.
Speaker 1: At the time, Heather wasn't remissioned from ovarian cancer. Within
Speaker 1: the first six months of their dating, it came back.
Speaker 1: Heather would call Kelly to get through the night to
Speaker 1: keep her distracted with stories and jokes until she could
Speaker 1: take her next dose of a heavy painkiller. It became
Speaker 1: clear that she was going to die, you know, maybe
Speaker 1: not right away, but eventually. Like this wasn't a long
Speaker 1: term relationship, you know. And Heather struggle at first, like
Speaker 1: she was like, well, who starts a relationship when they're
Speaker 1: so late in life? You know, Um, it just doesn't
Speaker 1: seem like it follows the rule book, like she you know,
Speaker 1: I think she didn't know if I was going to
Speaker 1: be able to stick it into the end. I knew
Speaker 1: I was going to be able to stick into the end.
Speaker 1: I knew what I've been through, you know. Um, but
Speaker 1: there was something really beautiful about being able to be
Speaker 1: the right person at the right time. That was in
Speaker 1: the same way that like the mission and the charity
Speaker 1: just felt like, oh, I'm like, oh, this is what
Speaker 1: I'm supposed to be doing, this is this is I'm
Speaker 1: answering this call. I felt like I was answering the call.
Speaker 1: We kind of try to have sense of humor about
Speaker 1: it or in the house. I mean, I'm a stand
Speaker 1: of comic. And she was a total smartass, so able
Speaker 1: to the two of us. For example, one day when
Speaker 1: she was really she had been on keyboard for a
Speaker 1: one time. She wasn't feeling that well, and I called
Speaker 1: her from the supermarket. I said, um, is there anything
Speaker 1: I can bring you? And there is a long silence
Speaker 1: and she said, yeah, how about a quarter pounds of
Speaker 1: a Will to Live? Oh God fine. So I was like,
Speaker 1: well she's going there. I'm gonna go there too. And
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, honey, you know how it isn't
Speaker 1: a trigger. Jose and Billy had organic and now I
Speaker 1: don't get it all out, so just already that she
Speaker 1: came back, She's like, huh damn. Kelly calls the day
Speaker 1: how they died, Pudding Day, how they chose to end
Speaker 1: her life surrounded by chosen family with a lethal dose
Speaker 1: of medication mixed into a pudding cup. All this time
Speaker 1: through the real relationship Head There's Illness Nursing School comedy sets,
Speaker 1: Kelly's relationship with her mom remainstreamed until her stepfather's dementia
Speaker 1: became worse and she flew home to help. He was
Speaker 1: a retired army colonel and everyone still called him the colonel,
Speaker 1: and so lost of people when they developed dementia, they
Speaker 1: forget the names of their kids or where they live,
Speaker 1: or you know, they're most fond childhood memories. That is
Speaker 1: not what happened to the colonel. The colonel forgot. He
Speaker 1: was a jerk, I think, because he forgot where the
Speaker 1: scotch was. So I went to my mom's home and
Speaker 1: helped her set up hospice. And the colonel was lovely
Speaker 1: to me, was like, oh color, and I just I
Speaker 1: love your I love your haircutt Soldier. I love the
Speaker 1: ultimate compliment, I love your haircuts Soldier. That's oh Ron,
Speaker 1: That's fantastic all. And we thought that he might not
Speaker 1: make it until Christmas. And he was really so you know,
Speaker 1: cognitively impaired at that point that he couldn't even follow sitcom.
Speaker 1: So my mom loved the christ his tree, and he
Speaker 1: asked her just to turn off the lights and he
Speaker 1: just watched the tree, and every so often he would say,
Speaker 1: that's a heck of a tree, and ants, that's a
Speaker 1: heck of a tree. And so I would sit with
Speaker 1: my mom, watch her as she would put on makeup,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to tell her it was gonna be okay,
Speaker 1: but I knew it wasn't that, so I just sat
Speaker 1: with her. I don't know. Something really changed that year.
Speaker 1: We just talked about our lives and you know, kind
Speaker 1: of what was important in life and what wasn't and
Speaker 1: not having any regrets and um, and it healed in
Speaker 1: a way that I had never thought was possible. So
Speaker 1: the colonel died a few days before Christmas. And when
Speaker 1: people came to drop off food and UM saying, you know,
Speaker 1: send their condolen says. My Mom's response was, this is
Speaker 1: my daughter, Kelly. She's also a widow. She lost her
Speaker 1: spouse as well. What's a moment that happened that you
Speaker 1: would have never expected to came? Um, she came to
Speaker 1: watch me perform at the Stonewall Inn in June. The
Speaker 1: story of Kelly's mom at the historic Stonewall Inn in
Speaker 1: a moment. All right, so my mom. Nine years I've
Speaker 1: been performing, she has never seen me perform. You know
Speaker 1: where My mom wanted to come see me perform in
Speaker 1: the middle of June on the anniversary of Stonewall at
Speaker 1: the Stonewall Inn. The gayest thing ever, Right, it's the
Speaker 1: gayest thing I've ever done. Guess who I was opening for?
Speaker 1: Lenny Breedlove. Who Lenny Breed Love Performance Artists queer performance artist. Now,
Speaker 1: you remember Lenny's last show where Lenny like had a
Speaker 1: little stuffed animals like Hi, I identify as an elephant.
Speaker 1: HI identifies a teddy bear, right, very cute, very tame.
Speaker 1: I thought that that's the show that Lenny would be doing. No,
Speaker 1: oh no, in the show, my mom came to Lenny
Speaker 1: walked on the stage wearing nothing but a dick, and also,
Speaker 1: for no apparent reason that I could figure out, there
Speaker 1: was twenty minutes of Lenny peeing into a bucket on stage. Now,
Speaker 1: if you've ever been upstairs at the Stone Wall, you
Speaker 1: know that the stage is maybe two or three feet
Speaker 1: from the front row where my mom was sitting. So
Speaker 1: I'm sitting in the audience thinking my mom and Lindy
Speaker 1: breed Love are having a golden shower scene. And then
Speaker 1: I said the words I have not said before or since.
Speaker 1: I turned her friend, and I said, would you please
Speaker 1: get my mom some more wine? So, um, we got
Speaker 1: through that incident more or less okay, But oh the
Speaker 1: questions the next day at breakfast, so she's like trying
Speaker 1: to figure things out, right, So she's like, so there
Speaker 1: is a woman a man, no, a woman, No, a
Speaker 1: woman dressed like a man sitting on the lap of
Speaker 1: the woman. The man, No, the woman dressed like a man.
Speaker 1: Is that the way it always is? By this time,
Speaker 1: Kelly had met her partner, Cheryl, a writer into poet.
Speaker 1: Cheryl was at the stone Wall performance too, and Kelly
Speaker 1: introduced her to her mom. She was like, she's beautiful
Speaker 1: and I was like, yeah, I know, she's um. Yeah.
Speaker 1: She was like, Kelly, UM, in your subculture? And I
Speaker 1: was like, I didn't even know she knew the word subculture. Uh,
Speaker 1: in your subculture? Are you considered attractive? And I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm actually in my subculture, I am considered attractive. There's
Speaker 1: like some women that want to date a masculine female. Ah.
Speaker 1: And she was like, oh, I didn't have any idea.
Speaker 1: And that actually just made her so relieved, you know.
Speaker 1: And I think she started thinking me as more her
Speaker 1: son than her daughter, and I think that helped to um. Wow. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was curious at that moment at stone Wall, at
Speaker 1: that performance, if like seeing your mom there and your
Speaker 1: friends there and your girlfriend they're like all hanging out
Speaker 1: having this time. Does that sort of like I mean,
Speaker 1: when I think back of like you as a teen
Speaker 1: having these questions about your purpose. You know, that moment
Speaker 1: where you sort of done in your searching and did
Speaker 1: you have answers? I felt happy for sure. I mean
Speaker 1: I think, you know, I don't know if anyone's ever
Speaker 1: done and they're searching, you know. Um, it was a
Speaker 1: moment who that it felt like a lot of people
Speaker 1: worked really hard to get to that moment helped me
Speaker 1: get to that moment, you know, like my mom's gay hairdresser.
Speaker 1: You know, my mom had been watching Ellen for a
Speaker 1: long time, you know, Lenny even who like when they
Speaker 1: saw my mom just gave my mom a big hug,
Speaker 1: like they've been waiting their whole lives to hug each other.
Speaker 1: You know. Um, it seemed like there was some people
Speaker 1: who are interested in me and her being happy and
Speaker 1: me and her being friends, and that's really nice, you know.
Speaker 1: And also that she got to experience it, you know,
Speaker 1: she got to experience what it feels like to be
Speaker 1: to be loved by chosen family mhm. And then unbelievably,
Speaker 1: Cheryl was diagnosed with Hodgkins lymphoma. And how did your
Speaker 1: mom and Cheryl get along? My My mom loves Cheryl. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like when Cheryl started chemo. My mom bought her bunny
Speaker 1: slippers and like fussed over her, and like my mom
Speaker 1: triked really hard to like give a Cheryl some mom energy.
Speaker 1: And Cheryl really appreciated that, and I appreciate it. And
Speaker 1: my sister was like, weren't you jealous? And I was
Speaker 1: like no, in a way, that's like perfect because I
Speaker 1: get to observe that love towards somebody I love, and
Speaker 1: it's not complicated the way it would be between us,
Speaker 1: you know, so I actually really appreciate that. Kelly says
Speaker 1: that whenever there's a tragedy in her life, she does
Speaker 1: a show. When Cheryl died, she booked a whole Southern
Speaker 1: comedy tour. I don't know how people get through stuff
Speaker 1: without having an outlet of writing about it and performing
Speaker 1: by it and trying to make it funny. I don't
Speaker 1: really know. It just seems like, wow, I it seems brave.
Speaker 1: I want things. I'm being involved with someone who has
Speaker 1: to see yoursellness, and I really like it gives you
Speaker 1: a perspective. Um It definitely lenges the assumptions that the
Speaker 1: universe is a good place right, definitely challenges those assumptions, like,
Speaker 1: you know, like those bumper stickers and say God is
Speaker 1: good all the time. I'm like, well, by the God
Speaker 1: is good, but about the all the time part, right,
Speaker 1: because some kids getting nukedia and some kid's getta pooy.
Speaker 1: That's okay, you can laugh at my therapist totally does.
Speaker 1: Kelly lives in Brooklyn in an apartment she affectionately calls
Speaker 1: Queer study Hall. There's always a revolving door of friends
Speaker 1: coming through. She's a community school director and she works
Speaker 1: part time as a nurse, and she's developing a new
Speaker 1: comedy tour fifty churches in fifty states ask for her faith.
Speaker 1: Kelly stopped going to church after her time in the
Speaker 1: Missionaries of Charity. Actually, if you look at the world,
Speaker 1: it does seem like there is a God, but it
Speaker 1: seems like God hates us, right, That's what it really
Speaker 1: looks like. You know, um, the Haiti earthquake and then
Speaker 1: a color epidemic, you know, like come on. But after
Speaker 1: a while she discovered it was actually harder not to
Speaker 1: be involved in a spiritual practice than it was to
Speaker 1: do it. Why fight it? So she found a church
Speaker 1: in New York, a very open church. In fact, she says,
Speaker 1: the pastor once said that even atheists are welcome, and
Speaker 1: I was like, I think this is my church, the
Speaker 1: church where they don't care what you believe in. But
Speaker 1: that almost in a sense doesn't matter. What matters is
Speaker 1: like the community and the connection and trying to find meaning.
Speaker 1: You know, the meaning is like for me, the meaning
Speaker 1: is the spirituality, like trying to find meaning in like
Speaker 1: whatever I experience, like try and convert whatever difficulty it
Speaker 1: is into something that can help other people. Did you
Speaker 1: talk about um, your mom's death with her? Did you
Speaker 1: talk about death with her? Oh? All the time. It's
Speaker 1: like her favorite subject for the last five years. Kelly's
Speaker 1: mom died at the end of April after a year
Speaker 1: and assisted living and then hospice. She had a form
Speaker 1: of blood cancer. Kelly flew to Florida to be with her.
Speaker 1: Her mom didn't ask her to come because, as Kelly says,
Speaker 1: she's not a complainer, but Kelly went anyway. When we
Speaker 1: were kids, like I remember being like, don't put me
Speaker 1: on a machine, and we're like, Mom, we're just going
Speaker 1: through the McDonald's drive through right now, but okay, don't
Speaker 1: put on a machine. Got it? And she always said,
Speaker 1: I'm not afraid of dying. I'm afraid of um, I'm
Speaker 1: afraid of suffering, and I'm afraid of being alone. Every
Speaker 1: conversation for the last year, she said, they shoot horses,
Speaker 1: don't they. She really was like she's I think it
Speaker 1: made her really, you know, she had a very honest relationship,
Speaker 1: I think with God. But she always said, like, I
Speaker 1: just keep asking why am I still here. Kelly talked
Speaker 1: to the staff at the assist at living facility, and
Speaker 1: they'd say things like I love your mom's laugh, and
Speaker 1: I just want to tell you this great thing your
Speaker 1: mom did for me. At one point, even the director
Speaker 1: of the facility was in tears talking about Kelly's mom.
Speaker 1: So Kelly had an answer to her mom's question. I
Speaker 1: came back and I was like, Mom, like, I I
Speaker 1: can't tell you why you were here, but I can
Speaker 1: tell you, like why God gave you this extra year
Speaker 1: that you has been so difficult, But I can tell
Speaker 1: you that you made people's lives. People at a assisted
Speaker 1: living facility in Florida, in the middle of a pandemic,
Speaker 1: the epicenter right, you made their lives easier and some
Speaker 1: of the like the hardest times they will ever imagine.
Speaker 1: I was like you change, like you brought light in
Speaker 1: this like terrible difficult year. Um, you know, and I
Speaker 1: was holding her hand when she died, so she got
Speaker 1: she got what she wanted, you know, So she wasn't
Speaker 1: and she wasn't suffering. So do you think that your
Speaker 1: time with the Missionaries of Charity, all this sitting in
Speaker 1: silence with others helped you be there for your mom?
Speaker 1: I mean sure, you know, we spend years doing that.
Speaker 1: You develop that capacity, and you develop also that it's
Speaker 1: not an uncomfortable thing, like we could be quiet, you know. Um.
Speaker 1: Even like one of the hospice doctors was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: usually when you come into her room, people are just
Speaker 1: like and there's an unconsciousnation. People are just chattering at
Speaker 1: them or talking around them, you know, even though we
Speaker 1: know the hearing is the last to go. And I
Speaker 1: was like, well I don't there's not some secret I
Speaker 1: need to tell my mom now, Like we've known she
Speaker 1: was going to die for a long time and and she, uh,
Speaker 1: like we've said what we needed to say, Like what
Speaker 1: else am I going to say now? You know? Um?
Speaker 1: But I think like the comfort with silence is I
Speaker 1: guess the two things are like you know, being a nun,
Speaker 1: and also stand up comedy, because definitely stand up comedy.
Speaker 1: You know, you have to when you have to wait
Speaker 1: for the laugh. That silence feels like a really long time,
Speaker 1: but if you can hold the silence, you'll get a
Speaker 1: bigger laugh. So I talk about that, And so now
Speaker 1: people ask me where I am theologically um, And I
Speaker 1: don't really worry so much about the afterlife, except for
Speaker 1: maybe that it just sounds exhausting, like another life after
Speaker 1: this one. I only want that if I can sit
Speaker 1: on a couch and watch HBO documentaries. Otherwise I'm out.
Speaker 1: But uh, you know, there was an attraction of like,
Speaker 1: you know, baby butch nuns and priests and drag and
Speaker 1: groovy smelling incense. But also there was like the wonder
Speaker 1: of like thinking you knew all the answers, then that
Speaker 1: if everyone thought like you, the world would just be fine.
Speaker 1: There was a lot of power in that um. And
Speaker 1: sometimes even now, I'll I'll hear like him being sung
Speaker 1: and Catholic church as I walked by, and I'll get
Speaker 1: kind of nostalgic, and I was think, oh well, and
Speaker 1: then remember, you know, I was married to that guy,
Speaker 1: and he was a little bit of a Jerk. I'm
Speaker 1: Kelly Dunham. Thank you. M m m hm. This episode
Speaker 1: was written and produced by Emily Foreman. Our editor is
Speaker 1: Rob Rosenthal, Andrea Swah is our digital producer. Special thanks
Speaker 1: to Amy Gaines, Sarah oh Lender, Bethan Macaluso, Travis Dunlap,
Speaker 1: and consulting producer Mary Johnson. Her memoir and Unquenchable Thirst
Speaker 1: provided inspiration for this series. Our executive producers are Jessica
Speaker 1: Alpert and John Parati at Rococo Punch and Katrina Norvelle
Speaker 1: at iHeart Radio. For photos and more details on this series,
Speaker 1: follow us on Instagram at Rococo Punch. You can reach
Speaker 1: out via emailed to the Turning at for Coco Punch
Speaker 1: dot com. I'm America Lance, thanks for listening. M m
Speaker 1: m m m m mmmmm