Tag Archive for 'charity benefit'

The Children’s Theater of Elgin’s Gala on Saturday, which doubled as a benefit for yours truly, was really something else.

I didn’t know if it’d be a show for me, or a show about me, but it definitely ended up being the latter. A lot of all my old friends performed, and it was really heartwarming to see so many people (maybe 170?) coming together for a young guy like me.

In all the worrying that I did about this night, it never once occurred to me that they might bring me on stage. Twice. Or that, once they put me on stage, that they’d dress me up in a tiara and beads. Or that there’d be a photographer from the local paper taking pictures of me in a tiara and beads. I gotta admit, that was pretty funny, though.

Almost my whole family was able to make it to the event, including my Aunt, who recently survived cancer, and my Cousin, who just had to go through a couple of sessions of chemo himself. I was really happy to see them.

The food was fantastic, and there was a full bar, and everyone was dressed up like we were at the prom. I must repeat myself – it was so nice to see so many of my friends in one place. As my brother said, “it was like a wedding, but nobody had to get married.”

The guys from my jazz trio, Casey and Alex, came and I dedicated a few tunes to my parents, my Catie, and my brother. The boys came and played gratis, like everybody else that night. It really meant a lot to me that I could perform for everyone that night – that I would have the energy and the life to play jazz for a roomful of my favorite people.

The jazz was followed by dancing on the big dance floor, and then it just all ended too quick. The dancing could have continued throughout the night, for the whole weekend, and maybe the whole week…so that I might not have had to go to my final chemo. We could have invited the nurses and the doctors, and Shirley and William – maybe we could have gotten Shakey McShakerson and his big white truck to come. Free PET scans for everyone! What a week it would have been.

Thanks to CTE, to the CTE Board, to Peter Akemann, to Susan Heaton, to Bill Brown, to all my friends that performed: Jess, Colleen, Andy, Chris, Allison, Eleni, Budgie, Courtney, Ken, Katie, Rachel, Abbie, Cathy, Jessie, Matthew, Jake, Casey, Alex and Brianna. You guys were great. This all meant a lot to me, I won’t forget it.