Over this last week, a lot of bad things have happened to me; the death of somebody near and dear to me, the death of my dog, and a really bad sprained ankle. They all happened as what seems like at once, but what kept me sane this week was the quote "First, do what is necessary, then do what is possible and suddenly you are doing the impossible." This quote is something I hear the first day of my freshman year of high school and from the first day I ever met M.
Tom Marcello, who we all called "M", was my high school's "Practical Applications in Literature" teacher, a class everybody called Drama. He was the director for our school's theatre company but little did I know at that time that he was far, far more than just a teacher. The first day of his classes, he always started off by telling us that we would all be on stage before the end of the year, and each time there were hundreds of eye-rolls to be had, but somehow, everybody followed suit. He had an aura about him that somehow got people to obey what he said, even if it was through an insult. He commanded respect in a way that was so humble and sincere. M knew what he wanted and how to make it happen in nothing short of a spectacular way.
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The first time I realized how deeply M cared for all of us was a day where before class had started, he called me up to his desk. He asked me what was wrong, I told him nothing simply because I didn't want to talk about what was going on with me and the girl who was my best friend. But he knew I was lying and told me exactly what I wasn't going to tell him, he just knew. That moment I realized he cared about more than just the classwork. He cared about the well being of his students. He cared about their feelings. A few weeks later was the first play of the year which meant the first Hell Week.
My first Hell Week was eye opening. Not necessarily to just what happens behind the scenes of a production, but to how incredible M really was. He took literally hundreds of teenagers and managed to make them work together so flawlessly to produce a seamless production in a way that is unfathomable to the outside world. Day in and day out, he pushed his actors and backstage staff to be the best they could be to take the audience on a journey away from the real world, which we always seemed to do perfectly. With each blow of that dreaded whistle, you knew that you had messed up. You knew that M was going to tell you to do some obscene gesture like run through the brick wall head first because you had messed up your lines so bad. But you also knew that he was being so picky because he knew of your fullest potential and didn't want you to fall short of being absolutely fabulous. You knew he wanted you to be your best because he knew what you were capable of doing. You also knew that if you didn't do it the right way for the rest of the rehearsal that night that you were most likely going to catch his shoe in your face, or he was going to threaten to egg your house while you went to sleep that night.
I was a part of the theatre company for all four years in high school, participating in over 10 productions on the Makeup Crew. When people think of plays, you dont exactly think of the backstage people required and if you do, it's typically just stage crew and props. But M always remembered every single person, on every single crew, of every single production. He always remembered to bring in little surprises for your crew each day he got to see you and always made you feel like you were detrimental to the show. Whether you were the lead role or the person in charge of putting lipstick on "Town Boy #7", he made sure that you felt loved and important to the success of the show.
M's influence went beyond just the stage. He taught us how to articulate our words to speak clearly and project our voices to fill a whole auditorium. He taught us how to be confident in ourselves and the work we've done because if we weren't, then nothing would run as well as it should have. He taught us how to find within ourselves a way to overcome the "impossible". M took every single one of his students he encountered in his 40 years of teaching and treated us as if we were his own children. He could tell you something one of his students had done from 1987 and describe it as if it had happened yesterday, he just cared that much about all of us. Every year he would tell us that he was retiring, for ten years the excuse went on, until it finally happened.
Monday, September 19, 2016, I woke up to news of M passing and it was a moment that I felt the world stop turning. Somebody that I had spent more than 70% of my high school years with was now gone and I would never get to walk backstage again to hear him say "Miss Roberts, the makeup looks ravishing this evening, you and Miss Raposo did a beautiful job." Scrolling through all forms of social media this week has been hard, but it was been flooded with moments and pictures and text messages and memories, all of M, from all over the world from all of the people he had touched. Every millennium you'll come across somebody that imprints on everybody they come across. He just happened to be that somebody. M left a lasting impression on everyone he met and it is so comforting to know that so many people were feeling the same pain I was also feeling. It hurts me knowing that us and current students will never hear his keys cleaning as he walks down the hall again, or that we will never see him sitting behind the blue desk in the middle of the auditorium, but somehow I know he is still here in every moment. I'm sure he's making sure we all have a rotten day every day, just like normal.
Now, every interview I go on, every speech I give, every presentation I do, the little voice in the back of my mind will be a little louder telling me not to "drop the end of your words and speak strongly and clearly". Now, all of it will be for M, because M would want all of this to happen for us in return. I guess you finally picked one of the eight auditorium doors to leave out of M, I think we just wish the door to visit wasn't so far away.
Have a rotten day, M. With never ending love,
Miss Roberts
