November 12, 2019 • 30 mins
On phone calls with King Friday. On commencement speeches. On where to find answers.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Teething can be a real nightmare for your little ones.
Highlands Naturals Baby oral pain relief tablets can help ease
the pain. It's gentle, natural active ingredients like camemeo and
arnica suit your baby's mouth, and gums made with ingredients
derived from plant minerals and other sources free of harsh chemicals.
You can count on Highlands for serious pain relief for
your teething baby. Highlands is a kinder way to care
(00:21):
for teething. Visit Highlands dot com, slash kind that's h
y L A n d S dot com. Slash kind
claims based on traditional homeopathropraptice. Not accept the medical evidence,
not ft evaluated. Do you suffer from zoom fatigue? Otter
dot ai is here to help. Use auter dot ai
to get automatic meeting notes. You can even step away
from the meeting and catch up any time. Get started
for free at atter dot ai or download in the
(00:43):
app stores. That's otter dot ai. Our lives are filled
with choices. What's not a choice addiction to opioids, But
even with opioid use disorder, you still have a choice.
Choose treatment and choose change. California bind medically a proven
treatment options at Choose Change c a dot org. She
was at the top of the seesaw and I guess
(01:05):
whoever was on the bottom got off. She came down,
She hit her head, but she went through the day.
She was okay. But later that afternoon she had a
seizure and I noticed immediately that the right side of
her face was drooping and she was talking out of
the left side. That's Brian and Kathy Usher. They're talking
(01:26):
about their daughter Beth. She had a very rare neurological encephalitis.
Every minute or so she would have like either these jerks,
they'd throw her to the ground, off a chair, fork
would go flying, whatever was in her hand. It was,
you know, not a good time. The day we left
(01:52):
Johns Hopkins, their last words to us, um it was
go home and enjoy life and let's hope she has
ten good years. And then that was in seven and
Beth just turned forty. Thanks Mam and Gathy. Just more
(02:17):
keep that off the podcast. I'm Carla Wallace and this
is Finding Fred, a podcast about Fred Rogers from I
Heart Media and Fatherly in partnership with Transmitter Media. Today.
Just one story, I really wish I could remember I
(02:39):
was so young at the time, about Fred Rogers and
a kid named Beth. I only remember through stories that
Mom and Dad told me. It's slowly built up to
where she was having over a hundred seizures a day,
some so severe they would knock her down and she
(02:59):
would be flailing, and we were worried she couldn't breathe.
And I would go into grocery stores or church or whatever,
and people would look at me and look at her
because she was black and blue from head to toe
from falling. We were watching this deterioration happened, and every
(03:23):
time we went to the doctor, they had no idea
what was going on. It was so crazy that we
even tore apart of bedroom, thinking maybe she was bit
by a spider. Maybe there was a spider in the room.
You know, we were constantly calling all over the place
to try to learn of new drugs, new studies being done.
(03:46):
Didn't you doctor was checking and go into the library.
I even borrowed a doctor's lab coat and broke into
Yale University's medical library right because they weren't allowing anybody
in there. We felt like we were on Twilight Zone
(04:07):
because here something is obviously eating away at our child's brain.
We're watching it happen. You think like you have an
ill child and the world should come together and make
this child better. But no one had any idea what
was going on. We tried just about everything, and um
(04:30):
in order for us to get ready for work in
the morning, we had to PLoP Beth up with a
bunch of pillows in front of the television set, and
we instructed her older brother, he's Brian, he's older by
two and a half years, to sit with her with
his arms around her, and they were surrounded by pillows
(04:52):
watching Mr. Rogers neighborhood and he called, he said, Mom,
and I came running immediately, and he said Mr Rogers
is over with and Beth didn't have a seizure. And
then the next day the same thing happened, and the
next day after that, I said, this is very peculiar.
(05:16):
So then I sat down with her and I just
looked at her, and her eyes were just she was
inside that television screen, and it was like that he
was talking directly to her, even so that when he
would ask a question like shall we feed the fish today,
Beth would say, yes, we should and at the end
(05:40):
of every episode he would say I love you just
the way you are, and Beth would say, I love
you too, Mr Rogers, and she would not have one seizure.
After two and a half years of research, constant seizures,
(06:01):
and makeshift treatments, Beth and her parents finally got a
diagnosis rest Mussan's encephalitis. It's an extremely rare and progressive
disease that attacks the brain. The only treatment is at
that time, was to remove the entire left side of
her brain. You just can't fathom that type of surgery
(06:24):
and I couldn't imagine doing that left there. So now
we're not doing that. We even consulted a neurosurgeon at
Yale who said that they would not even put a
dog through that. And then Bethy kept getting worse, and
I mean impacted her whole life, I mean her learning,
(06:45):
her friendships. It was. It was a nightmare. We were
all petrified. We didn't go anywhere. We shut down as
a family. Um, we were afraid to leave her anywhere.
We didn't. One of us was with our all the time,
round the clock. Finally, I think what pushed us over
the edge. It was a holiday show and BETHI had
(07:09):
prepared for it and singing a song with her classmates.
I think you were in what first grade at the time,
and it was bomb remember that. And so the night
of the show, we were there and she has a
seizure right in the middle. Bow had to help her
(07:32):
fixed seizure, and she looked at us and said, I
ruined the whole thing. And she said, these seizures, I
just want them to go away. So they decided to
go ahead with the brain surgery known as a hemisphere ectomy,
(07:52):
and they scheduled it for the following February. That gave
them two months at home with Beth before the surgery.
We knew that there was a possibility that Beth could
fall into a coma, she could be paralyzed for life,
and she could even die from this surgery. We wanted
(08:16):
to make the time before her surgery spectacular. So Cathy
found the number for Fred Rogers TV station and explained
to his assistant that her daughter was going in for
a horrendous surgery. Kathy asked for an autograph photo of
Mr Rogers to tape up in the hospital room, and
(08:38):
she said, I will, you know, talk to Fred and
get back to you. And maybe an hour later, I
got a call and she said, Fred is going to
call Beth at seven o'clock this evening. Is that good
for you? And I said he's going to call her.
(08:59):
The phone rang and I picked it up and I
said to Beth, Beth, a friend is calling for you.
And at this point Beth had no friends, so thinking
that a friend was on the line was really unbelievable.
And she ran over and I gave her the phone
(09:19):
and she's skwheeled. It's squilled Mr Rogers. Bummy, dad, it's
Mr Rogers. Brian and I left the room. We were
peeking over around the corner because she we wanted her
to have this real, genuine conversation with him. Was over
(09:41):
an hour. She was talking to each and every character
on Mr Rogers and Neighborhood, and all of a sudden
we heard her say, I'm afraid I'm going to die
and leave my brother and my parents. And then we
(10:01):
heard her say really, Mr Rogers, really, King Friday, and
she hung up the phone saying, I love you too,
Mr Rogers, thank you so much. I love you King Friday.
I love you Elaine Lady, Elaine fear Child. And I
(10:22):
love you, Daniel Strike Tiger, thank you for calling me,
and I am going to be okay. And she hung
up the phone and we were in a puddle. We
just couldn't believe it. That February, the family made the
(10:45):
trip to Johns Hopkins for the surgery. The operation was long,
about twelve hours, and at first things for Beth looked good.
The surgery went well, and then later that night she
fell into a deep coma. We were killing ourselves, like,
(11:06):
what did we do? You know, at that point we
thought for sure we made the wrong decision. We were begging,
praying to God, please just let her wake up from this.
If she can't walk or talk, we don't care, just
let her come out of it. And we did not
leave her side. We were in the intensive care the
(11:27):
entire time. Brian and Cathy said at Beth's bedside night
after night for weeks, and one source of constant comfort
was the music of Mr Rogers. Before her surgery, after
he spoke to her on the phone, he sent her
a huge box of tapes, cassette tapes, and we had
(11:51):
this little tiny Fisher Price battery operated tape player and
all around the lock we would play songs it's a
beautiful day in the neighborhood down You'll never go down
the drain, and we would play them over and over.
(12:12):
When she was in a coma. One of my vivid
memories is going into the intensive care unit and she
was strapped up to every thing imaginable, all kinds of
ivys and her head was swollen like three times the size.
(12:33):
Her eyes were so swollen shut and you could hear
the beat beat beap of the heart monitor and the
dripping of all the i vs. And in the background
you hear there are many ways to say I love you,
Mr Rogers in the background the music that was constantly
(12:55):
going on in the room, many ways ways more from
the ushers in just a minute. Teething can be a
(13:20):
real nightmare for your little ones. So are you looking
for the best relief to soothe teething pain or Highlands
Naturals Baby oral pain relief can help us the pain.
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Highlands is a kinder way to care for teething. Get
yours at Highlands dot com. Slash kind. That's h y
(13:43):
l A n d S dot com. Slash Kind claims
based on traditional homeopath a practice, not accept the medical
evidence not ft evaluated. Hi. I'm Ebony Mona and I'm
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(14:04):
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(14:28):
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(14:49):
Listen to Amazing Wildlife on the I Heart Radio app,
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(15:11):
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Learn to visit safely at visit park City dot com. Hi.
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on track. After her brain surgery, Beth Usher fell into
(17:42):
a deep coma. Her parents, Kathy and Brian, kept Mr.
Rogers music playing in her room. One night, a nurse
came into Pet's room and said, Kathy, there's a man
with a voice sounding like ms to Rogers, claiming he
(18:02):
is Fred Rogers and he'd like to speak with you.
And I went to the desk and I picked it
up and he said, Cathy, this is Fred, and I'm
getting concerned. I wanted to find out how Beth was
and I said, um, thank you so much for calling,
but unfortunately there were major complications and Beth has been
(18:23):
in a coma now for a couple of weeks. And
he said, I'd like to come. I won't stay long,
I promise, and UM, so we said okay. So a
couple of days later and he walked with a clarinet case.
He placed it on Beth's bed and he opened it
(18:46):
slowly and took out King Friday, Lady Elaine Fairchild, Daniel
Striped Tiger, and Mia Mio pussy Gat and Beth had
her own neighborhood show. I just remember he was so
(19:07):
genuinely concerned about Beth. He insisted we take pictures with
the puppets and Beth he's got her feeding tube and
she's hooked up the machines. And I think what touched
me the most was when he sang, I love you
just the way you are. It was my dad, your mom,
(19:32):
a few of my sisters, and we were just outside
the door of the room. And I remember hearing that
outside the door, and I looked around at everybody, and
even my dad had tears streaming down their faces, and
I remember just thinking, what am I seeing here? This
(19:57):
is incredible, and I honestly believe eaved Beth was going
to wake up, that's how magical it was. And when
she didn't, I'm sorry, Mom, you know um, but I
remember afterwards we held hands around her bed and we prayed,
(20:19):
and that really gave us so much comfort. I just
remember feeling as though things are going to be okay.
Don't don't worry. It has a happy ending. Beth Asher
(20:39):
finally came out of her coma about three weeks later.
Mr George left all of his puppets around my bed
so I wouldn't wake up and be alone, so I
knew he came somehow. The surgery, Um, it left her
heavy please check, paralyzed on the right side, but it
(21:04):
also took away her right field of vision in both
eyes and and speaking and speaking because half of her
tongue is paralyzed. I talk it goodly now, but her
hearing is perfect, So it's now. Beth and Mr Rogers
(21:28):
corresponded throughout the years. He wrote many, many letters and
even called Beth her birthday. Kathy and I both worked
at the University of Connecticut. Mom was put in charge
of finding someone for the commencement speaking and so I suggested,
why not get Mr Radgels and my mom and my
(21:50):
dad will both nervous that college kids I won't get
to listen to Mr Djels And I said, no, no,
I think they'll listen. So I went ahead. I wrote
him a little He got right back to me and
he said he would be delighted to under one circumstance,
if I help him write his commencement address. I was
only twelve years joad at the time. So Mr Rogers
(22:12):
came and Brian and I have been involved and intended
a lot of graduation ceremonies, and we could never quite
hear the commencement address. The champagne corks going off, the
balloons and balls that are being bounced around in this ceremony,
(22:33):
you could hear a pin drop. And during the address,
he pointed to Beth in the audience and he said,
these words were provided to me by my good friend
Beth Usher. And what what what was the main point
of your advice to him when you wrote back to him,
(22:55):
do small kind eats for other people, then they will
do small kind eatsful other people, and maybe we'll start
a chain reaction. And he also did the take a
moment two, think about someone who helped you along the way.
Fred Rogers did this often in speeches, asked crowds to
(23:18):
sit quietly and reflect on the people they love and
the people who love them. Like in this commencement address
at Dartmouth College, I'd like to give you all an
invisible gift, a gift of a silent minute to think
about those who have helped you become who you are today.
(23:40):
Wherever they are, if they've loved you and encouraged you
and wanted what was best in life for you, they're
right inside yourself, and I feel that you deserve quiet
time on this special ocasion to devote some thought to them.
(24:05):
So let's just take a minute in honor of those
who have cared about us all along the way, one
silent minute. I have goose bumps now when you look
around at the audiences and students and parents, you just
(24:29):
see them like these big burly football basketball athletes with
tears streaming down their eyes. Um when when they were
asked to think about somebody who really helped them along
the way, Whomever you've been thinking about, Imagine how grateful
(25:01):
they must be that during your silent times you remember
how important they are to you. At the end of
the speech that Mr Rodgers gave the President of Yukin
gave Mr Rodgers a present and it was this engraved
(25:21):
jewelry box and he hands it to my brother O'Brien
and said, keep it until we meet again. He was
so aware that Beth's brother was kind of in the background,
and everybody was paying so much attention to Beth, as
they should. He made a point of asking him about
(25:47):
his life, about what he enjoyed doing, and Mr Rogers
paying attention to him really was huge, and he knew that.
(26:14):
One day I came home from work. I was making dinner.
I remember it profoundly. I was trying to make spaghetti
and meatballs, and I was rushing around multitasking, and the
phone rang and I picked it up, and he said, Kathy,
is this a good time to talk? This is Fred?
And I went, oh, no, Fred, this is perfect. How
(26:37):
are you? He said, I just have a quick question.
Beth and Brian seemed to have such great self esteem,
and I just want to know what your philosophy is
and how you go about raising your children to have
such great self esteem. And I'm going on and on
(26:59):
and in the time Brian comes home from work and
he's kind of listening to my side of the conversation.
And I said, okay, Fred, Oh, love to you and
Joanne and and I hung up the phone and Brian
said to me, who are you talking to? And I
said Mr Rogers And he said you we're telling Mr
(27:21):
Rogers about children and self esteem like and afterward I went, oh,
my goodness, what did I say. I'm telling the Guru
of children. Um. But that that was how he was.
He didn't feel he had all the answers he was
asking everybody else. Fred was always learning, always curious, always listening,
(27:46):
and he was always there. I mean, there's so many
stories about Fred showing up in surprising places, about his
kindness to people that he didn't even know. Kindness in
present were what Fred believed in, maybe because that's what
God was for him, what goodness really meant, love and availability.
(28:10):
So that's what he did as much as he could
in person and through his show. Next time. Fred didn't
call Mr Rogers Neighborhood a show, and he didn't call
it a program. What he called it was a television visit.
Think of what a visit is. A visit is you
(28:34):
and me together. He was talking with us, not to us.
Finding Fred is produced by Transmitter Media. This episode was
produced by Jordan Bailey. Our editor is Sarah Nick's Special
thanks to Michael Garofolo. The executive producer for Transmitter Media
is Greta Cohne. Executive producers at Fatherly are Simon Isaacs
(28:57):
and Andrew Berman. Thanks to the team at I Heeart Media,
and thanks also to Beth Brian and Kathy Usher. Our
show is mixed by Rick Kwan, music by Blue Dot
Sessions and Alison Layton Brown. I'm Carver Wallace. Thank you
for listening. Teething can be a real nightmare for your
(29:38):
little ones. Highlands Naturals Baby oral pain relief tablets can
help ease the pain. It's gentle, natural active ingredients like
camemeo and arnica soothe your baby's mouth, and gums made
with ingredients derived from plant minerals and other sources free
of harsh chemicals. You can count on Highlands for serious
pain relief for your teething baby. Highlands is a kinder
way to care for teething. Visit Highlands dot com slide
(30:00):
kind that's h y L A n d s dot
com slash kind claims based on traditional homeopath a practice,
not accept the medical evidence, not ft evaluated. Do you
suffer from zoom fatigue? Otter dot ai is here to help.
Use atter dot ai to get automatic meeting notes. You
can even step away from the meeting and catch up
any time. Get started for free at autter dot ai
or download in the app stores. That's otter dot ai
(30:23):
here at Freddy's Sweet could tell you how our original
double is this steak burger made with lean ground beef,
cooked to order with deliciously crispy edges, and finished off
with our Freddie's famous seasoning. But we'd rather let her
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(30:45):
now or learn more at Freddy's USA dot com
Teething can be a real nightmare for your little ones.
Highlands Naturals Baby oral pain relief tablets can help ease
the pain. It's gentle, natural active ingredients like camemeo and
arnica suit your baby's mouth, and gums made with ingredients
derived from plant minerals and other sources free of harsh chemicals.
You can count on Highlands for serious pain relief for
your teething baby. Highlands is a kinder way to care
(00:21):
for teething. Visit Highlands dot com, slash kind that's h
y L A n d S dot com. Slash kind
claims based on traditional homeopathropraptice. Not accept the medical evidence,
not ft evaluated. Do you suffer from zoom fatigue? Otter
dot ai is here to help. Use auter dot ai
to get automatic meeting notes. You can even step away
from the meeting and catch up any time. Get started
for free at atter dot ai or download in the
(00:43):
app stores. That's otter dot ai. Our lives are filled
with choices. What's not a choice addiction to opioids, But
even with opioid use disorder, you still have a choice.
Choose treatment and choose change. California bind medically a proven
treatment options at Choose Change c a dot org. She
was at the top of the seesaw and I guess
(01:05):
whoever was on the bottom got off. She came down,
She hit her head, but she went through the day.
She was okay. But later that afternoon she had a
seizure and I noticed immediately that the right side of
her face was drooping and she was talking out of
the left side. That's Brian and Kathy Usher. They're talking
(01:26):
about their daughter Beth. She had a very rare neurological encephalitis.
Every minute or so she would have like either these jerks,
they'd throw her to the ground, off a chair, fork
would go flying, whatever was in her hand. It was,
you know, not a good time. The day we left
(01:52):
Johns Hopkins, their last words to us, um it was
go home and enjoy life and let's hope she has
ten good years. And then that was in seven and
Beth just turned forty. Thanks Mam and Gathy. Just more
(02:17):
keep that off the podcast. I'm Carla Wallace and this
is Finding Fred, a podcast about Fred Rogers from I
Heart Media and Fatherly in partnership with Transmitter Media. Today.
Just one story, I really wish I could remember I
(02:39):
was so young at the time, about Fred Rogers and
a kid named Beth. I only remember through stories that
Mom and Dad told me. It's slowly built up to
where she was having over a hundred seizures a day,
some so severe they would knock her down and she
(02:59):
would be flailing, and we were worried she couldn't breathe.
And I would go into grocery stores or church or whatever,
and people would look at me and look at her
because she was black and blue from head to toe
from falling. We were watching this deterioration happened, and every
(03:23):
time we went to the doctor, they had no idea
what was going on. It was so crazy that we
even tore apart of bedroom, thinking maybe she was bit
by a spider. Maybe there was a spider in the room.
You know, we were constantly calling all over the place
to try to learn of new drugs, new studies being done.
(03:46):
Didn't you doctor was checking and go into the library.
I even borrowed a doctor's lab coat and broke into
Yale University's medical library right because they weren't allowing anybody
in there. We felt like we were on Twilight Zone
(04:07):
because here something is obviously eating away at our child's brain.
We're watching it happen. You think like you have an
ill child and the world should come together and make
this child better. But no one had any idea what
was going on. We tried just about everything, and um
(04:30):
in order for us to get ready for work in
the morning, we had to PLoP Beth up with a
bunch of pillows in front of the television set, and
we instructed her older brother, he's Brian, he's older by
two and a half years, to sit with her with
his arms around her, and they were surrounded by pillows
(04:52):
watching Mr. Rogers neighborhood and he called, he said, Mom,
and I came running immediately, and he said Mr Rogers
is over with and Beth didn't have a seizure. And
then the next day the same thing happened, and the
next day after that, I said, this is very peculiar.
(05:16):
So then I sat down with her and I just
looked at her, and her eyes were just she was
inside that television screen, and it was like that he
was talking directly to her, even so that when he
would ask a question like shall we feed the fish today,
Beth would say, yes, we should and at the end
(05:40):
of every episode he would say I love you just
the way you are, and Beth would say, I love
you too, Mr Rogers, and she would not have one seizure.
After two and a half years of research, constant seizures,
(06:01):
and makeshift treatments, Beth and her parents finally got a
diagnosis rest Mussan's encephalitis. It's an extremely rare and progressive
disease that attacks the brain. The only treatment is at
that time, was to remove the entire left side of
her brain. You just can't fathom that type of surgery
(06:24):
and I couldn't imagine doing that left there. So now
we're not doing that. We even consulted a neurosurgeon at
Yale who said that they would not even put a
dog through that. And then Bethy kept getting worse, and
I mean impacted her whole life, I mean her learning,
(06:45):
her friendships. It was. It was a nightmare. We were
all petrified. We didn't go anywhere. We shut down as
a family. Um, we were afraid to leave her anywhere.
We didn't. One of us was with our all the time,
round the clock. Finally, I think what pushed us over
the edge. It was a holiday show and BETHI had
(07:09):
prepared for it and singing a song with her classmates.
I think you were in what first grade at the time,
and it was bomb remember that. And so the night
of the show, we were there and she has a
seizure right in the middle. Bow had to help her
(07:32):
fixed seizure, and she looked at us and said, I
ruined the whole thing. And she said, these seizures, I
just want them to go away. So they decided to
go ahead with the brain surgery known as a hemisphere ectomy,
(07:52):
and they scheduled it for the following February. That gave
them two months at home with Beth before the surgery.
We knew that there was a possibility that Beth could
fall into a coma, she could be paralyzed for life,
and she could even die from this surgery. We wanted
(08:16):
to make the time before her surgery spectacular. So Cathy
found the number for Fred Rogers TV station and explained
to his assistant that her daughter was going in for
a horrendous surgery. Kathy asked for an autograph photo of
Mr Rogers to tape up in the hospital room, and
(08:38):
she said, I will, you know, talk to Fred and
get back to you. And maybe an hour later, I
got a call and she said, Fred is going to
call Beth at seven o'clock this evening. Is that good
for you? And I said he's going to call her.
(08:59):
The phone rang and I picked it up and I
said to Beth, Beth, a friend is calling for you.
And at this point Beth had no friends, so thinking
that a friend was on the line was really unbelievable.
And she ran over and I gave her the phone
(09:19):
and she's skwheeled. It's squilled Mr Rogers. Bummy, dad, it's
Mr Rogers. Brian and I left the room. We were
peeking over around the corner because she we wanted her
to have this real, genuine conversation with him. Was over
(09:41):
an hour. She was talking to each and every character
on Mr Rogers and Neighborhood, and all of a sudden
we heard her say, I'm afraid I'm going to die
and leave my brother and my parents. And then we
(10:01):
heard her say really, Mr Rogers, really, King Friday, and
she hung up the phone saying, I love you too,
Mr Rogers, thank you so much. I love you King Friday.
I love you Elaine Lady, Elaine fear Child. And I
(10:22):
love you, Daniel Strike Tiger, thank you for calling me,
and I am going to be okay. And she hung
up the phone and we were in a puddle. We
just couldn't believe it. That February, the family made the
(10:45):
trip to Johns Hopkins for the surgery. The operation was long,
about twelve hours, and at first things for Beth looked good.
The surgery went well, and then later that night she
fell into a deep coma. We were killing ourselves, like,
(11:06):
what did we do? You know, at that point we
thought for sure we made the wrong decision. We were begging,
praying to God, please just let her wake up from this.
If she can't walk or talk, we don't care, just
let her come out of it. And we did not
leave her side. We were in the intensive care the
(11:27):
entire time. Brian and Cathy said at Beth's bedside night
after night for weeks, and one source of constant comfort
was the music of Mr Rogers. Before her surgery, after
he spoke to her on the phone, he sent her
a huge box of tapes, cassette tapes, and we had
(11:51):
this little tiny Fisher Price battery operated tape player and
all around the lock we would play songs it's a
beautiful day in the neighborhood down You'll never go down
the drain, and we would play them over and over.
(12:12):
When she was in a coma. One of my vivid
memories is going into the intensive care unit and she
was strapped up to every thing imaginable, all kinds of
ivys and her head was swollen like three times the size.
(12:33):
Her eyes were so swollen shut and you could hear
the beat beat beap of the heart monitor and the
dripping of all the i vs. And in the background
you hear there are many ways to say I love you,
Mr Rogers in the background the music that was constantly
(12:55):
going on in the room, many ways ways more from
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to announce Amazing Wildlife, a new show from I Heart
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Listen to Amazing Wildlife on the I Heart Radio app,
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Learn to visit safely at visit park City dot com. Hi.
I'm Cyndi Lauper. For years, I felt awful because of
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on track. After her brain surgery, Beth Usher fell into
(17:42):
a deep coma. Her parents, Kathy and Brian, kept Mr.
Rogers music playing in her room. One night, a nurse
came into Pet's room and said, Kathy, there's a man
with a voice sounding like ms to Rogers, claiming he
(18:02):
is Fred Rogers and he'd like to speak with you.
And I went to the desk and I picked it
up and he said, Cathy, this is Fred, and I'm
getting concerned. I wanted to find out how Beth was
and I said, um, thank you so much for calling,
but unfortunately there were major complications and Beth has been
(18:23):
in a coma now for a couple of weeks. And
he said, I'd like to come. I won't stay long,
I promise, and UM, so we said okay. So a
couple of days later and he walked with a clarinet case.
He placed it on Beth's bed and he opened it
(18:46):
slowly and took out King Friday, Lady Elaine Fairchild, Daniel
Striped Tiger, and Mia Mio pussy Gat and Beth had
her own neighborhood show. I just remember he was so
(19:07):
genuinely concerned about Beth. He insisted we take pictures with
the puppets and Beth he's got her feeding tube and
she's hooked up the machines. And I think what touched
me the most was when he sang, I love you
just the way you are. It was my dad, your mom,
(19:32):
a few of my sisters, and we were just outside
the door of the room. And I remember hearing that
outside the door, and I looked around at everybody, and
even my dad had tears streaming down their faces, and
I remember just thinking, what am I seeing here? This
(19:57):
is incredible, and I honestly believe eaved Beth was going
to wake up, that's how magical it was. And when
she didn't, I'm sorry, Mom, you know um, but I
remember afterwards we held hands around her bed and we prayed,
(20:19):
and that really gave us so much comfort. I just
remember feeling as though things are going to be okay.
Don't don't worry. It has a happy ending. Beth Asher
(20:39):
finally came out of her coma about three weeks later.
Mr George left all of his puppets around my bed
so I wouldn't wake up and be alone, so I
knew he came somehow. The surgery, Um, it left her
heavy please check, paralyzed on the right side, but it
(21:04):
also took away her right field of vision in both
eyes and and speaking and speaking because half of her
tongue is paralyzed. I talk it goodly now, but her
hearing is perfect, So it's now. Beth and Mr Rogers
(21:28):
corresponded throughout the years. He wrote many, many letters and
even called Beth her birthday. Kathy and I both worked
at the University of Connecticut. Mom was put in charge
of finding someone for the commencement speaking and so I suggested,
why not get Mr Radgels and my mom and my
(21:50):
dad will both nervous that college kids I won't get
to listen to Mr Djels And I said, no, no,
I think they'll listen. So I went ahead. I wrote
him a little He got right back to me and
he said he would be delighted to under one circumstance,
if I help him write his commencement address. I was
only twelve years joad at the time. So Mr Rogers
(22:12):
came and Brian and I have been involved and intended
a lot of graduation ceremonies, and we could never quite
hear the commencement address. The champagne corks going off, the
balloons and balls that are being bounced around in this ceremony,
(22:33):
you could hear a pin drop. And during the address,
he pointed to Beth in the audience and he said,
these words were provided to me by my good friend
Beth Usher. And what what what was the main point
of your advice to him when you wrote back to him,
(22:55):
do small kind eats for other people, then they will
do small kind eatsful other people, and maybe we'll start
a chain reaction. And he also did the take a
moment two, think about someone who helped you along the way.
Fred Rogers did this often in speeches, asked crowds to
(23:18):
sit quietly and reflect on the people they love and
the people who love them. Like in this commencement address
at Dartmouth College, I'd like to give you all an
invisible gift, a gift of a silent minute to think
about those who have helped you become who you are today.
(23:40):
Wherever they are, if they've loved you and encouraged you
and wanted what was best in life for you, they're
right inside yourself, and I feel that you deserve quiet
time on this special ocasion to devote some thought to them.
(24:05):
So let's just take a minute in honor of those
who have cared about us all along the way, one
silent minute. I have goose bumps now when you look
around at the audiences and students and parents, you just
(24:29):
see them like these big burly football basketball athletes with
tears streaming down their eyes. Um when when they were
asked to think about somebody who really helped them along
the way, Whomever you've been thinking about, Imagine how grateful
(25:01):
they must be that during your silent times you remember
how important they are to you. At the end of
the speech that Mr Rodgers gave the President of Yukin
gave Mr Rodgers a present and it was this engraved
(25:21):
jewelry box and he hands it to my brother O'Brien
and said, keep it until we meet again. He was
so aware that Beth's brother was kind of in the background,
and everybody was paying so much attention to Beth, as
they should. He made a point of asking him about
(25:47):
his life, about what he enjoyed doing, and Mr Rogers
paying attention to him really was huge, and he knew that.
(26:14):
One day I came home from work. I was making dinner.
I remember it profoundly. I was trying to make spaghetti
and meatballs, and I was rushing around multitasking, and the
phone rang and I picked it up, and he said, Kathy,
is this a good time to talk? This is Fred?
And I went, oh, no, Fred, this is perfect. How
(26:37):
are you? He said, I just have a quick question.
Beth and Brian seemed to have such great self esteem,
and I just want to know what your philosophy is
and how you go about raising your children to have
such great self esteem. And I'm going on and on
(26:59):
and in the time Brian comes home from work and
he's kind of listening to my side of the conversation.
And I said, okay, Fred, Oh, love to you and
Joanne and and I hung up the phone and Brian
said to me, who are you talking to? And I
said Mr Rogers And he said you we're telling Mr
(27:21):
Rogers about children and self esteem like and afterward I went, oh,
my goodness, what did I say. I'm telling the Guru
of children. Um. But that that was how he was.
He didn't feel he had all the answers he was
asking everybody else. Fred was always learning, always curious, always listening,
(27:46):
and he was always there. I mean, there's so many
stories about Fred showing up in surprising places, about his
kindness to people that he didn't even know. Kindness in
present were what Fred believed in, maybe because that's what
God was for him, what goodness really meant, love and availability.
(28:10):
So that's what he did as much as he could
in person and through his show. Next time. Fred didn't
call Mr Rogers Neighborhood a show, and he didn't call
it a program. What he called it was a television visit.
Think of what a visit is. A visit is you
(28:34):
and me together. He was talking with us, not to us.
Finding Fred is produced by Transmitter Media. This episode was
produced by Jordan Bailey. Our editor is Sarah Nick's Special
thanks to Michael Garofolo. The executive producer for Transmitter Media
is Greta Cohne. Executive producers at Fatherly are Simon Isaacs
(28:57):
and Andrew Berman. Thanks to the team at I Heeart Media,
and thanks also to Beth Brian and Kathy Usher. Our
show is mixed by Rick Kwan, music by Blue Dot
Sessions and Alison Layton Brown. I'm Carver Wallace. Thank you
for listening. Teething can be a real nightmare for your
(29:38):
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(30:00):
kind that's h y L A n d s dot
com slash kind claims based on traditional homeopath a practice,
not accept the medical evidence, not ft evaluated. Do you
suffer from zoom fatigue? Otter dot ai is here to help.
Use atter dot ai to get automatic meeting notes. You
can even step away from the meeting and catch up
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here at Freddy's Sweet could tell you how our original
double is this steak burger made with lean ground beef,
cooked to order with deliciously crispy edges, and finished off
with our Freddie's famous seasoning. But we'd rather let her
original double speak for itself. I couldn't have said it
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now or learn more at Freddy's USA dot com
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