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>> Imagine if someone said you had six months to a year, like would you keep doing your job?
My mom did.
If you look at a life like a piece of art, then mom's got this huge, huge,
vibrant canvas that people keep wanting to come and see because it makes them feel good.
[ Music ]
She really just saw everything as a gift, that's mom.
That's the way she lived her life.
I have a twin brother named Scott and I have a younger brother, DJ.
We were always drawing, year after year, things she wanted us to remember, art is part of life.
There's no doubt that when my parents separated, they went above and beyond to say, you know,
this is not you, you're so loved, we love you so much.
I give them so much credit and what a gift that my parents gave to us by not fighting.
>> What was she doing for work at that time?
>> So, she rented this small space at the back
of a dance studio, she started a theater program.
We would go and we would act, and learn to write plays, and sing songs,
and she names us the Show Biz Kids with red t-shirts that had white letters,
you know, ironed on to the front.
In the beginning, she's like, "Well, we need scenery and we have no money,
so let's get a refrigerator box and let's paint something and throw some glitter on it
that can stand behind these kids when they stand up there and sing."
Mom, right from the beginning, was like, "Well, we should take this around to other people."
So, I remember going to the library and then she would say,
"Can we do a free show for any kids there?"
We went to some hospitals and when you're in a hospital and you're in front of kids,
you feel so good putting a smile on their face.
So, kids told other kids, parents told other parents, the program,
now it grows from eight kids to, I think it got to be almost a hundred kids
and she's like, I have something here.
This is growing, this is a good program, this is a worthwhile.
>> Your mother approaches the Paper Mill Playhouse with an idea, what is it?
>> She came to knock on the door here at the Paper Mill and said, "I love your theater
and everything you do here is great but you guys should have a children's theater program
and I can help, all I need is a space."
[ Music ]
"You don't have to pay for scenery, I'll do the scenery myself," and so they give her a shot.
And they invest in her and the program grows.
She is turning out these productions and turning out, more importantly, these students,
these confident, compassionate, talented kids, year after year.
It becomes this labor of love.
I think she just finds her true calling.
>> I love a story, I love a sense of personal history, it's the thread of life.
My name is Christine DaCruz and I'm a multimedia artist.
I make thread drawings over paper.
My work has always been about celebrating life and memorializing the lives
of people, so it's like a slow build.
The first layer is going to be like a base color and then the next one will be
like the most predominant color and then once it's all complete,
it kind of looks like the colors are changing.
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There's something really incredible about handmade, about seeing the touch
of someone's hands in their work.
Mickey made things with her hands that she was in love with this idea
of creating a world for her students.
She really went out of her way to find whatever resources she could
to make beautiful set designs, you know, most times, just using cardboard.
I thought that that was a real indication of not only that she was super creative
but also super passionate about how much love and life she brought
to everyone that she encountered.
>> The Paper Mill, for my mom, was a second family, without question.
They adored her and she loved them right back,
especially when she initiates this special-needs program and I'm speaking of my daughter
at this point, who has special needs.
She was in a class that my mom taught with all other regularly abled kids and my daughter,
Mary, is another actor in the show, so the kids treat her as such.
And now, they're learning empathy and they're learning to work as a team.
[ Applause ]
Mary called my mom Angel and my mom called Mary her Angel, so they just --
they had this special bond from the get-go.
A lot of people think, oh, it's -- it's a Downs syndrome kid, they're all alike --
but kids with Downs syndrome are more like their siblings and their family than they are
like other kids with Downs syndrome.
We're just a normal family.
They love each other and they fight, like any other brothers and sisters would.
[ Background noise ]
I wish other people could experience the love that I get from Mary.
What dad comes home to his 14-year-old who will get up and still run to the door
and give me a huge hug and a -- yeah, I feel really blessed.
>> I've been thinking a lot about this recently, like you are who you were always meant to be.
There's something inside of you that you know what the direction that your life is supposed
to take and I'm getting more and more comfortable with this idea, where I always knew
that I was going to be an artist.
I'm sure with Mickey, she probably felt exactly the same way.
This piece is called Mickey McNany, Show Biz Kid.
[ Music ]
Being an artist, it's going to be a life struggle, for sure,
but I think that her story is a good story of not only struggle but perseverance.
[ Music ]
>> She said her stomach wasn't feeling well, so she just went in to have it checked out.
The doctors found out that they had found some cancer.
It was colon cancer and it was in liver as well.
It was pretty far along.
We're all together and she's like, "I just --
you know, I want to let you know what I've decided to do is not to fight this
and I want you guys to be okay with it."
[ Music ]
It's really hard to hear, you know?
Because it's like, well, wait a minute, you know, if you don't fight it, then --
you know, then you're going to die and that's -- that can't be the option.
But she's a very, you know, rational person.
She's like, "I -- I've lived an amazing life.
Look at my relationship with the three of you."
She's like, "My family could not be better."
And she and my dad are just still the best of friends.
And then by the way, she's -- she has this amazing body of work that she's built
up at the Paper Mill, where she's touched thousands of lives.
So, she's like, "I'm good.
But let's not be sad all year.
Let's -- every day is a gift and can we enjoy each day?"
My dad, he moves in with my mom and he takes the upstairs room in her house and he was like,
"I'm just going to be here and if you need anything, I'll just be here."
It's a lesson in care and friendship between two people, it's an amazing example.
[ Music ]
She told a very small group here at the Paper Mill,
"I'm going to continue working as long as I can."
[ Music ]
She had been at the Paper Mill 30 years now,
so it's quite a career, so she announced her retirement.
There was just this outpouring of student after student,
writing these heartfelt notes about what my mom did for them.
She would say, "How am I so lucky that I get this, that I get to hear all this,
all these amazing stories from all these amazing kids."
Now if you could sign up for how you'd like to go and say, "Oh, I'd love to --
for it to be a snowy day and have my family around me and for me
to be at peace," I'd sign up for that.
And we're around the bed and holding her hand and just trying to say, you know, "We're good.
You can go.
You've -- we love you and we'll see you."
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>> My heart aches for him.
I feel like he's dealing with a tremendous loss after losing his mother but I feel
like she gave her children the structure and the support that they would need to get them
through this difficult time, that there's still happy days ahead of them.
He's probably very much his mother's son
and he'll continue her legacy of inclusion and creativity.
[ Music ]
>> It wouldn't have been my mom if it was a sad, mourning funeral full of tears.
When you walked in, you saw a headshot of my mom smiling her beaming smile
but they had these paintbrushes and on the side and with a note, inviting people to take one
and it just said, create some art with your life.
Share your gift.
I mean I had people tell me that they've never been
to a happier funeral, which is a weird thing to say.
[ Music ]
Life is hard enough when you lose someone that you care about
and financial stuff doesn't make it any easier.
Mom didn't have a lot of life insurance.
She had a small policy, so really what she had for us was her house, which was a little house,
because it was just her, but what a gift to be able
to have some insurance to help ease some of the burden.
I'm grateful that mom had a little bit.
[ Music ]
But if there are financial challenges to raising a special-needs child,
life insurance can be a really good vehicle for special-needs families.
We don't know that they'll ever be entirely on their own, so how do you provide for them?
How do you protect them?
A way that people do it is they'll create a special-needs trust.
They'll buy a life insurance policy and have it feed into the special-needs trust
so that upon the death of a parent, or both parents, her brothers can use this trust
to help take care of her and make sure that she's as comfortable
as she can be and living a productive life.
I distinctly remember driving around, through high school and beyond,
if you saw a refrigerator box on the side road, you had to stop and pull over,
and pick it up, and bring it back for mom.
To this day, I think if I saw one, I would throw it in the back of the car and bring it back.
I studied painting in college, so this is our thing.
So, our basement was always paint and cardboard, and glitter everywhere.
If you paint a piece of cardboard and throw some glitter on it, and it sparkles in the light,
and it shines, and it lights up, and that's what she wanted her kids
to do, her actors, just shine.
Just be up there on stage and share your gift and shine.
And now, it's everywhere because you can't clean up glitter, it's just everywhere.
So, still, to this day, I'm driving or I pull out, you know, this --
you know, my box of paintbrushes that were mom's paintbrushes and there's glitter everywhere
and you see glitter and you're like, oh, mom, mom's here.
After the funeral and everybody in the congregation comes
over to stand outside the Paper Mill around mom's casket and sing and, you know,
we don't throw flowers on mom's casket, you throw glitter.
So, there's glitter all over the casket
and then the kids are writing their initials, their hearts on it.
Man, you know?
Yeah, throw glitter.
She's always said that she'll show us signs that she's around and looking out for us
and especially on a day like today, I believe she is.
[ Music ]
Wow. Pretty amazing.
I love it.
I love it.
>> Oh, good.
>> I love it.
Can I get a hug?
>> Yeah. I am so happy that you like it.
>> Thank you.
>> You're welcome.
>> That's just sort of like smiling and on stage performing.
>> Yeah.
>> You know?
I'm blown away, I'm blown away.
I mean I appreciate it on so many levels, you know?
>> The glitter reference was definitely helpful to make sure that we included that like bling -
>> Yeah.
>> That she likes.
>> That's absolutely her.
>> This is her curtain call, you know?
It really is.
>> I mean she did so much good here but we feel like maybe she can do more good where she is now
and touch and inspire more people.
My brother wrote an amazing eulogy.
Maybe mom, her whole life, has just been training us all to get ready for this moment
and now, she's gone and now it's our time to shine on this stage that is life.
So, whatever you do in life, whatever is your chosen career, do it better.
So, if you sing, sing louder.
And if you paint, paint bigger and brighter.
And if you help people, help more people every day.
I strive for that.
[ Music ]