I'm always interested to hear the perspectives of other motherless daughters. It's like being a part of a strange club (that none of us really like belonging to) but I find comfort in knowing I'm not alone in the things that I think and tough questions I ask myself. I found this post on Kelly's site and asked if she would be willing to share it for Life is Sweet month and I'm so happy to have her here.
I lost my Mom to pancreatic cancer
twelve years ago today, and with each passing year I find it getting
more and more surreal to think that she’s not here and hasn’t
been able to see all that I’ve done and all that I’ve
accomplished. I was only 19 when she passed away, and at the
time I was on a bit of a collision course with disaster, making a
number of questionable choices and I’m sure worrying her more than
she needed (or deserved).
Those ‘questionable choices’ led to
a rough engagement, an even rougher break up, and an early twenties
littered with financial difficulty, job struggles and not nearly
enough of my first love – the theatre.
Thankfully, I got my act together and
learned to embrace the things that are truly important in my life and
celebrate the love and the joy that is in every single day, which is
the way I remember my Mom. The woman was full of joy for the
smallest things, and it’s hard to remember a time when she wasn’t
smiling (people say I look like her – and I like to think I’m
smiling with her).
That said, one of her ‘bigger’ joys
was always the theatre, and it’s something that she helped
cultivate in me at a very young age.
My earliest theatre related memory of
my Mom was of her driving me to and from my daycare playing the
London Cast Recording of Les Miserables. I remember begging and
pleading with her to turn it off whenever ‘I Dreamed a Dream’ (or
worse, ‘Fantine’s Death’) came on and wailing that it was ‘too
depressing’. At the tender age of 4 and a half, I preferred
Amy Grant and the Mini-Pops. Needless to say, she never turned
it off, instead she began slowly explaining to me what was happening
in each and every song (to which I would say ‘why would ANYONE want
to watch this, it’s so sad').
Finally it won me over, and before my
parents could realize the monster they had created, I was in my
bedroom belting out various Mis songs (usually alternating between
playing Eponine or Gavroche, which I’m sure caused a whole host of
other unnecessary worries).
When it was announced that there would
be a Canadian Production of Les Miserables at The Royal Alexandra
Theatre, I begged my parents to take me (they were long-time Mirvish
subscribers). I was five years old when the show opened in
Toronto, and I can vividly remember sitting third row in the Alex,
completely engrossed in the show. Hard to believe that anything
got me to sit still for that long. Needless to say, the rest is
theatre history?
I would never have wanted to see the
show had Mom not played that recording for me every morning and night
on those daycare rides, and had I never seen it, I’m not sure I
would have learned to love theatre with the deep passion and respect
that my Mom clearly possessed. For that I’m unbelievably
thankful, but theatre has given me my life. It’s the source
of my deepest joys, and has resulted in me meeting the most
incredible people who never would have entered my life had I not
found a place in this community.
Interestingly enough, the ‘new’
production of Les Miserables had it’s very first performance last
night in Toronto. The timing is not lost on me as I look back
on the past twelve years without my Mom, and think about how much she
would have loved to see this new version, and how cool it would be to
tell her that about all the people I ‘know’ within the cast.
Instead, I will attend opening night in
two weeks wearing the necklace that she wore when she took me to the
Alex twenty five years ago, and I will think of her fondly as I do my
‘theatre thing’. It’s a bittersweet moment when you
realize that you’ve been able to achieve dreams you never even
realized you had, but dreams that someone else may have had for you,
and they can’t be there to see it.
So during that poignant final scene
where Fantine reappears I will think fondly of my Mom, and think that
maybe, she’s looking down on me just as Fantine watched over
Valjean. And if she is, I hope she’s smiling.
Kelly is a financier by day and theatre writer by night. Find her on Twitter or her newly launched site, BroadwaybabyTO.
No comments:
Post a Comment