Grief, Just Get Over It Already

For a moment, he looked younger than he usually did. Justin had always been a good student, and he had a way of carrying himself that made him seem capable even when he was unsure. But this was unfamiliar ground. He had to find his place in a maze of backstage rooms while also preparing to step in front of an audience.

I reached for his shoulder.

“You know your part,” I told him.

He nodded.

“And you know where you need to go.”

He glanced toward the stage. “Mostly.”

That answer made me smile, even though I was nervous for him. It sounded like Justin: honest, observant, and ready to make something funny out of whatever worried him. He had always been funny. Later, he would become known in our family for his terrible puns, the kind that made us groan before we laughed. Even then, there was a spark in him that did not disappear simply because he was uncertain.

A stage manager gave directions, and the students shifted into place. I moved aside, aware that I could not follow Justin onto the stage. I could help him find the room. I could remind him that he had practiced. After that, the work belonged to him.

The auditorium grew quiet in pieces. Conversations softened. Seats stopped scraping. The lights changed, and the brightness backstage seemed sharper against the dimness beyond the curtain. Justin stood with the other performers, waiting for his entrance. His hands were close to his sides, and I noticed the small movements in his fingers.

I knew those movements. He was holding his nerves there.

I wanted to tell him one more thing. I wanted to say that it did not matter if everything went perfectly, that he did not have to prove anything, that I was proud of him simply for being there. But the moment was already moving forward. The production had its own order, and Justin had to trust it.

When he went onstage, I found a seat in the audience with Sean, Faith, Jaxson, and Jaiden. The room smelled faintly of old lunch trays and the paper programs people held in their laps. I could hear the small sounds an audience made while settling: a cough, a whisper, the soft rustle of clothing.

Then the performance began.

I watched Justin as Oscar Delaney, and something in me loosened. The boy who had looked unsure in the hallway seemed different beneath the stage lights. He was still Justin, of course, but he had found a kind of freedom there. His face opened. His posture changed. He listened to the other performers and responded to them instead of simply waiting for his next line.

The unfamiliar place that had made him nervous became a place where he knew what to do.

There were moments when I forgot to be anxious. I watched the story move across the stage, but I kept returning to Justin. He had stepped into a world larger than the backstage hallway, and he was not shrinking from it. He was learning how to take up space.

Faith leaned toward me at one point. “He’s doing really well.”

“He is,” Sean whispered.

Jaxson watched closely, his attention fixed on the stage. Jaiden was younger and did not understand every part of the production, but he knew Justin was up there. He shifted in his seat whenever Justin appeared, as if he wanted to make sure we all saw him.

The performance was not perfect. It did not need to be. There were quick changes, entrances to remember, and the ordinary small mistakes that belonged to live theater. But Justin kept going. If something surprised him, he absorbed it and returned to the moment. His nerves did not vanish. He learned how to use them.

That was the change I saw before I had words for it.

Before the show, I had thought my job was to make Justin feel ready. I had tried to guide him through the hallways, reassure him, and keep my own worry from reaching him. But once he stepped onto the stage, I understood that readiness did not mean the fear was gone. It meant he could carry the fear with him and still perform.

When the final part ended, the audience applauded. The sound filled the auditorium, louder than I expected. Justin stood with the cast as the performers took their bows. The stage lights shone across his face, and even from my seat I could see his smile.

Faith clapped hard beside me. Jaxson joined in, and Jaiden raised his hands over his head. I felt pride move through me so quickly that it almost became tears. I had watched my son walk into an unfamiliar place and discover that it could hold him.

Afterward, the backstage hallway was crowded again. Families gathered near the doors. Students talked over one another, still wearing pieces of their costumes. The air felt warmer than before, and the smell of makeup, fabric, and stage dust clung to everything.

Justin came toward us with the cast still around him. His face was bright from the performance. He looked relieved, pleased, and a little surprised by what he had done.

“You did it,” I said.

He smiled. “I did.”

Faith amd Sean hugged him first. Jaxson gave him a proud look, and Jaiden moved close beside him. The four children had always had the kind of sibling relationship that included teasing, laughter, and the occasional irritation that came with being together so often. That night, though, their attention gathered around Justin.

I held him after the others, feeling the costume beneath my hands. He was still my middle-school son, still the boy who had needed help finding the right hallway. But he had also become something new to me: a performer who had stood before a room full of people and allowed them to see him.

“You looked like you belonged up there,” I told him.

He looked back toward the stage. “I liked it.”

Those three words stayed with me.

He liked it. Not only the applause, though he enjoyed that too. He liked the work, the preparation, the shared effort, and the way a person could become part of a story for a little while. He had found a place where his humor, focus, and sensitivity could meet.

We celebrated as a family in the simple way families often do. We talked about his best moments. We repeated small details from the performance. We laughed about the backstage confusion and how uncertain we had been about where to stand. Justin accepted our praise with a grin, sometimes looking embarrassed and sometimes clearly enjoying every second of it.

I remember how proud I felt, but I also remember the first hint of something else. His success made the next performance feel larger. Once he had shown what he could do, I began to wonder what he would do next. The first show had opened a door, and behind it waited more rehearsals, more costumes, more stages, and more chances for him to be seen.

At the time, I did not know how many productions would follow. I did not know that theater would become one of the places where Justin grew into himself. I did not know I would watch him perform in Frankenstein, Matilda, Wonka, The Addams Family, Frozen Jr., Shrek Jr., The Great Gatsby, SpongeBob the Musical, and many others. I did not know he would make us laugh as Trunchbull, bring warmth to Patrick Star, or take on roles that showed how much range he carried inside him.

I only knew that he had begun.

Looking back, I understand that first performance as more than a school production. It was the beginning of a pattern in Justin’s life. He would stay busy with school, choir, theater, friends, and work. At sixteen, he would work at Domino’s. Later, he would become an activity assistant at the assisted-living facility where I was the health and wellness director. Every October, he would take a second job as a scare actor at Batcity Scare Grounds. He was always moving toward something, always willing to enter a new place and learn how it worked.

That first backstage maze had offered a small version of what he would keep doing. He would feel uncertain, find his way, and then give himself fully to the moment.

Now, after losing Justin at nineteen, I return to that night often. He was already a father then in the future that I once imagined for him, though I could not see it yet. He would become the father of a six-month-old son before his death. He would continue making people laugh, working hard, and filling ordinary days with his presence.

But the memory that comes first is still that middle-school stage. Justin as Oscar Delancey. The lights on his face. His family gathered in the audience. The applause rising around him.

I had wanted to help him feel ready. Instead, he showed me that he already carried what he needed. He only had to step through the curtain.

End of chapter one. 8 more chapters and about 17,811 words in the full book.