It’s Saturday, our two show day, and we’ve just finished our first performance. The audience laughed, gasped, cried and cheered for our brilliant actors. Well, except for Mr. Potter who received a collective Boo! during curtain call. 🤗
Every time I see this production it moves me. George Bailey had so much to live for but he lost sight of it all. He had big dreams. He could see them, had them planned since he was a boy. They were great dreams. Important. They would help others as well as himself. Nothing selfish in those dreams. He had God-given talents and desires.
George Bailey also had a close and supportive family, good friends, and respect of each one. At a young age George learned the importance of hard work and integrity.
His life was practically perfect and would be perfect as soon as he escaped the shabby little office of the Building and Loan in Bedford Falls.
Then life happened.
This so mirrors my life before diagnosis. Well, except for the wanting to escape my town. I love Michigan!
I see in George Bailey so much of what I went through in the days leading up to my diagnosis. When life started to get bumpy I slapped on genuine determination and enthusiastically embraced what I had to do to beat this wretched disease. When I see George Bailey fight for his friends I’m reminded of fighting for My Core Four. The day I was laying on a surgery table watching my oncologist and surgeon argue about getting my port placed… surgeon emphatically insisting that attempting surgery was certain death while my oncologist emphatically insisting to NOT place the port was certain death. No experimental chemo = 0% survival. But, like George, you do battle for the ones you love.
Before diagnosis, starting when I was a girl, I had dreams. Dreams and God-given talents. Those dreams started when my parents took me to see A Christmas Carol at the Pabst Theatre in Milwaukee. We went every year to see this play and every year the production always had small differences and I would pay rapt attention to find them. Sometimes a ghost would be introduced differently, or the costumes would have changed, or gender roles swapped … I loved every moment in that theatre. I dreamed of directing or being part of the production team that helped pull of that theatre magic.
And, while I wasn’t in a community theatre my dreams had come true by teaching high school theatre and putting on productions. It was magical for me. The year I was in arsenic treatments we did Mousetrap and it was so much fun! I loved those students. They practiced late at night after baseball games. They were a blessing.
Life redirected me several times. My dreams never died but they evolved, like George Bailey. I learned that we can get through anything as long as we stick together… that no man is worth more dead than alive, so fight for the life you have… that when things look dark to stop and look at all of the wonderful people in your life.
Faith. Faith in God and faith in my family and true friends. That’s the way to have a wonderful life.
And so my friends, this is one small reason why I love theatre. It echoes so much for so many people. It delivers thought-provoking messages, laughter, tears, and when done well, hope.
Thanks for the wings, Clariece!
The Time that is Given 