Beth

On phone calls with King Friday. On commencement speeches. On where to find answers. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
She was at the top of the seesaw and I
guess 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

(00:24):
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, a
fork would go flying, whatever was in her hand. It was,
you know, not a good time. The day we left

(00:50):
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 Mar and Gathy. Just more

(01:15):
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

(01:37):
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

(01:57):
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

(02:21):
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.

(02:44):
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 because they weren't allowed owing anybody
in there. We felt like we were on Twilight Zone

(03:05):
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

(03:28):
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

(03:50):
watching Mr Rogers neighborhood and he called, he said, mom,
and I came running immediately, and he said Mr. Wadgers
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.

(04:14):
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

(04:37):
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,

(04:59):
and makes of 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.

(05:22):
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

(05:43):
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 her all the
time around the cloth. Yeah. Finally, I think what pushed
us over the edge. It was a holiday show and

(06:06):
BETHI had 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

(06:29):
to help her 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, and they scheduled it for the

(06:51):
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

(07:11):
this surgery. We wanted 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

(07:33):
the hospital room, and 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

(07:55):
to call her. 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

(08:16):
the phone and she's skilled, 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

(08:39):
over 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

(08:59):
we 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

(09:20):
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

(09:43):
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,

(10:04):
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

(10:25):
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

(10:49):
this little tiny Fisher Price battery operated tape player, and
all around the clock we would play songs. It's a
beautiful day in the neighborhood. You can go down, You'll
never go down the drain, and we would play them
over and over when she was in a coma. One

(11:12):
of my vivid memories is going into the intensive care
unit and she was strapped up to every thing imaginable,
all kinds of I v s and her head was
swollen like three times the size. Her eyes were swollen shut,

(11:34):
and you could hear the beep beep beep 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 backgrounds.
That was constantly going on in the room. Anyways, anyways,

(12:02):
more from the Ushers in just a minute, love you.

(12:30):
After her brain surgery, Beth Usher fell into a deep coma.
Her parents, Kathy and Brian, kept Mr Rogers music playing
in her room. One night, a nurse came into Beth's
room and said, Cathy, there's a man with a voice
sounding like Mr Rogers, claiming he is Fred Rogers and

(12:54):
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 in a coma now for

(13:15):
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 slowly and took out King Friday,

(13:41):
Lady Elaine Fairchild, Daniel Striped Tiger, and Mio Mio pussy
Gat and Beth had her own neighborhood's show. I just
remember he was so genuinely concerned about Beth. He insisted

(14:03):
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, a few of my sisters, and

(14:25):
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 is incredible, and I honestly believed

(14:51):
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, and that really gave us so much comfort.

(15:13):
I just remember feeling as though things are going to
be okay. Don't don't worry. It has a happy ending.
Beth Asher finally came out of her coma about three
weeks later. Mr George left all of his puppets. Oh

(15:37):
on my bed should I wouldn't wake up and be alone?
So I knew he came somehow. The surgery um it
left her hemiplegic, paralyzed on the right side, but it
also took away her right field of vision in both

(16:00):
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
corresponded throughout the years. He wrote many, many letters and

(16:23):
even called Beth 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 Rodgels and my mom and my
dad will both nervous that college kids I won't get

(16:44):
to listen to Mr Rodgels, 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 two, you know, jow it at the time. So
Mr Rogers came and Brian and I have been involved

(17:06):
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, you could hear a pin drop. And during

(17:27):
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, do small kind each for other people.

(17:48):
Then they'll do small kind eats for other people and
maybe we'll start a chain reaction. And he also did
the take a moment to think about someone who helped you.
Fred Rogers did this often in speeches, asked crowds to

(18:09):
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.

(18:31):
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 occasion to devote some thought to them.

(18:55):
So let's just take a minute in honor of those
who have heard 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

(19:20):
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

(19:52):
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 Yukon
gave Mr Rodgers a present and it was this engraved

(20:12):
jewelry box and he hands it to my brother Brian
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 Bath, as
they should. He made a point of asking him about

(20:37):
his life, about what he enjoyed doing, and Mr Rogers
paying attention to him really was huge, and he knew that.

(21:05):
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

(21:27):
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

(21:49):
and in the meantime, Brian comes home from work and
he's kind of listening to my side of the conversation.
And I said, okay, Fred, oh, of to you and
Joanne and and I hung up the phone. And Brian
said to me, who were you talking to? And I
said Mr Rogers And he said you we're telling Mr

(22:12):
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,

(22:37):
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 and
presence were what Fred believed in, maybe because that's what
God was for him, what goodness really meant, love and

(22:59):
of availability. 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

(23:23):
visit is you 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 Cone. Executive producers at Fatherly

(23:46):
are Simon Isaacs 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.