(Most of you reading this probably already know the bulk of this story, but I feel compelled to write it up as a way of expressing my deep gratitude to a lot of people. And also I want to remember this night as well as I can.)
I was fortunate enough to have the chance to speak to my dad a few hours before he died. My sister Jeanine gave me a call on the morning of Tuesday, January 18th with news from the doctors: that Dad’s body was shutting down, that it was only a matter of days before he’d be gone, that I should book a flight to Florida as soon as possible. I left work immediately, went home and gave my dad a call. I told him how much I loved him, how much I wanted to be even half as good of a man as he was, and how scared I was that it wouldn’t be possible without him around.
Dad was in a lot of pain at the time, but he was lucid enough to tell me that he loved me, that he was proud of me, that he thought I was a good man, and that he wanted me to have a good show that night (my UCB Harold Team Ragnarock had a show scheduled for 8PM that night) He then said he loved me but had to go because a nurse was coming in to give him a painkiller.
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I cry, in buckets, at nearly everything our emotionally manipulative Hollywood overlords have to throw at me. That scene in Love Actually when Colin Firth marches through Portugal to find Auriela? Tears. Those TWO parts of Megamind (Megamind!) when we realize beauty is more than skin deep? Tears. Watching How To Train Your Dragon WITHOUT SOUND on an airplane? Tears. The final scene of Six Feet Under? Cried so hard I had to look at myself in a mirror to see how hard I was actually crying.
When I got off the phone with Dad I knew that it was likely the last time I would ever get a chance to speak with him. So I cried. A lot. And I couldn’t stop crying. I went over to a wonderful friend’s house for support and cried some more into my friend’s arms. After a few hours there, I was ready to go home and book a flight to Florida and prepare for the next few days and say goodbye to my dad. As I was leaving, my mom gave me a call.
“Josh,” she said, “I want you to know that it was quick. He gasped twice at the end but wasn’t in pain. But your father’s gone.”
I cried into my friend’s arms for a few more hours—telling stories about my Dad, saying how much I missed him and thinking about the last conversation we had and how lucky I was to tell him I loved him one final time. And I remembered how he told me to have a good show tonight and how I thought he’d want me to go ahead with the show. I had no idea how I could possibly do that, but I headed home to get ready to give it a try.
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On my way to the theater, I was so overwhelmed by emotion (not unexpected. Again: I cried during the vast majority of Slumdog Millionaire) and I knew I couldn’t just go out there and do a Harold Night show without breaking down. But I thought of another idea that would allow me to “have a good show” and simultaneously not cry in the fetal position throughout our set. When I got to the theater, I pulled each member of Ragnarock aside and ran it by them to see if they’d be willing to do it—of course, as they are seven of the best, most talented and most supportive friends I could ever ask for, they readily agreed. I ran the idea by UCB’s Artistic Director Anthony King, and he gave his go ahead too.
At that point, I freaked out.
The workable solution I had come up with is that instead of opening our show by getting a suggestion and doing an opening, our opening would just be me telling a few stories about my dad—what a perfect compromise, right? I’d be able to participate in our show in a simple way, without having to put on a happy face while feeling this immense sadness. The downside that I realized about 15 minutes before we went onstage was that I, a guy who gets misty-eyed just thinking about Dead Poet’s Society, would have to tell an audience of 150 people that my dad had just died.
CHRIST.
(rest of this story tomorrow, probably)
