StoryCorps: Reggie and Barbara Moser - Web Extra

Reggie: I’ll introduce “love.” I want to talk about how I love the fact that you’re the mother of my children, and my grandchildren. ‘Cuz you do a very good job with them as far as trying to help them, bring them up and teach them the proper things that are necessary to learn in life. Even though we’re not together anymore, I have grown this love for you in that sense. Seeing we spent 27 years together as a married couple, we’ve learned a lot.

Barbara: I appreciate that, because it was really hard. It was really hard when we were together in the throes of the disease of alcohol and drugs it was really hard to keep focus on the children and how to bring them up the right way. But, a question I would like to ask you today is, how would you like to be remembered.

Reggie: That’s a good question. I would say, I would like my family to remember me as a person that struggled early on in life, that found a way to learn how to live properly. And then started to try to do the right things as I progressed through the 12 steps of recovery and learned how to live properly. I think it would be nice if they remembered their dad and their grampy as a musician and just a general good kind of guy that did a lot of nice things to explore their life with them and help them along as they grow up.

By trying to do things with my kids as well as my grandchildren, like we’ll go down the street to the bottom of the hill where they’ll throw rocks off the metal bridge, and we’ll take a walk on the railroad tracks. So I think that’s one way I was showing love. Telling my grandchildren I love them. Every once in a while, I’ll say “Ya know Shaylin, I really love you.” And I say that, because other people used to tell me that I should say that to my grandchildren and my children. I should let them know, I shouldn’t just love them. And because my parents never expressed that through my love with them and their love with me, they would never say it. I think I want to make sure my children and grandchildren hear it from me.

Barbara: That’s funny that you say that, because me growing up I had a lot of people telling me that they loved me, but never showing me that they loved me. It was completely different for me. And that’s what I try to do today with the children and the grandchildren, is showing them. Just by little things, just by when they say, “hey, nana, want to go for a walk?” And sometimes I don’t want to, and sometimes I’m doing something else, but I have to rethink it and say, “Yeah, I’d love to.” And look at them throwing that rock in the water or that stick and having a stick race. And joining in, and trying to be a little kid like them, and trying to see the world through their eyes

Reggie: At times, not as much now as before, I would find myself in a struggle to spend time with the kids. I would have to fight myself to get off that computer. Because they would ask me, “Can we go down to the bridge, Grampy, and throw some rocks?” and “Can we go take a walk?” and “Can we go here, to the dollar store?” or whatever. So now, when I hear the kids ask me to do something like that. I immediately react this way: I gotta stop what I’m doing, ‘cuz it’s important that they want to spend time with me at this moment. This is something that they need to do with their Grampy. So I need to honor their request and go ahead and do what they’ve asked. Because it’s reasonable, most of the time what the kids ask is very reasonable. And I think that’s their way of saying “I want to spend time and show love to you, Grampy.”

Barbara: When we were in this relationship, it was for the wrong reasons. We got married for the wrong reasons. And when I chose to end this relationship, it wasn’t because I didn’t love him anymore. It was because I did love him, and that we were both unhappy in our relationship. And I felt that for us to be able to go on in life, period, as human beings, we needed both to have a chance to find the love that we really were looking for in the beginning. But we didn’t find it with each other. We were able to live with each other for 26 years, but I just want to thank this man for being my husband for 26 years and my best friend now.

Reggie: Well, I feel the same way, I know we don’t have a lot of time, but we did get married for all the wrong reasons through the use and abuse of drugs and alcohol. Our life was a mess and it took having to split up to come to a point where we learned how to accept life on life’s terms. It comes down to acceptance for me. I had to accept a lot of things about you that I never could. Now I do, because I’m not living with you in the sense that I have to be with you 24-7. So there’s a lot of things I don’t see about you, but it doesn’t bother me. I accept you for who you are now today, when I couldn’t do that before. I love you Barbara.

Barbara: I love you too, Reggie. And it’s been an incredible journey.