STACEY BADER CURRY: He didn't give me what I wanted, but he gave me what I needed.

And the magnitude of that gift made me feel loved.

MARY D'ALBA: My dad was a fake-it-till-you-make-it kind of guy.

(laughter) If he was the limo driver for the night, he was gonna park the van where the limos were and talk to the limo drivers.

CHRISTINE GENTRY: I wasn't sure who I should share this with because... it's weird, y'all.

It's weird, right?

I'm giving my kidney to a stranger.

♪ ♪ WES HAZARD: What got you into storytelling?

GENTRY: I'm from the South, right?

HAZARD: Texas, right?

GENTRY: Yeah, yeah, storytelling is in our bones.

It's in our marrow.

My father is an incredible raconteur.

And I never really thought of it as a thing that you would do on stage.

It's just something we do on porches with whiskey.

Yeah.

GENTRY: And fireflies.

But it's actually such value for the person telling the story, right?

HAZARD: Sure.

Like, laying out your life in a way, capturing your experience in narrative allows you to better understand it.

Sure.

Actually, there's a lot of research around the power of capturing even a traumatic experience in narrative and how that kind of takes its power away from you, because when you don't capture it that way, that's when it's scary.

HAZARD: It's therapeutic both ways.

I mean, you say something, it helps you.

And then the audience hears it and like, "That's my life as well."

GENTRY: Totally.

HAZARD: Yeah, so I could not be more excited to hear your story this evening.

♪ GENTRY: And one day, in 2012, I was scrolling through Facebook.

And the Facebook gods decided that I would see this post from an old friend of mine named Julia.

And we hadn't seen each other in years.

We had drifted off to social media acquaintances.

And this post of hers started, "I'm dying.

"I'm dying from kidney failure.

"All of my loved ones, my friends and family, "have already tried to donate to me "and they've been rejected, "so this is literally my last resort.

"I'm posting on Facebook to see if anyone I'm connected to on here would be willing to donate a kidney to me."

I dropped everything.

I messaged Julia.

I said, "I'm so sorry that we lost touch.

"I didn't even know you were sick.

Absolutely, I'm willing to look into this for you."

So, I don't know if you guys know this, but it's really difficult to be approved to donate a kidney.

They basically run every test you could possibly run on a human being, including really intense psychological exams.

And if they find one thing wrong with you, they say no.

Which is why over 100 of Julia's friends and family had already been rejected.

But I was lucky, and I got approved.

But Julia and I, as a pair, were not as lucky.

So, we were not compatible, and I could not directly give my kidney to her.

So, we entered into this really cool thing called the National Kidney Swap Registry.

And it's filled with these incompatible donor recipient pairs, like me and Julia, right?

So, somebody who wants to give their kidney to their loved one, but can't, and so they enter into this computer algorithm that tries to figure out, like, who could you give your kidney to that further down this swap chain, your friend could get one, right?

So, the computer's sitting there, trying to figure out, right, how can we do this?

And at the very last minute, Julia's mother, who had been rejected originally for a small medical issue, had gotten cleared for donation, and the computer loved Julia's mother.

It was like, "Excellent."

As soon as she entered with Julia, into the computer system, it figured out immediately this chain that would work out with she and her.

So, my kidney wasn't needed.

And so, I got to step back and watch my friend Julia.

She got to get this kidney transplant and her life totally changed.

Every time I saw her, she was a newer, happier person, and then a year passed, and she got pregnant.

She had a baby.

And, I swear to God, the moment I saw a picture of this child, it was such a no-brainer for me.

I was like, "This life," right, "this new life, "it only exists because someone was willing to donate their kidney to my friend Julia."

And every life that that baby grows up to touch, right, only exists because of this one choice.

And I had already done this mental and emotional gymnastics when I had prepared to donate to her, right?

And now that I knew how difficult it was, how long the waitlist was, and that I could do it, I just couldn't justify not doing it for someone else.

So, I called the hospital, and I said, "This time, I want to donate to a stranger."

And so, they entered me into that same computer system, but, this time, they called me a non-directed or Good Samaritan donor.

And, as you can imagine, this computer system is very complex.

It's very difficult for what they call a "closed loop" to happen: so that every pair in the loop somehow perfectly matches with someone else in the loop, right?

Most times, they need an outside person, a Good Samaritan person who's like, "I'll give my kidney to anybody!

Kidney for you!

Kidney for you!"

Like Oprah, right?

And so, like, it was amazing for the computer, for me to enter in as a non-directed donor because it was like, "Awesome, you know, we can take you.

"You can give your kidney to this person in Ohio.

"And their incompatible donor can give their kidney "to this person in San Diego, and their incompatible donor can give their kidney to this person in Charleston..." and so forth and so on.

So, after my testing, like, it was done.

Within six weeks, I was going to have this surgery and I was going to kick off a chain of 16 surgeries that would pull eight people... (applause) ...off of the waitlist.

What an honor, right?

And I had this really interesting, like, internal battle.

"Do I tell people about this?"

Right, like, I had to tell my mom, the nurse; she was going to come up and be my caretaker.

And I had to tell my best friends.

But outside of this circle, I wasn't sure who I should share this with because... it's weird, y'all.

It's weird, right?

I'm giving my kidney to a stranger.

And also, like, I was worried that people would think I had this weird hero complex, and that I'd, like, "Look at me, I'm so amazing.

I give kidneys to strangers."

So I decided to keep it more or less a secret for the six weeks leading up to the surgery, and that was a bad move.

So as we got closer to the surgery, when it became like a week before my surgery, I was kind of losing it, thinking about all of the risks.

And I didn't have the support network to help me through this.

I was thinking, "What if I'm one of those rare cases who dies "on the operating table?

"What if my kidney dies on the runway "on its way to Ohio, right, and I did all of this for nothing?

"What if I get older and someone I love, right-- "a husband, a child-- like, needs a kidney "and I've already given mine away to John Doe, right?

"What if my one kidney fails, despite all of these tests, and I, you know, need a new one?"

And so, like, it's leading up to the surgery, and at one point, I was having a panic attack about it, and I started frantically cleaning my apartment.

And I found this bag of clothes that I'd shoved into a closet to get tailored, you know, "one day."

And I jump on Yelp to find a local tailor, and there's one that works right down the street from me, and her name is Brunhilda.

I'm like, "This is perfect," right?

So, I call her-- thick German accent, and she's available right now.

I grab the bag, I start walking toward her house.

I get to her apartment; she opens the door.

She looks exactly the way you think she looks.

Like, giant German woman, huge boobs, right?

I start pulling out the clothes from the bag to explain to her what I need done, and she cuts me off, she goes, (German accent): "Honey, what's wrong?"

(laughter) And my bottom lip starts trembling, I go, "Oh, Brunhilda...

I'm donating a kidney on Thursday and I'm so scared."

And she just grabs me, she shoves my face into those giant boobs, starts pawing my back.

She goes, "Honey, you are doing a wonderful thing."

And it was like... it was, it was this beautiful moment where this absolute stranger, right, was giving me exactly the kind of comfort that I so desperately needed.

And I decided on the walk home from Brunhilda's house I have to tell people about this.

And so, I posted, and of course, you know, immediately, the outpouring of love and support so bolstered me.

And Brunhilda and I decided, on purpose, that I would come pick up my clothes the night before the surgery, and she opened the door, and she says, "Honey, you look good.

"Last week, not so good.

This week, you look good."

And my mom flew in that night and we were sitting on my bed, across from each other, and holding hands, and I'm not even a religious person, but she said this prayer of safety over me, and I just felt this sense of calm.

And I started telling her about the panic attack, about how easy it was in 2012 with Julia, "Because any time I got nervous, "I would just look at my dying friend and be like, 'Yeah, of course.

Like of course I'm going to do this for her.'

"But this time I'm sending my kidney into the ether, Mom.

Like...

Ohio."

You know?

And she says, "Christine, you have to give these people faces.

You have to give them names."

And I did.

We came up with this haven together where I would close my eyes, and I would turn the corner into this Barcelona plaza that had a fountain and this tree that was raining orange flowers, and I would imagine these eight people waiting around the fountain for me to do this thing for them.

And I rolled into that operating room the next day having never been more sure of anything in my life.

But I am not here to lie to you either.

And that was hard.

And the first couple days after surgery were so, so hard.

And my mom was just this rock next to me.

She slept in the hospital room.

She didn't leave me for five days.

And on the third day after my surgery, when they took my Dilaudid IV out, and they tried to replace it with a pill, and my stomach couldn't handle it, and I threw up all over myself, and I said, "Mom, I don't want to regret this."

And she said, "You won't regret this, Christine.

I promise."

And she was so right.

And when they took my catheter out and I could take a shower, and I was so excited about it, it was my mom who walked me to that shower.

And she took my clothes off.

And then she took her clothes off.

And she got into the shower and closed the curtains, and she bathed me so gently, and she said, "Christine, it's just like when you were a baby."

A month after this donation, the National Kidney Registry called me, and they said, "Christine, that chain that you started "is still going.

"It is 56 surgeries long.

Your one decision pulled 28 people off of that waitlist."

(staggered breath) (cheers and applause) And I thought, like, that's more people than can ever fit around that fountain.

And they said, "This is the longest chain we've had in years.

We want you to come speak at our gala."

And I said, "Absolutely, on one condition that I can bring my mom."

Thank you.

(cheers and applause) ♪ CURRY: My name is Stacey Bader Curry.

I live in New York, New York.

I've lived there for 25 years.

I have four children.

I work as a real estate broker, and I tell stories on stage every chance I get.

Has it always been easy for you to get up on stage and be in front of people and perform in that way?

No, it hasn't been easy at all.

The first time I did it, I was terrified.

I had never spoken on a stage with a microphone.

But the thing about people that come to hear other people's stories are... it's a very warm room.

So, I understand that your father is going to be in the audience tonight to hear this story.

How do you feel about that?

I feel really good about it.

I didn't grow up living with my father, so I didn't have a typical childhood where I would see my dad and he would tuck me in every night.

And so we talk a lot about just what's going on in the day-to-day, and we don't really, you know, dig down deep.

And so I'm just really excited to share something with him on a more emotional level tonight.

The summer before I turned ten, there was only one thing I wanted-- a cherry-red Mongoose Freestyle BMX bike with red-and-black knobby tires.

And this was the most crucial part-- it needed to have a black-and-white checkerboard padded cover for the handlebars.

I spent that summer like I spent every summer, attending my town's free summer rec program.

Which meant I played a lot of knock hockey and made a lot of lanyards.

And that summer, it seemed every kid was rolling up on a BMX bike.

And I would just watch them.

They'd be in the infield building ramps and practicing pop-a-wheelies.

and it seemed, by the virtue of just having this bike, they had everything I wanted in life.

They had fun, they had community, and they had an identity.

They were BMX kids, and I was just the weird, skinny kid with the big hair.

I didn't think I was going to get this bike.

My parents were divorced, and this was a typical divorce kids dilemma.

Do I ask my mom for it, do I ask my dad?

It was easier just to not ask.

But then one night, my dad came to take my little sister and I out to dinner, as he did every Wednesday.

And as he dropped us off, he said, "Oh, Stacey, I'm bringing you a bike next week."

And my heart leapt with joy.

But then he said, "I'm getting it from work."

And my heart sank, because my dad worked in a shoe store.

And it was a very nice shoe store, but it was the kind of place where, like, ladies would come buy black alligator pumps that match their handbags.

And I had never seen anything resembling a BMX bike in this store.

So I nervously awaited my dad's visit the next Wednesday.

And he pulls up, and he opens the trunk, and he takes out this bicycle.

And it is purple, this delicate shade of lilac.

And the tires are white.

They are gleaming white.

But that isn't what concerned me about the tires.

The front tire was really big.

It was, like, the size of me.

But then the back tire was, like, the size of a personal pan pizza.

I would later learn that this old-timey style of bicycle is called a penny farthing, which I think is just a fancy term that means "not a BMX bike."

(laughter) And then the icing on the cake was, you know, I really wanted a Mongoose bike.

That was a brand that brought a kid a lot of cred in 1980s suburban New Jersey.

But this bike said, in, like, jaunty yellow script, "Ferragamo," which was the name of the Italian shoe company that had designed the bike to be used as a prop in the windows of my dad's store.

Just... yeah, I know.

Just picture it with, like, crocodile loafers hanging off of it.

So my dad was really excited, and he was like, "Come on, get on!"

And so I got on, and he put one hand on my back, and one hand on the bike, and he started running, and I started pedaling, and I was terrified.

Not that he would let go or that I would fall, but that one of the BMX kids would come by and see me.

And so I said, "Dad, I have to go to the bathroom."

And we went, and I put the bike in my mom's garage, in a corner, behind the piece of plywood, and we went to dinner.

And the next week he came for dinner and he said, "Do you want to try the bike?"

And I said, "I'm really hungry, Dad, can we just go for dinner?"

And so on and so on.

And eventually, my dad got remarried, and he had two more daughters, and he moved away.

And we both forgot that bike.

Flash forward ten years-- I'm in college and I have a new bike.

It's a shiny blue road bike that I've bought myself, and I finally have everything I thought a bike would bring me.

I'm having fun, I'm having community, and I have an identity.

Because with 12 friends, we are riding our bicycles from Seattle back to New Jersey.

And one night, we're around a campfire in Wyoming, and the subject of our first bikes come up, and everyone's talking about their Huffys and their Big Wheels.

And I just blurt out, "My first bike was a purple penny farthing."

(laughter) And, there's crickets, like, literally.

And then somebody says, "That's so cool!"

And everyone's like, "Yeah, I want to see that bike."

So when we get back home, I go to my mom's house, and sure enough, behind the plywood, there is my purple penny farthing.

So I bring it down to campus, and I rode it to my classes the next day.

And everywhere I go, people are like, "Oh my God, that bike is so cool!"

And I'm just like, "I know!"

(laughter) And the thing is, it really was.

Like, those Italians, even the Italian shoe makers, they make fantastic bicycles.

And it was smooth, and I just...

I loved seeing the expression on people's face when they saw that little back wheel.

And that night, I had trouble sleeping.

It occurred to me-- I never thanked my dad for that bike.

You know, he didn't give me what I wanted, but he gave me what I needed.

He gave me something that nobody else in the world had, and the magnitude of that gift made me feel loved.

The next morning, I couldn't wait to ride my bike.

And I lived in this off-campus house, this big Victorian house with, like, 85 roommates.

And I go down to the porch, and it's not there-- both the bicycle and the porch.

The bike thieves had sawed off the railing to take it.

And it just... it never occurred to me that something I had been so reluctant to accept, that somebody else would want it so badly.

And I never saw that bike again.

I had one day riding that bicycle.

And so that bike represents something from my childhood that was taken from me.

And on my death bed, I will probably whisper "Ferragamo," because... (laughter) I just...

I wish I could have it back.

Thank you.

(cheers and applause) ♪ D'ALBA: My name is Mary D'Alba.

I'm from Malden, Massachusetts, and I am a psychic medium, which means that I talk to people who've passed away and I predict the future.

And what's it like to communicate with forces outside of yourself?

I consider it an honor and being in service, honestly.

I think it's something that I'm able to connect and bring some peace to someone that I'm sitting with.

So, I get to honor the folks that have passed and then also the person sitting across from me.

So it's, it's wild, but it's great.

Mmm, and when did you decide to start telling stories on stage?

D'ALBA: It was about a year ago.

And I said, I'm gonna just try it and put myself out there.

And so now I'm hooked on storytelling.

And would you consider yourself sort of a natural?

Do you just-- did you take to it immediately?

(chuckles): Well, I got a big mouth, so, you know... (laughs) So, I would consider it a natural thing, absolutely.

But it's something I just fell in love with because I get to talk about my family.

So, I look at it as revenge, sometimes, with them.

But also just honoring them, too.

I was 15 years old, and it was my high school sophomore semiformal, the first dance of my high school career, and I was excited.

My mom and I went out to Marshalls and I bought a white dress with embroidered flowers-- $15 on sale with coupons.

(laughter) But I was also nervous, because I was the uncool kid in high school.

My freshman year, the president of the class used to come up to me at my locker because I wore Coke-bottle-bottom glasses, and he used to tap them in front of everybody, and they used to make fun of me.

So, this was just another chance for me to be uncool.

But I was going with my friend Mike and my best friend, Kristie, and her boyfriend, Jimmy.

Like, they were the "it" couple of high school.

So, I thought it would be okay.

Until I started hearing kids talk about how they were getting there.

And most of them were taking limos, and only two out of the four of us were actually working at that point, so, we weren't gonna be able to afford a limo.

So, I came up with a plan to whine to my parents about it, hoping that they would cough up some money for a limo.

And so we're at the dinner table one night and I'm putting my plan into motion, and my dad looks up and says to me, "Don't worry about this, we got it."

I'm, like, "What does that mean?"

"So, what do you mean, Dad?"

And he says, "Well, we're gonna take the van."

(laughter) Now, the van was my father's work van, which was bright blue with a blue stripe down the side.

My father's work was tile, floor, and carpeting, so usually in the back of the van, there was huge carpet rolls, tools thrown all over the place, and in the front, there was only one seat.

And then there was an upside-down cement bucket that you sat on, hoping you wouldn't go through the windshield.

This was not my idea of ideal transportation.

So, of course, I didn't trust the adults.

So, I called Kristie and I said, "What do you think?"

And she said, "Listen, if your dad says we've got it, we've got it-- it's fine."

And so, hesitantly, I thought it was okay.

So, the day of the semiformal comes, I'm in my white dress.

Kristie's in some really sparkly blue expensive number.

The guys are all dressed up, and I look up and I see my dad coming down the stairs.

But, instead of having his beat-up work jeans on and a white T-shirt, he's got on a pair of dress pants he bought just for the occasion.

He's got on his jacket that he only wore to weddings, a scally cap, and gloves.

He was our limo driver for the night.

(laughter) And so we go out to the van, and the first thing that I notice is that it's been washed.

And in the several years that my dad had the van, it had been washed twice, so this was a big deal.

(laughter) So, he opens up the door and I look in, and all the carpet and everything is gone, it's been cleaned, and he's put in two white bench seats that he scrubbed down so they would shine, a cooler full of soft drinks, and between us and him, he's cut a piece of blue tile that actually gives us a little bit of privacy.

But he could still see us.

(laughter) And so we get in and we go speeding down Route 1 to Saugus, Caruso's Diplomat.

(laughter) Def Leppard's on the radio.

We're talking, soft drinks are going.

We're good.

Until we get close to the parking lot, and I start to notice... Black limo... White limo... Van.

(laughter) And I was nervous because the kids were going to see me get out of this van.

But my dad negotiated up to the door and got us out and said, "Go have a good time."

And so when I went into Caruso's Diplomat, they had a huge chandelier on the ceiling when you first walked in, took up the whole ceiling, and it was shooting off sparkles and light, and it hit me.

And I felt like it was magical, and I thought, "Well, gee, if this night's supposed to be magical, I should enjoy this night."

And so we did-- we took formal pictures, we had dinner, we danced, and we had a great time.

But then I realized the end of the night's about to come.

And even though some of those kids didn't see me get out of the van, they were going to see me get in.

And here was another chance for me to be uncool.

So, we walk outside, and I can hear my father's voice, and I look up, and I see that the van is parked in the limo section, and he's talking with the other limo drivers and he's laughing.

(laughter) 'Cause my dad was a fake-it-till-you-make-it kind of guy.

If he was a limo driver for the night, he was gonna park the van where the limos were and talk to the limo drivers.

It's just what he did.

And so I'm walking towards the van and I see the door is open.

And now I'm really nervous, because a bunch of kids are crowded around it.

And I flash back to a few months before, when I had walked into school and a bunch of kids were crowded around my locker.

And when they stepped aside, I saw that they had written nasty things all over my locker.

So, now I'm bracing for impact again.

And one of the kids turns to me and he says, "Is this your ride?"

And he's running his hand on the floor, which is now blue shag carpet instead of the old commercial gray carpet that was on the floor.

And I said, "Yeah," and he said, "Wow, this is really cool, Mary."

I was, like, "Wait, this is cool?

I'm cool?"

(laughter) (excitedly): "This is great, I'm cool!

(calmly): Yeah, it's cool, yeah."

So, my dad gets us back in and we go speeding back down Route 1 to drop everybody off.

Jimmy and Kristen are canoodling in front of me.

Mike and I are talking, and, um... My dad drops off Kristen first, and then he drops off Mike, and so Jimmy decides to move to sit next to me.

And as we're going to Jimmy's house, I notice he's starting to creep closer to me.

I don't think anything of it at first.

But then he's getting into my personal space, and I realize he's about to kiss me.

And I'm, like, "Wait-- wait a minute, "this-- this doesn't happen to me.

"I just brought a friend to the dance, and I'm not that girl, and I'm-- wait."

And this is my best friend's boyfriend.

And then I realize that Jimmy's on the floor and I'm in brake position, thinking I'm gonna fall off, and I realize my dad's hit the brakes.

(laughter) And I look up and our eyes meet in the rear view mirror, and I realize Dad didn't like Jimmy.

(laughter) Dad thought Jimmy was pretty shady, and Dad knew Jimmy was gonna pull something that night, and he wasn't gonna let that happen.

So, he gets to Jimmy's house and Dad gets Jimmy out.

And he says, "Good night, sir."

And my father grunts at him.

And he gets me into the front passenger seat and we're driving home.

And I realized that my dad made me pretty cool for that night.

And as the years went by, he always had my back.

He would just do things to make sure that I was okay, whether I was cool, or whatnot.

And I was really lucky.

So, even though a lot of those kids had a limo ride, I truly had the magic carpet.

Thank you.

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