Here is something you should know about me. I’m not a crier, not really. I do not cry about sad/bad things happening in my life. Ever. I didn’t cry when my mother died. I’m not a hard-hearted Hannah, I just don’t cry about the big things. I do, however, weep copiously when small children sing at school concerts. I cry when I see a little person lost in the supermarket. I cry when I see a balloon floating away in the sky. I have been known to cry at that 1970s ad for some do-good organization that features a kid in group home writing a letter to Santa asking for a puppy. Does anyone remember that ad? One kid says “Santa won’t bring you a puppy!” And then, the do-gooder volunteer/ Secret Santa/postal worker guy reads the letter. On Christmas morning, the kid finds a puppy waiting for him. Of course he does. The look on his face? Priceless. The look on the pooh-poohing kid’s face? Oh, the humanity!!
Another thing you should know: I tell detailed stories. “Really?” you say. Once I told my high school crafts class (we were making our own shoes, no kidding, shoes) the entire plot of Wuthering Heights, and cried at the end. Not the book, silly, the Merle Oberon, Laurence Olivier film. Maybe I also cried because I let our Dutch crafts teacher pierce my ears with a sharpened earring and a cork that day. Hey, it was a Rudolph Steiner school, we made water from scratch. There you go, more details.
So, here’s where it all comes together. The showstopper, the 11 o’clock number, the big pay off. Or maybe the medium sized clutch of saved allowance. The handful of change in the sofa cushions. The quarter under the…you get the picture.
My middle son William started acting just last year. His brother was kind of a BMOC in the theatre department. He went out for every production starting in 9th grade. And he was good, very good. So, I reckoned Will didn’t want to be compared to his brother. They look alike, both play rugby so comparisons were inevitable. The truth was more prosaic even then that, and more enormous. Will’s mind-numbingly dyslexic. Memorizing lines was terrifying to him. As it turns out, he can do that, memorize. He just has to recite his lines, a lot, all over the place, in public, even. Those pedestrians you see, backing up like a wave receding? They’re running away from Will.
So, in 11th grade Will said he got a part in the play. “Good on ya!” we all cried. What’s the part? “I play a Nazi Youth who kills a puppy,” he said. Well, fine then. On opening night we all sat in a little, sweaty, nervous Herrick clump. Will opened the show with a monologue. He was the physical essence of Nazi youth: blond, blue-eyed, strong. It was chilling. His performance in the next two hours was wonderful. We were all so proud of our Nazi. It was unnerving to say, “You were so good, Will.” But, I went to the ladies’ room and cried, just a little, in the stall because I was so proud of my son, the one who killed the puppy because that was what he was told to do.
His next role was a closeted gay teen in a play commissioned for the school. He was unrecognizable. Always comfortable in his own skin, a clown who is never afraid of looking the fool, Will became a person who couldn’t even think about who he really was. His body language was hesitant, soft and uncertain. When he finally reaches up to kiss the object of his affection–a tall, artsy guy–his hand cradles the guy’s neck with such tenderness, I cried. I cried because Will inhabited this character with absolutely no hesitation. I cried because Will has two Fairy (and I use that word because they do) Godfathers who didn’t get to see the performance. I cried because I was so happy to see that the boy got the boy. I cried because when I saw that gesture, hand fanned gently across the other boy’s jaw, I knew Will was a really good kisser. His girlfriend was right behind me and David had to put me in a head lock so I wouldn’t turn around to look at her.
Then, Will was in a musical last Fall. He’d never sung in public before but, being a game kind of boy, he dove in. Will has a voice that would make a grown man cry, “Stop, my ears are bleeding!” I cried because my ears were bleeding and because, dammit, he sang his little heart out. And, he danced. The kid can dance. This Spring, Will’s in a two-hander from the late sixties about a couple of thugs who bully, manhandle and persecute an Indian guy waiting for a bus to the Bronx. Will was all over the stage. He used his body and the lines to become someone he would absolutely hate. I cried because Will’s face, his voice, his rigid, menacing posture scared the crap out of me. Emma, his little sister left halfway through it, too spooked to watch him anymore.
OK, we’re winding up here, stay with me. I cried the other day when Will’s grades came through. They are good, as always. He’s a fine and determined student. It was the comments that made me puddle up. Well one in particular. Teacher comments must be the hardest things to write. But this one, from his English teacher, Oh Boy. It reminded me of the most important thing I need to get right as a parent. Did I get it right? Nah, Will did. See below.
“Will is the uncensored human person in all its possibilities. He is vigorous and kind and delightful and smart and funny as hell and whimsical–silly–and yet has gravity. Mostly he’s good…I’ll miss him next year.”
There, I’m done.