The Roles We Play

All what I am going to tell you in this post and consequential posts is true. Or based on the truth.

At least that is what he told me.

Only the names are made up. 

……It’s early February and that means another season of the community theater company I volunteer with is in the books.

I was in musicals and student theater competitions in high school. The memories I had from being in shows, even just being in ensemble, were some of the best of my life.

So when my youngest came home in the fifth grade to be part of a community theater production of Fiddler on the Roof, how was I to say no?

Newly transplanted (I used to write about being a transplant a LOT), we knew next to no one in our new suburbia. So getting involved with a community theater production run out of our town’s rec department that encouraged kids to be in shows with their parents seemed like the perfect way to meet people.

Community theater led my son to the middle school and the high school stage.

It led me back to the stage too, in roles like a pick-a-little lady in The Music Man and a dead nurse in Addams Family and Mrs. Teevee in Willy Wonka.

And the stage also led Jonah to my family.

The first time I saw my “fourth child” he was on stage.

It’s now surreal that I ever thought of him that way. As my fourth child.

We – my son, older son and oldest daughter, did not know him. Only of him.

Tall and gaunt, with dark eyes and cheekbones that most thespians had to find the most skilled makeup artist to contour in, he played the part of the Bishop in Les Miserables.

Now, he didn’t have the biggest part, and I thought I knew all the boys in our high school who were the theater kids, but this kid seemed to have come out of nowhere.

He gave a standout performance with a deep, sweet baritone voice and later on in the play, he’d be one of the barricade boys that passionately fought and died for the cause.

Little did anyone know that off stage, he was fighting his own battles.

But after the show, kids did start to hear.

That he had no mom.

That he barely had a dad.

Because dad said no son of his could be gay and he had to find another place to live upon turning 18.

And until then, he could pay his own way, including paying for food, clothing and yes college admission fees too.

So, the Bishop worked two jobs. The role of a babysitter and the role of a waiter on top of playing the role of a high school junior.

Back then, in November of 2016, I didn’t realize the role I would come to play in this teen’s life.

In a year’s span, I would come to play to Jonah the role of the mom of a good friend and soon the role of an adult he could trust. Later, I played the role of an advocate and a full-on Sandra Bullock The Blind Side grizzly bear mama.

And later than that, and even though it may have caused pain and confusion, I played the role of mom. Or .. .like a mom.

My role as mom, what he wanted, what I wanted for him, eventually got us both into some trouble.

But in between all that, there were some happy memories and laughs.

I try to hold onto them the most.

One night, over a family dinner, discussions led to as they always did, musical theater. My son Elias and Jonah were listing their favorite musicals and what roles they would love to play most.

I am not sure if by this time he had already moved in yet, but in the winter of 2017, he had started coming around the house a lot for dinner.

He had already been kicked out (or left?) his father’s house and was living with another family of a student he hardly knew. They took him in and treated him more like an exchange student.

They did not get involved. But they let him use the extra car.

For my son, it would be the lead in Catch Me if You Can. Don’t ask me what the male lead’s name is, that’s a job for my son.

Jonah wanted most of all to play Link from Hairspray.

“Oh I could totally see you in that role,” I said, readying at the stove with a pot full of pasta.

Two teen boys at home meant for a LOT of pasta.

“Um, I don’t know,”my son said into his pasta dish., “I mean, Link is attracted to…”

“–Yeah so what,” Jonah beat my thoughts to the punch. “As an actor when I get on stage I can become ANYONE. I mean, come on… I played a BISHOP!”

We all laughed at that one. The irony of it.

So, for a while, I played the role of the stand-in mom.

And now?

For  reasons that will later be revealed, be it partially his fault or partially mine or no one’s fault at all. I play the part of a stranger.

But writng about it helps. Helps the pain.

I just wish the kid would have stuck to theater.