Performance Anxiety

Performers have the standard nightmares – forgetting their lines, finding themselves on stage in front of an audience completely nude, no audience showing up. Stage managers have nightmares too. Last night I dreamed that all kinds of things were going wrong and I could not get the play started on time. Once I got one actor in place, another would be off someplace else. There was all kinds of drama happening behind the scenes. Actresses in tears with the director trying to comfort them. The director was my dear friend and he didn’t seem to care about starting on time. The audience was assembled, just waiting, and I could not get it all together. Once we finally did start the show - which was some sort of cross between the play I’m working on right now and the new TV show Glee – all kinds of things were going wrong. For one song, the performers started singing and I couldn’t get the music on in time. For another segment, I forgot an entire transition moment that depended on my working the lights and sound correctly. I was constantly having to leave “the booth” to run around to try to get things together. Being out-of-place would cause something else to happen. And then, something went so wrong that the show just stopped. The director ended up on the stage to talk through the problem with the actors. The curtains were closed and the audience was left to sit out there wondering what in the world was going on. I was urging the director and cast to pull it together when an older lady, shortish with red hair came walking through the crack in the curtain. She said, “I’m sorry, but I have these older women with me and they have to be in bed by 8:30. We are going to have to leave.” As the director attempted to apologize, see if he could convince her to hang in there for a few more minutes, in an effort to give her critique of the show, she said something like, “If your goal was to provide for a very confusing night that felt chaotic, then you have been most successful.” Not the goal of a stage manager!

There was this really weird moment in the middle of all that is described above. I think it happened before we even got the show started while I was trying to locate all the performers. I was up high in what seemed like a stadium instead of a theatre. I saw my mother, so I wanted to speak and give her a hug. As I squeezed myself between the backs of seats and legs of patrons, just as I was almost to my mother, I realized that my father was sitting on this side of her. He looked just as I remember him, but I knew something was wrong. There was nothing said in my dream about it, but somehow I knew that she had done something in order to have “the appearance” of Daddy with her. Maybe he was a clone or a robot. There was something like that which would make it seem your loved one was with you, but we all knew it wasn’t really him. I had a hard time looking at him. I leaned over him, hugged Mom, told her I was glad she was there, and turned to walk away – quickly because I felt so rushed and anxious because things were not going according to plan. I know my dreaming self was angry that she felt the need to do this. I know that my dreaming self wanted to tell her to stop trying to keep him with her. But, I couldn’t leave. I had not looked directly at him yet. Before running off to try to get the show started, I turned, looked him in the eyes, and said, “I miss you Daddy.” Before anyone could say anything else, I ran off and back to crying actresses and angry cast-mates.

Let the analysis begin!

The Best Worst Day

I stole that title from somewhere else, though I can’t remember where. In my case, I’m referring to one year ago today when my family gathered around my father’s bed and listened to a small town doctor tell him that he had terminal cancer. I specify “small town” because that plays heavily into our story later.

I don’t think I would have even remembered that today marks that anniversary if I hadn’t received an email from my mother in which she mentioned it. Since Dad lasted only one week after that diagnosis, my mind is preoccupied with the anniversary that happens next week.

Back to the best worst day. Dad had been feeling poorly for at least a year. He had been through all kinds of tests, been hospitalized several times, had enough x-rays to make him glow in the dark, and none of it had led to any real answers. Except for one, “We don’t see any tumors.” My father smoked for almost 50 years and I am convinced that he knew all along what was wrong with him, but after all these tests and the seeming assurance of “professionals,” he had finally decided that they must be right.

Now, not every small town doctor deserves to be lumped in with the one that diagnosed my dad. There are those who choose to serve in rural areas as service to the community when they could be making loads more cash in a big city. However, I’ve come to believe that THIS particular doctor is not among them. He serves where he serves because that is where he can get a job.

I do have to give this to him, though. He is the only doctor that I will see in my lifetime make a house call. On that best worst day, Dad just felt rotten. The appointment had been set to learn what the results from the latest test (MRI) really meant. Me and my three siblings had all converged at our parents’ home and were all planning to be sitting at the doctor’s office with them when they heard what we all expected. But, Dad couldn’t get out of the bed, so Mom called the doctor to say that either they would have to only talk to the family in Dad’s absence or someone would have to see Dad at home. So, they set up the time and the doctor and one of his nurses actually came to the house. We all gathered around Mom and Dad’s enormous California King bed and listened as the doctor fumbled his way through telling Dad that he had Colon Cancer and that it was in an advanced stage.

Did you have to do a double take? We all did! And, my father’s reply to hearing that news was, “How in the world did I get colon cancer?” He may have actually said, “How in the hell did I get colon cancer?” But, a year later, I can’t remember. I do know that we all laughed. It seemed so absurd. Dad knew what he had. We were all sure we knew what he had and it wasn’t colon cancer. I still don’t understand how this doctor had missed cancer for over a year and how he diagnosed lung cancer (a big city doctor confirmed a few days later) as colon cancer, but at the time it was all just a little bit funny.

You would have to know my father to understand how this day ended up being one of the best days in our family’s life. I do give some credit to the rest of us as well, but he has always taken the lead – not is some fundamental patriarchal way, but in showing us how to react to the world.

The nurse standing behind the doctor with a file of test results in her hand had big tears in her eyes as the doctor attempted to say, “You are dying.” He didn’t say THAT, of course. My father had to ask him questions to get to the reality of the situation. “There may be treatments that can keep you comfortable,” etc. Dad would make a joke here and there, mumble to himself “colon cancer, don’t that beat all?,” and we stood there trying to take it all in. When the doctor and nurse left, the fun began.

One of my sisters works at a hospital where she deals daily with terminal cancer patients. At one point during the evening, she said, “I don’t think other people handle this kind of thing this way.” Maybe we are crazy. Or maybe we got it right. I don’t know. But, throughout the next several hours, we had the best time as a family. Dad would lie down and rest at times and when he did, we found ourselves more morose, but when he would come shuffling into the room everything changed. We would hear him coming down the hall calling out, “I’m doomed! I’m doomed!” (That is a reference to a movie called “Hysterical.” He loved that movie.) Or, he would come into the room saying, “Na na na na. It isn’t lung cancer! Y’all were sure I would die of lung cancer!”

We sat around the table and did the things we do best as a family – we ate, we talked, and we laughed. We worked with Dad to plan the funeral that he and Mom wanted. He told us to be sure to hire mourners because he didn’t think people at the funeral would cry enough. My brother comforted Mom and worked with her to insure that she had what she needed to handle the next few months. We thought it would be months – 3 to 6 months – that common timeframe that you hear about OTHER people having to deal with. My other sister asked Dad, “Now, when we are crying at the funeral, do you want us to sob quietly or should we wail out loud?” Dad’s response was, “Well, there should be a crecendo effect.”

I feel strange even writing this. This was a sacred day for my family. There may be some of them that wish I would keep it private. I’m not a very private person. But, sacred is the right word. It was the worst day we had been through up to that point, but it was the best day that we have ever had together. I believe God gave this gift to us and I believe that my father helped wrap the gift and put a big bow on top. I’m so thankful we were all there to receive it.