Somehow, things started to come together over the weeks and months that followed. God’s laughter receded into the ether, and I took this as confirmation that going with the flow was the right choice. A lot of my initial forays hadn’t resulted in anything of a concrete nature, but one sort of did. Ken Peter called, filled with apologies for not getting back to me sooner. As usual, his explanation was a vitriol-filled rant about Actor’s Equity not giving Rainbow a concession to its professional performer quota and threats of going non-Equity … again. I listened without comment knowing that it was all a part of the game he loved playing with the Association. He eventually told me that I was “in mind” for ‘Gus’ in “Cats” and ‘Edna’ in “Hairspray”, their shows for the following Summer’s season (2012). He said he’d get back to me … again. But this two-show potential presented me with a dilemma … Mom.

           Those shows in Winnipeg would take up about three months, and I was at a loss for what to do about leaving Mom alone in Victoria. She and I had discussed it a bit but, with no apparent solution for either of us, this quandary hung in the air. In the course of our conversations I had ventured into territory that was, for me, frightening, and for her, confusing. Her inability to remember was becoming problematic from a number of perspectives. “Am I losing my mind?” she asked me at one point. “No, Mom, not your mind, just your memory”. I explained what was happening to her physically, how the enzymes that controlled some connections in her brain were failing and not letting her remember things. She asked if there was something she could take for this condition, and I told her she was taking it already – the Aricept pill I gave her every evening at dinner. I had made an appointment with her Doctor (Marlene Muller) earlier in the day requesting her help in further explaining to Mom what was going on and why it wouldn’t be wise for her to live by herself any longer. It turned out that this appointment would be the first time I think Mom had a glimmer of what was happening to her, and I breathed a small sigh of relief knowing that Dr. Muller was on-side and I wasn’t completely alone. We began to consider some alternative living situations and I made some appointments to view facilities around the city … and there were a lot of them.

I was also navigating another fraught situation initiated by Sam’s Family relative to the Pension funds that Sam and I had been putting away for my retirement. We had gone back and forth for much too long and it had come down to my lawyer filing a suit against the Estate. Apparently once filed, that kind of thing becomes part of the  public record and as a result, and probably because of my profile in Winnipeg, I was approached by a Court Reporter wanting me to comment on the case. Of course I didn’t respond, but the following day there was an article about the suit in the Free Press! Could this get any worse? Once out in the world, the news brought calls and e-mails of support from a few folks, and while it made me feel a bit better, I was well aware that I would be travelling this road alone. I was hopeful that the article would be the end of the press coverage and that this would all be dealt with out of the public eye. I steeled myself for the court date.

At about the same time, Ken got back to me let me know that the Rainbow Board wanted to approach George Wendt (‘Norm’ from “Cheers”) to do the ‘Edna’ role in “Hairspray”. I couldn’t figure out why they were going that route. It was probably costing them a hell of a lot more money than I would have, and he certainly wasn’t “Manitoba Talent”. But there was nothing I could do about it. Ken suggested that I play a few small roles and “cover” ‘Edna’. He also informed me that the “Cats” director (from Toronto) didn’t know me and was hesitant about casting me. The role was now to be ‘Deuteronomy’ and I was concerned about having to hit the high G’s in his “Addressing Of Cats” number. We’d not talked about fees but I was informed that Rainbow wouldn’t cover accommodation (at least not for me) and I began to feel less and less inclined to venture back to Winnipeg for this contract. It became another watching brief.

One thing that did take a swing in the right direction was the UVic Musical Theatre Performance Class in May. The course was listed in the Theatre Department’s Catalogue and was another wait-see situation. I’d been very clear about the class size limit and, with the wonderful Jan Wood, who I’d worked with on “The Life Inside” at The Belfry and who was now the new Department Head, lobbying for me, I was feeling a bit more positive. It had been years since such a class had been offered at the U., so, just to give a taste of what the course would be like and to “drum up business”, we arranged an open Lecture-Dem during a lunch period. I would coach with a couple of pre-arranged volunteer students for forty-five minutes in front of whoever turned up …  and I was told there was a lot of interest. If nothing else, the past months had served to highlight the tentative nature of just about everything in my life, so with this class being a bit more secure, I held on to it for dear life.

The Lecture-Dem was great! There were a few dozen folks in the seats loudly chattering away when I arrived in the studio. The two volunteers, a boy and girl, had worked up some material and were eager to get going. Jan introduced me with an enthusiastic pitch for the class and I hit the ground running. I could feel the tension in my back start to ease up as we began. It was so easy to get into, so familiar … like the old days teaching in Portland or the classes and workshops in Winnipeg. I felt so at home. This was where I belonged and the time with the excellent young performers flew by. I knew the numbers they’d chosen really well and spoke to the audience about the potential challenges in the material so they’d have some frame of reference for my focus, and then we began to work. I’d not heard them sing up to this point but figured out their experience very quickly and honed in on their strengths, using them as take-off points for most of the approach. We all soared! The world outside the studio disappeared. They responded to my input enthusiastically and that went a long way to fueling my joy, urging them on to greater heights. When it was over – well beyond the time that had been allotted – folks, including some of the Professors who had dropped in to see what it was all about, crowded around me with questions and thanks for the class. I was on a massive high, physically buzzing as I drove home, now feeling like this could actually happen. I waited for the Enrollment Status numbers to be listed.

In the meantime, I was back to Winnipeg for what had now become a Mediation rather than a trial prompted by the suit. This trek had been going on for over a year now, and the upheaval of the months previous had been almost more than I could bear. I couldn’t bring myself to set all it down in my Journal, to re-live the chaos, so my entries during this time were very sparse. I just tried to get through each day and then let it go, but that didn’t work too well.  My anxiety began to manifest itself physically. My stomach was constantly in knots, I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat, and at times my head felt as if it would explode!

Not having experienced anything like this before, there was a part of me that was very objective, like an observer who took in details and atmosphere from a distance, like I was watching a movie. But the other part of me, the inside-the-drama person, was filled with trepidation and angst. The evening before the session with the Mediation Judge, Norm (my lawyer) and I had a long conversation to prepare for how the process would play out. Although we’d spoken on the phone, this was the first time we’d met face to face, and I found him very focused and attentive, business-like but with empathy. I knew I was expected to make a “statement” at the start of the session and had decided to read the “Conceptualization” section of “The Book”, the detailed document I’d created for whomever was going to take over my job at M.S.I. It was a small narrative telling how the Company had come about, how it had evolved, and how it functioned. Norm asked me to read it out loud for him. For the first time and  much to my surprise, I found myself getting very emotional as I read. I had to stop at one point as I started to tear up and my throat began to constrict. As I spoke the words, the memories of those early days came flooding back and I realized how affected I was by the depth of Sam’s and my relationship. Norm “suggested” that my emotions become a part of our case along with the factual evidence we’d brought along to present. And that was pretty much how it played out.

At the start of the day, after the Judge arrived in the large room with the four of them and the two of us seated on opposite sides of a long table, Norm spoke a little bit and then asked me to say a few words. I read the essay again and even though I’d been through it once already, I found myself losing it again try though I might to suppress the cracks in my voice. I didn’t want to merely “reproduce” what had happened the evening before but I couldn’t hold it back. When it was their turn to speak, Sam’s two sisters said a few quiet words I couldn’t quite hear and then his brother made a statement that made my back stiffen from my glutes to the top of my head. “Sam didn’t have friends”, he said. “He only had business associates”.

I remembered my lawyer’s warning from the night before that I shouldn’t show any feelings when the other side spoke, but it was all I could do to keep myself from leaping over the table and yelling in Sam’s brother’s face. His words were embarrassing. Maybe I’d missed something in the twenty years that Sam and I had worked together, but from the outpouring of feelings and love in the memorials and messages that were sent or relayed to me in the days following his passing, I knew how wrong this statement was. Sam was a friend, on so many levels, in so many ways to so many people.  It was just remarkably sad that his Family never knew him the way the rest of the World did.

With the Family now in one room and me and Norm in another, the remainder of the Mediation was simply a case of the Judge going back and forth between each party with dollar amounts and counters. I tensed up each time the door of our room opened and the Judge came in with a new number. It was like gambling, like a bidding war, never knowing when the other side was going to say “No more! We want a trial” and walk away. Eventually they settled on giving me most of the Pension amount and that was it. It cost me 20% of the total award going to my lawyer, but it was over, and I hoped I would never have to go through anything like this ever again. The funds would be designated a “gift” from MSI and non-taxable. But the lingering question in my mind after all this was “why”? Why had this happened? What did they have against me? They didn’t know me. They knew nothing of Sam’s and my relationship over those twenty years. I found out later that they simply didn’t believe me … or Cindy, Sam’s Assistant who was a witness regarding the account. The other fact that perplexed me was why they hadn’t been satisfied with the absolutely gigantic American Federation of Musicians Pension Sam had accrued over the years. He  had designated his Estate as beneficiary and, by default, those funds belonged to the Family. I had many thoughts over the time that followed but ultimately decided to write Sam’s older sister. I’d come to believe that she had been the voice of reason on the other side but had been overruled by her brother. I wanted to express my sadness that all this had happened. I never heard back from any of them.

When I got back, Mom and I picked up where we left off looking at “retirement” homes and had been making some headway. I had previewed a few by myself and became somewhat depressed by the lower-end places I saw. The heat and smells of them reminded me of the depressing “old folks homes” we used to perform in when on various concert or theatre tours back in the early days, and I knew that Mom (and I) would definitely not be up for any of those. It was only First Class facilities that I put on the viewing list, and we ended up finding a couple that pleased us both. The fact that the folks who took us on the tours read Mom’s personality to a tee was a great advantage. At one place, The Somerset on Dallas Road, the lady showing us around kept calling Mom “Doctor Blackhurst” and Mom loved that! It was obvious that they had done follow-up research based on the application I’d submitted, and had discovered all the titles and positions she’d held over her decades in Canadian Business, Administration and Education. They knew to appeal to her ego and that went a long way in us deciding that this was where she should live. The road to this point had been bumpy to say the least, and our initial conversations about a move had not gone well. But it was this heavenly facility, like a resort hotel with beautiful appointments, great staff, great food and lots of activities, that won her over. And all the flattery didn’t hurt. Hell, I would have moved in if I could have afforded it!

            It wasn’t an easy move by any stretch of the imagination, but we got it done and she was soon ensconced in an upper floor suite and everything was settled … or at least I thought it was. It quickly became apparent that the labyrinthine geography of the huge building was going to be problematic. She would get lost, baffled by all the different wings and the many floors and hallways, and the staff would find her wandering about unable to find her way back to her place. To be honest, I found it a bit confusing myself. It broke my heart to see her so addled and getting depressed in spite of the surroundings. We (the Staff and I) decided that a place on the main floor, with fewer direction options would be best. So we moved her into a “Garden Suite” with a small outdoor patio just off the Lobby. There was only one direction in which to go once she left her room and that led right to the Main Hub with all the amenities. Her spirits seemed to rise now that things were much simpler to navigate and as she started to meet people and get involved in some of the activities, I held my breath. How long this would last was anyone’s guess.

The Musical Theatre Performance Class was a huge success. While the initial registration of 23 was too big a group for me, it began to level off and even dropped a bit. I got nervous that they would cancel it again. But the University had relaxed its quotas and we ended up with 19 students which, after the first class, went down to 16, a perfect class size. No cease and desist order arrived from Administration and we continued forward. Ah, what an oasis this became for me. Those two and a half hours in the classroom each day took me far, far away from the upheaval outside. I luxuriated in this focused environment that filled me with great joy. As I knew would be the case, there were a couple of, well, lesser lights, a few kids who might have thought this was going to be a “Mickey Mouse Course” (it certainly wasn’t) and they could just turn up and get a grade. It reminded me that a University atmosphere could be slightly mechanical at times. I had to keep the awarding of grades uppermost in mind. But then, that was why these folks were taking the course, so I had to deal with it. On the other hand, there were a lot of “stars” in this group, kids who were serious, who prepared for each day, and brought their best game to each session. I had a great accompanist from the Victoria Conservatory, Michael Drislane, who could play anything and was incredibly supportive of the students. This is not to say that everything was smooth and rosy. There were a couple of kids who thought they knew more than I did. I’d encountered this in the past a few times and found that the only approach was patience combined with objectively presenting options and performance choices. Urging them into a technical approach for a bit and not challenging any emotional reaction to my input usually calmed them down and made them a bit more responsive to gentle “suggestions”. Those folk kept me on my toes.

            But there was one young Japanese girl, newly-arrived in Canada, who presented me with a unique and baffling situation. She was very timid, spoke almost no English, had no Musical Theatre experience and didn’t have much of a singing voice. She’d entered the class three days late and it was very hard for her to pick up what was going on, try though I might to make things simple for her. Even the other students tried to help by suggesting some easy song choices to her, all to no avail. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why she had enrolled in the class. I had a conversation with Jan  about what I should do because I knew I was legitimately going to have to fail her. “There’s nothing one can do about a student’s lack of preparation except to encourage and assist however one can”. As it turned out, she dropped out at the end of the second week, saving me the guilt I knew I’d feel in failing someone.

But it struck me that teaching in this kind of environment, at least teaching Performing Arts in this kind of environment, is often filled with pitfalls. I can remember leaving Sir George (Williams University in Montreal) so many years ago after eventually coming to the conclusion that, for me, the place to learn Theatre was in the Theatre. I’d been through three years of University classes and was getting bored with the purely academic approaches to Theatre. While some of my professors were inspirational (Norma Springford to be specific) most of the available classes were based in analysis, formal, dry discussions, not addressing what I needed to perform on stage. From personal experience, I have always approached teaching Performance as an essentially active, on-your-feet involvement, where one needs to engage and motivate students to the point of them tugging at the bit, desperate to get up and do it themselves! Halfway through the second week of the class, at one point during a break and thinking I was alone in the room, I found myself spontaneously jumping up and down, dancing about in response to a) what I was feeling in the moment and b) what the students were achieving in the class. Apparently, there was a group of kids just outside my eyeline. “What’s that about?” one asked, surprising the hell out of me as they came down the steps into the studio. I just smiled at them and said “Sheer joy!”

We had a Class Presentation at the end of the course. There were a lot of people there – friends, families, other students, professors – and I was so incredibly proud of how they performed. After three weeks we had become this brave little company showing what we could do, not just for acclaim or praise, but because we could! I felt so deeply grateful to have been able to touch this incredibly fulfilling part of my life experience again. Jan, and some other faculty, were over the moon about what they had seen that afternoon, and we began another conversation about this Class being offered again, this time as part of the regular semester programming. But that was another watching brief to add to my possibilities down the road.