Today and the next two days are touching pieces about bright encounters I hope may make your wonderful world seem brighter. For no matter what ugly meanness I experience out there, I find far brighter encounters because I live knowing they are there. So I find them. Or they, find me...
Often at the end of a performance, especially on Opening Nights when the actors are getting their much deserved standing ovations, the Scene Designer and Lighting Designer are asked to come out on stage to be honoured in the ovations. I was always "Adelaide, our Scene Designer," and not "Adelaide, our Little Person." So on stage before a packed House getting a standing ovation was always a special moment in more ways than one.
One winter after a huge Opening Night performance at a theatre in Chicago where I was on loan, there had been a standing ovation for a certain Scene Designer and her work.
A few weeks later I had just entered a hospital elevator heading for yet another round of plasma and platelets. Suddenly a man dressed very nicely in a business suit rushed on. It was just the two of us.
Well it so happened he was going to the Hematology Department too. Never at a loss for plunging in to
try putting people at ease when they suddenly find themselves in an elevator with a Little Person dressed like a hippie, I asked, "So are you also here to have replaced what some vampire took out?"
At that he burst out laughing. "Yes, I am actually! I had cancer and the chemo caused chronic anemia. Uh, if you don't mind my asking my wife and I were at the theatre a few weeks ago for the huge Opening Night production. Are you the Scene Designer we saw?"
"KA-CHING! That's me! So what gave me away? My hippie style?!!"😂
Now he really laughed.
"For somebody heading to the same place I am you really have a cheerful way about you."
"Well, the alternative is having a bad attitude and that just isn't me. Negativity sucks. Besides, who wants to be around anyone who's no fun to be around?"
At that the door suddenly opened and we were on the Hematology Ward. I assumed we would not see each other again and warmly wished him well.
One side of the Hematology Ward faced Lake Michigan which I loved if a lounge chair was available. After checking in the nurse took me straight to a lounge chair facing Lake Michigan...next to...my new friend who happened to be a CEO on the Hospital Board!
"I hope you don't mind but I so enjoyed speaking with you I took the liberty to request having you seated next to me!"
"Well not at all! I have never had the pleasure yet of knowing anyone higher up the chain in hospitals than my doctors!"
"By the way, call me David."
"My name is..."
"Adelaide! I remember from the theatre. Adelaide, I know you probably have many challenges yet you're a Scene Designer, you have a horse..."
"Wait a minute! How do you know I have a horse?!!"
"Uh...I'm on the Theatre Board too."
"Holy shit! You get around!"
"How do you get ON your horse?!!"🤣
"By way of leaping from my car hood and hoping I land on their backs which I manage to do most of the time but sometimes I go flying right over them and have to repeat the whole process."
David was laughing so hard he had tears running down his cheeks.
"I can't recall when I have laughed so hard and I never dreamed it would be HERE of all places!"
"I have a tendency of making this happen to people."😂
"Okay, now HOW do you have such a good attitude about life with all your challenges? And why Theatre Scene Design? And HORSES?!! I need some of what you have because I really have been overwhelmed by my own challenges which are little compared to yours."
So I gave David a crash course in Adelaide 101 such
as gratitude attitude, those "and yets," the even thoughs, not allowing others have the power to make me FEEL little, to embrace courage, an indomitable spirit, to have boldness, humour, fun, walking TALL, plunging forth and not back if possible, serendipity, and aplomb...LOTS
of aplomb.
All at once we both noticed it at the same time...the unusual quietness on the ward.
You see the transfusion area usually has a T.V. blaring, chattering nurses and patients but EVERYONE was listening intently to OUR conversation.
This time David said the two words which meant I had already corrupted him...
"Holy shit, Adelaide! Look at the impact you're having on everyone!"
And then it happened.
Patients and staff suddenly began clapping. There were a lot of wet eyes but there were bright warm smiles with them.
After we were done David insisted on taking me "home" in his chauffeur driven limousine to the lovely old place that belonged to the theatre where I was staying.
From then on every two weeks he picked me up, we transfused together laughing and talking, then I was taken home afterwards. David was insistent I meet his dear wife Denise and I became a frequent guest in their huge home.
I wish I could tell you we remained friends for many years but sadly David was diagnosed with leukemia as a result of the chemo soon after we met and died following a very courageous fight.
A few weeks after the funeral Denise asked if I could come by. We were seated in a room overlooking Lake Michigan below.
"Adelaide, David and I both have known so many rich powerful people but no one outside of family and close friends had ever captured our hearts the way you came into our lives and did. I cannot begin to tell you how much you inspired and brought joy into our lives the way you have. Especially during these recent terrible months."
In her hands was a sealed envelope containing a letter from David.
"Not long before he died David wrote you this letter and asked that I give it to you."
She handed it to me. I still have the letter...a very treasured touching letter.
David strongly believed I came into his life when I did for some very special reasons that Someone beyond the stars and in the love within our hearts had orchestrated by bringing us together. David believed this because he said through me he found what he needed to fight the most daunting challenge of his life.
In the letter David expressed I had opened his eyes to my gratitude attitude just in time so he could show his family not only how much he appreciated them, but how deeply he loved them. This gave his family a gift they needed most, because you see this enabled them to rediscover each other and all the treasured happy moments of their family again.
It was a powerful letter.
One day I had shared with David a song I have held dearly for decades, "What A Wonderful World," sung by Louis Armstrong. The composers wrote the song with Mr. Armstrong in mind to sing it, and oh did he ever.
I shared it with David because no matter how tough or how shattering my life can be I still believe in the wonder of this world and the precious gift of friends. And horses.
I always will.
I see them bloom for me and you
And I think to myself what a wonderful world.
I see skies so blue and clouds so white
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night
And I think to myself what a wonderful world
The colours of the rainbow so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces of people going by
I see friends shaking hands saying how do you do They're really saying I love you
I hear babies crying. I watch them grow
They'll learn much more than I'll ever know
And I think to myself what a wonderful world
Yes, I think to myself what a wonderful world.
Lyrics by Bob Thiele, Composed by George David Weiss
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