Joanna Ebenstein (JE) and Bob Ebenstein (BE):
JE: I used to catch them and I’d put them in jars. And I remember having a dead one and bringing it to school in my hand, and it freaked everybody out. It was like shock and horror. At the bus stop, I remember. To me it just seemed cool.
BE: You were different. You were inquisitive. And I did the things with you that I liked to do, which is turn over rocks to see what’ll crawl out from under. But the interest in dead animals was a little different. I remember a time, it was your eighteenth birthday?
JE: Sixteenth
BE: Sixteenth birthday? You were driving somewhere with a friend, and you found a dead owl—
JE: It was a great horned owl.
BE: Great horned owl. And you brought it home, and you dissected it—
JE: I skinned it.
BE: And you cut off the legs, cause I still have one, and you said it was the best birthday present you ever got. I mean it’s true to this day. If I run out of things to buy you I get you a bat.
JE: You know, a specimen in a jar is as interesting to me as a cat on my lap that’s alive.
BE: I do remember your liking of graveyards.
JE: Mom says I’ve liked them since I was a little kid. And you nurtured my weird interests. You bought the formaldehyde, you bought me a taxidermy kit, do you remember?
BE: Yeah.
JE: This is before the internet; I couldn’t just go find a taxidermy kit. You did all that for me. You know, there was a point, especially being a girl, when I realized I had to make a choice going forward about how I was going to be in the world, if I wanted to fit in or not fit in. And because I had a parent that didn’t think it was weird, I never thought it was weird either.
BE: But I never thought of myself as encouraging you to do anything, other than if you wanted to do something I would help you. I mean I never wanted you to be the head of the Morbid Anatomy Museum.
JE: But you made me able to be who I am without apology. So you know, I wouldn’t be who I am at all without you.