In this show (as in all the shows I’ve done), I gain so much from having an audience. Each night, their reactions — their gasps and sobs, their laughter and deep silences — teach me more about this story we’re sharing. Their presence is a gift, and hearing their reflections and insights afterward is humbling.

After one of our shows, a friend said, “To think, this is how the immigrants who are living right among us feel. So afraid, never knowing when ICE might knock on their door.”  

She and her husband took us out for ice cream that night. Sitting outside in the cool dark, licking my ice cream cone as the adrenaline drained from my body, her husband told us, in his thick German accent, the story of his pacifist parents in Europe in the 1930s…

…How his father had to flee in the dead of night, leaving his wife and newborn baby behind and walking on foot into Switzerland.

…How the Gestapo came to their home a few days later and axed up their house searching for forbidden documents until the young wife became so irate that she ordered them to leave, and, miraculously, they did.

…How she fled the village with the community’s women and children in the back of a covered truck and, when they arrived at the border and the guards opened the truck’s doors, the stench of shit and vomit was so strong that they closed it up again and let them through.

…How the family took refuge in England for a few years (as Germans, they were placed in internment camps) and then immigrated to Paraguay on a ship that had to go out of its way to avoid the military submarines (and on its return voyage to Europe, the ship, now full of meat, was torpedoed and sunk).

I hear that a Holocaust survivor, a gentleman who had been imprisoned in Belsen during the war and is about the same age Anne would’ve been if she’d lived, will be attending our show this weekend.

Yesterday I received an alert from our church regarding the impending construction of a new ICE facility in our town. So, following the urgings of the email’s author, I emailed the relevant community leaders to ask that they not sign off on the new facility. Because immigrants are to be cared for, not treated as enemies.

And then I closed with this: “And, if you need a reminder of what happens when one group of people demonizes, hunts, and casts out another group of people, please go to Court Square Theater this weekend to see The Diary of Anne Frank.”

Shameless advertising, and snarky, too, but really, I don’t give a fig. Stories like this one are relevant. We need them.

Below is an excerpt of a message I received this morning:

Bravo, bravo, bravo!  What a wonderful production last night! … I have seen this stage work on a number of occasions, but this interpretation stands head and shoulders above all of the others. Kudos to you actors and to the directors. I felt the joy, the frustration, and the terror unlike I had ever experienced in previous productions. 

I was quite impressed with the detailed thought. In particular, the tactic of keeping you actors on stage during intermission pushed me into a deeper level of thinking. I whipped out my phone during intermission to send a few text messages. As I was freely sending these messages, there was something ominous about simultaneously seeing you actors “locked” in that space and recognizing that this locked space extended so far beyond a 15-minute intermission. Very effective. 

I did not clap at the end. I couldn’t. I left thoughtfully, thankfully, and prayerfully. 

Thank you for … helping to generate such a thought-provoking show. I am grateful.   

Just three shows left.

It’s been an honor.

This same time, years previous: settling in, the quotidian (5.9.16), the quotidian (5.11.15), immersion, so far today, one more thing, lemony spinach and rice salad with fresh dill and feta.

Last Wednesday, we had Francie, our family dog of nearly fourteen years, put to sleep.

She’d been going downhill for several years. First, she’d developed tumors, and then she went deaf. She had arthritis, too (or something similar), so for months now, we’ve been giving her a baby aspirin every morning along with her food. She’d always been a sweet and docile dog — and more obedient than my own children — but as she aged, she became even sweeter. (I’ll be lucky if I age even half as well.)

Then Monday, she stopped eating. On Tuesday, we brought her inside where she stretched out on the floor, sometimes barely breathing. We thought she might die at any minute, so my older son sat beside her, studying for his semester finals and keeping a close eye on her.

But then she stood up and walked outside.

That evening, she refused to lay back down. For hours, she sat there, trembling and panting, every now and then shifting her weight uncomfortably from one hip to the other.

Wednesday morning, my husband called the clinic and set the appointment for 3:30 that afternoon. The day dragged. In between grocery shopping and kickboxing, chores and finals, the kids took turns sitting beside her, stroking her head and crying.

We discussed where to bury her, and who wanted to go along to the appointment. The boys all wanted to go — my younger son wanted me to go, too — and the girls decided to stay at home. But last minute, as we loaded Francie into the van, the girls, unable to leave Francie, climbed in, too.

The ride to the clinic was silent but for children’s crying. In the clinic waiting room, we were a hot mess, all tears and snot. The staff didn’t waste much time trundling us back to the examining room. The vet, a quiet-spoken older gentleman I’d never met, gave her a sedation shot, and then left the room.

It took only a couple minutes for Francie’s panting to slow and for her to gradually relaxed onto the floor. When the vet returned, my older son lifted her to the table, and the girls left the room. The vet shaved a small spot on her leg and injected her with the medication. Within seconds, she was gone. 

On the drive home, her sheet-wrapped body tucked in the trunk like the grandfather in Little Miss Sunshine, we remembered the first time, thirteen years before, that we’d brought her, whimpering in a crate in the back of the car, to our house — we’d named her Francie on that ride. As we got closer to home, our sadness slowly lifted. The hard, necessary task was finished.

At home, my older son dug the hole. He removed her collar, and lowered her in.

Francie’s death is, by far, the healthiest death I’ve ever experienced with a pet. It left us utterly drained, of course (that evening my older daughter came to watch our invited dress rehearsal, which was, perhaps, an unwise choice: she was so traumatized by seeing the play only a few hours after Francie’s death that she’s refused to come see an actual performance), but there’s not the lingering, piercing sadness we felt after Alice was killed.

This time, there’s just relief that it’s over, and gratefulness for the many years we had with our sweet Francie.

This same time, years previous: the quotidian (5.8.17), Moroccan carrot and chickpea salad, how it is, the quotidian (5.6.13), the family reunion of 2012, my boy, roasted rhubarb.