Fall in Victoria was passing uneventfully enough. I had settled in, Mom had found a routine, Morgan was battling arthritis but coping, and the Offices, here and back in Winnipeg, were functioning well, dealing with everything in our normal, efficient fashion. I found lots of places to explore around town with Mom and, while my outreach was minimal as far as new friends went, the days were full and quite peaceful.

            Then Sam went into the hospital. Toward the end of October, he had called and told me that he had cancer. I remember a ringing in my head beginning when he said the word … actually more of a high buzz along with a tightening of the skin at my temples.

“What?”, I said after a moment, a whispered, feeble, confused response to something of which I could make no sense.

He told me he had seen a doctor who Garth (Drabinsky) had arranged in Toronto and had received the diagnosis along with a dismal prognosis. Then, once more with Garth’s help, he’d found some holistic treatments in Florida and said he was just going to take it one step at a time and “take care of business”. This had all come out of left field for me and I was stunned. Sam and I talked multiple times every day, but I’d not seen him face to face for months. Earlier, someone had sent me some photos taken on the Red Carpet for the “Come From Away” Opening Night in Atlanta but I couldn’t find Sam in any of the pictures. That was odd. I knew he had been there. But I thought no more about it. Now, I looked through the pictures again and there he was, in a group photo, virtually unrecognizable, gaunt and emaciated. The change shocked me. The image stayed stuck in my mind. Then things happened very fast.

            A few days later, Cindy, Sam’s Assistant called, telling me that his friend Shane (Nestruck) had taken him to the hospital in the middle of the night. The doctors had told Shane that they weren’t even going to operate, indicating that it had all gone too far for surgery. Another wallop! I didn’t know what to do. In fact, there was nothing I could do, nothing anyone could do. On the one hand, there were so many elements to the business that would have to be dealt with and I was the only one with any authority. There was hiring to be done for shows down the road that we’d already contracted, some contracts that had gone out already for productions a year away. On the other hand, I wondered if he had been “taking care of business” because he knew what was going on inside him. Sam had requested that his condition not be made public. Very few people knew what had happened, but it was a hard secret to keep. I shared it with Teresa if only because I needed to for my own sanity. But I was sure the news would get out now that he was in the hospital. It was tense.

            In the midst of all this, Michael Shamata at the Belfry Theatre had called inviting me to be part of a week-long workshop of a new Musical they would be producing in the near future. Michael said it would be “great to have me in the building” and would be a good way for me to meet some folks in the theatre community here. It cheered me a bit and gave me something to focus on, but that was short-lived.

            Just after Sam’s hospitalization, Cindy called again to say that there “wasn’t much time left” and that I’d better get there fast. It was a mad scramble, getting a flight, getting Morgan boarded somewhere, organizing Mom as much as I could and trying to decide when to book a return flight, not knowing how complicated this was all going to get. I immediately called Jim Saper, Sam’s lawyer, to let him know what was happening. I had Sam’s Power of Attorney, so I needed to get him in the loop. I told him I didn’t know if Sam’s Will was with Jim’s firm, but the Executor needed to be informed. “That would be you”, he said. WHAT? Floored again! Sam had said nothing about that. This was the first of the many surprises that were to beset me over the chaotic days that followed.

            Teresa picked me up at the airport and, after dropping off my bag at the hotel, we went up to the hospital. I had no idea how I was going to react. In my head I had planned an upbeat approach, that I would try to be positive and hopeful. I walked into the room. There were some people I didn’t know sitting in chairs set up around the bed, like an audience around a small thrust stage. The room was very hot, and the air was thick and heavy. The people turned and looked at me, but I was focused on the bed. That wasn’t Sam lying there. It was a person who had been ravaged by something dreadful. It was the shell of the man I knew. I walked over to the far side of the bed. He didn’t speak and had hardly moved since I’d walked in. I took his hand. “Hey, Boss”, I said in as normal a voice as I could muster. There was no response. I held his hand for a few moments and put it back down having received no indication that he even knew I was there. I didn’t know what to do. I found out the people in the chairs were Sam’s two sisters and his brother. Talitha and Cindy from the office were there. Levon (Ichkhanian, our Toronto rep.) had flown in as had Tim (Burke, our Chicago rep) and his wife Luci, and Jack (Gaughan, from Las Vegas) and Shane were standing in the hall and at the door of the room. It was surreal.

   I’d never been in this situation before. We smiled at each other, but no one could come up with anything to say. We were statues and it was like the funeral was already happening. I walked back to the hotel in what was, for Winnipeg, rather un-November-y weather, sunny and a little bit warm-ish. Levon called and asked if I wanted to have a drink down at the bar. Jack and Tim joined us, and we managed to laugh and chatter for an hour. This was not how I had planned to come back to Winnipeg – that was to happen a month down the road to do some nights at Dalnavert reading “A Christmas Carol”. I called Robbie and Olaf to let them know what was happening. And I called Mom to tell her I’d be back on Tuesday, not knowing if that was true.

            Back at the hospital the following morning it was different. Sam had grown very uncomfortable in the night, and they’d increased the morphine drip. To my eye, Sam had already left. It was just a depleted body, breathing labouriously, fundamentally on auto-pilot, as the doctor put it.. He informed us a short while later that he didn’t expect him to last much longer. Again, I walked back to the office, mostly to get some air and try to settle myself, get some organization into my head. As soon as I got to the office, Luci called to let us know that he’d passed. There was nothing to do now. Time wasn’t important anymore, so I walked back to the hospital. I called Teresa, who had gone home to bake after having spent the night doing watch shifts, and let her know what had happened. She would meet me at the hospital a bit later.

            There was another different feel in the room now. His Family were still in their chairs, weeping now.  I wondered why I wasn’t feeling more than I did, why I wasn’t getting emotional like everyone else. I had mentioned this to Teresa at one point because it confused me. We had no answers. My mind was moving to another mode now, contemplating all that was still going on outside these large, sad moments, in the real world. Sam was gone, but the business wasn’t, and I started to mentally list all the things I had to take care of right away. I called Kevin Prokosh at the Free Press to ask if he could write an Obituary.  I met up with the out-of-town guys for a bit to talk about the future responsibilities we all had with regard to the shows still running. For me, this had started already, and I headed home the following morning. One image that stayed with me was an overhead, out-of-body view of Teresa and me, grabbing a smoke in front of the hospital during a break from the sadness upstairs. “Sam’s not in the world anymore”, she said at one point. And that summed it all up.

            Word had spread very fast! There were dozens of e-mails, phone messages waiting for me at home, and tributes on Facebook. I began getting in touch with engagers, letting them know what had happened. I’d reach someone who would come on the line and when I’d say, “Hi, it’s Richard Hurst calling”, there’d be a split second of silence and the voice would get very quiet and low when they’d say, “Aw, Richard” and launch into words of condolence. That happened over and over again, so by the time I reached Larry Issacoff, the TD at MTC and a good friend and it happened again, I laughed out loud. I told him what had been happening and he laughed too.

            Before leaving Winnipeg, I had had a short meeting at the hotel with Sam’s Family (the Estate). In almost twenty years I’d neither met nor spoken to any of them, and, surprisingly, now had to explain to them what MSI did. In the course of the conversation, they told me they didn’t want the Company to continue and gave me six months to close it down. That took me completely off- guard. We had contracts with Producers for a goodly part of the year ahead. I tried not to think of that crucial element in all this upheaval, but soon after returning home had to come to grips with it. When I started to let some folks know about the closing, they were disappointed but, at the same time, got somewhat pissed off . We’d been working closely and very well with a LOT of Companies and Engagers for a very long time and soon they would have to fend for themselves. I told them I would give them all the help I could, but they’d have to find someone else to deal with hiring their orchestras. They didn’t like that! There were also a number of wolves who, seeing a ready-made opportunity, wanted to swoop in and “save the day”. I was pleasant enough to them but inwardly seething, and told them I’d not made any plans. So, what was to happen now? I prayed that the answer would make itself apparent … and soon.

            It became obvious rather quickly that the folks who had been our local contractors in the various big centers – Toronto, Chicago, Las Vegas – would become the inheritors of the MSI legacy. I had mentioned that to them over the weeks that followed, and the transitions would be seamless because they were already doing all the local hiring and payrolls under our Supervisor umbrella, and that’s just what happened.

I trekked back to Winnipeg to get the Dalnavert Readings taken care of and to freeze my butt off in what was now seasonable Winnipeg weather – minus 31C – and fit in a meeting with Jim Saper, explaining to him what MSI was all about, how we operated and how we would have to proceed from here following the Family’s edict. It was becoming clear that Sam had kept the Company’s workings pretty much to himself. But Jim said he’d put together a document to make it all clear for me from a legal perspective and get it to me right away. He was being incredibly helpful.  I also learned along the way that a Memorial for Sam was being planned in Toronto at exactly the same time I would be on a long-planned cruise with Mom in January. I told the Committee that I couldn’t commit to being there, but I’d let them know. A quick trip home to pick up Mom and off we went – for me “escaped” – to London to do Dickens.

            It took ages to get there. With Mom in tow, it was a bit more complicated. Finding out which was the easiest route to get around in the various airports took forever and I got very nervous to learn that our overnight flight to Heathrow had been delayed. Fortunately, we made up some time in the air but arrived somewhat haggard at 4:00 in the afternoon. My first performance was at 6:30! Trying to explain to the Immigration Officer why I was coming all the way from Canada to England for only a four day stay was a bit of a trial. I didn’t have a Working Visa and couldn’t say anything about the Dickens House readings, so I blamed the short stay on Mom, who was standing beside me, totally oblivious to what was happening. I told the Agent that my Mother, who had dementia, wanted to go to London and these four days were all I could spare from work and that seemed to satisfy her. Dear, sweet James (Dodding, who had arranged this whole adventure) was waiting for us when we got out of Immigration, and after presenting Mom with a bouquet of flowers and me with some snacks and city maps, we hightailed it on the Heathrow Express to Paddington Station. We caught a cab to the hotel and, moments after throwing our bags into the room, took the very short walk to the Museum. I could hardly catch my breath! All during this, Mom kept asking, “Where are we?” It broke my heart, but each time I told her we were in London, it was a big exciting surprise for her all over again. This would be, for me, a source of some hilarity and some frustration in the days that followed.

            The Performances were in the Library at Dickens’ House. It was a small space in the basement which sat about forty people and reminded me very much of the old Dalnavert attic space, right down to the creaky old floors and the smell of old wood and books! All three performances had been sold out in advance which surprised the hell out of me. I was somewhat jet lagged, and my mouth wasn’t in the best working order, but I engaged my “Christmas Carol Auto Pilot” and got through it. James was perfectly pleased and couldn’t stop praising how I’d editing the story down to an hour, and how captivating my delivery was. He said he’d been watching the audience the whole time, and they were rapt, even the children. And that was pretty much the case for the two evenings that followed.

            The next night with another full house, I was more relaxed, knew the space, had become used to the kind of folk I was dealing with (avid Dickens fans) and was now used to Mom falling asleep half way through the reading. It was a surprise that night to learn that a family of four from North Carolina was in the audience. In the silence after “God bless Us everyone”, which ends the reading, I heard a loud, distinctly American “Wow” as the group started to applaud. I spoke to them afterward and they said they’d seen a notice earlier in the week and managed to get some tickets and considered it the highlight of their visit.

 During the days, Mom and I did some trudging about. It was damp and coldish, but the British Museum and the Foundling Museum were very close by our hotel and with food stops thrown in we made the most of our time. On the last night, the Curator of the Museum, a very young man named Florian Schweitzer, who had been at a Dickens Conference in Holland and wasn’t able get back for the opening, got up at the end of the show and admitted that he was “forced to speak after what (he’d) just seen and heard”. He said that in eight years of curating the Museum and hearing a lot of “CC”s, this was the best and his favourite! That was very nice, and I was impressed that he was impressed. It was a memorable experience to say the least and when it was all over, Jim presented me with a brass door knocker in the shape of Marley’s face and wished us a safe trip home.

Even though we’d only been away for a few days, it was great to be back in warmer weather and to see Morgan again. There were a few payrolls to deal with, arranging a remote account set-up for Ceridian Payrolls and purchasing some internet time on the cruise ship so I could get connected “at sea”. And we were on the road again.

The Panama Canal and that part of the world was incredible! We had a wonderful suite complete with a butler (Nilesh) on the Celebrity Constellation and were waited on hand and foot. I’d been worried about how Mom was going to navigate the maze of hallways and decks whenever she left our room, but, amazingly, she always managed to find her way back. I had bought a pair of walkie-talkies so we could communicate if she got lost but she could never figure out how to use the talk/listen buttons so that idea bit the dust rather quickly. We loved the heat, and between naps, took land tours and walked about the various ports. It was heartening at how well she managed to stay focused although on the third day, she started to re-pack her suitcase because “we’ll be getting home in a couple of days” even though there were still ten days to go. I persevered.

Being back home was strange. The world seemed a little barren after all the events and travels in the past two months. While I was still running the Company, there was nothing I could put my finger on to identify the unease that seemed to float around me. I guess I’d not completely processed Sam’s passing and not talking to him every day was just plain odd. The mundane details of the closing down process hung about me like a constant thick fog … like what was I to do with years and years of paper and files filling towers of boxes in storage in the basement of our office building – where should they go? I found myself tugging at the bit to get this over and done with, but dealing with the Estate and our lawyer on the interminable conference calls were turning contentious for some reason I couldn’t figure out, and were sucking the positive energy out of me.

Then Mom started talking about moving back to Toronto, an idea that came out of the blue one afternoon while we were sitting in her lawyer’s office reception area waiting to sign some docs. I mentioned this to her lawyer and try though he might to talk her out of such a thought, she contended that her church and friends were waiting for her to return. There are few if any good things about dementia, but in this case, it was something of a boon that Mom’s memory was pretty well shot. The subject of Toronto eventually evaporated. It was brought up in passing from time to time, but my response was usually couched in a “well-I’ll-have-to-look-into-that” approach and it wasn’t mentioned again. I got her involved in some activities at the James Bay Community Center, some art classes, group day trips, going to the Ballet and Opera and movies and lots and lots of restaurant dinners with me. It seemed normal, to a degree, but I would just hold my breath whenever we started talking about … well, just about anything for fear she would bring up Toronto again.

The UVic Musical Theatre Class was officially confirmed. All that remained was trying to understand the University’s Administration structure and how it affected my class, and me. The confirmation letter indicated that a minimum of 35/40 students were required for a class to go forward. That startled me! I immediately wrote Warwick (Dobson, the Department Head) of my concerns that this number was much too high for a performance class like mine. He wrote back telling me that it was a number he had to use “officially” and that the 16 to 18 I’d requested would be the number we would stick with. I did have to create a course outline however and, with some formatting help from Warwick, I created a very detailed document which, as Warwick put it, “thwarted anyone from going-down-a-wrong-headed-road – it’s all in writing” and described a class that I would have loved taking in my school days. I requested a piano as part of my “class equipment requirements” and the paper work was done. I was so ready to get some Theatre and Music back into in my life. I had something exciting to look forward to!