Welcome to the Moth Podcast. I'm your host for this week, Kate Tellers. This week, we're celebrating International Women's Day with a story of resilience.

Beth Deiro Ujjo told this story at a main stage in Los Angeles where the theme of the night was occasional magic.

Before we listen to Beth's story, we want to issue a strong content warning. Beth's story deals with sexual violence and the trauma that ensues from it. So please take care of yourself while listening.

Here's Beth, live at the Moth.

So my father is a really sports-oriented person, so he believes in fighting through pain without complaints. He has kind of a mind over a matter of mentality.

And very early on a Saturday morning when I'm eight years old, we decided to go play baseball while my mom sleeps in.

My dad drives us to a little tucked away area of Golden Gate Park in San Francisco because he says this spot has the nicest grass since it's sort of hard to find and unfrequent.

When he turns off the car engine, we immediately hear a piercing scream. It's a woman's voice and she's shouting help over and over again.

It's the kind of sound that crawls up your skin and bounces off of every surface around you.

My father got very still and then he turned to me and he said, don't move and he raced out of the car and into the clearing and the shouting stopped.

My heart started pumping out of my chest. I remember feeling exceptionally alert. All of my senses seemed to be functioning at a much higher level of intensity.

So a gust of wind sounded like a bomb to me. My dad never left me alone and I was very scared.

So I decided to get out of the van and go look for him. I walked into the clearing and instead of finding my father, I found a woman and she was naked from the waist down, sobbing silently into her hands.

My eight-year-old eyes didn't understand what I was seeing in front of me but I remember fixating on the fact that she was standing in the damp grass in her socks and that her running shorts were on the floor and not on her body in public.

The police show up and they find just me and this woman there alone so they put the both of us in the back of a police car together and it starts driving.

One of the cops was bald and he started asking her questions like, did you get a good look at him at his face? Would you be able to identify him if you saw him? She said yes.

Is there anyone you want us to contact for you? She said my husband. We didn't interact at all but I remember that she saw out of the corner of her eye that I was staring at her hands because they were trembling and so she sat on them.

She put them under her hamstrings.

Then the car came to a stop and they said is that him? She and I turn around and look out the rear window and she says yes that's him and she ducks away quickly as to not be seen.

I decide to stare at the man in handcuffs. He has on tight blue jeans, a teal shirt and a blonde mullet. I decide to cement how he looks into my memory for some reason this feels important.

Then the car door opens and it is my dad and I feel immediately relieved. I scoot out, he closes the door and we walk away from the woman.

On the way back to the clearing, I press him on what's happening. I say why did you leave me alone, what's going on? That woman's crying.

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