What Would Catherine Do?

The only mentor I have ever had was Catherine Coke. She was my high school theater teacher and my advisor. She directed every show. She eventually taught me how to direct.

Catherine died a little over two years ago. I remember where I was when I found out. I was leaving a rehearsal for the sketch group I direct. I don’t even know how to describe the feeling I felt when I saw the text message. It was like I floated out of my body. When I think of that moment, I see myself trying not to fall down the stairs of my friend’s apartment building. It felt like a nightmare, and I was so desperate for it to be just that.

See the thing is, Catherine was sick, and she had been. I knew that the reality of the situation was that it would likely be the thing that took her life. But Catherine was stubborn and a fighter and it just felt like it should have been just another battle she checked off her list. She had emailed her students, both former and current, to let them know she had been diagnosed with cancer. She called it her “production” and she tackled it with the same sort of diligence and grace she would tackle anything else. There were always plans. So many plans.

For those of you who don’t know Catherine Coke, let me try my best to describe her. The most important thing to understand is that Catherine always wore heels. Always. I absolutely cannot remember a time where she did not wear heels. If you told me that Catherine ran a marathon in heels, I would believe it.

The heels meant you could always hear her coming. The click-clack of her heels was distinctive. Catherine wore heels but never wore dresses. She wore light-wash, high-waisted Levis, a purple, black, or white v-neck, and a cardigan everyday. Her sunglasses were always on the top of her head, even in her school photo. In the winter, she would add a scarf to this outfit. She had, as far as I am concerned, one jacket: an oversized tan bomber. I only ever saw Catherine eat cashews and maybe occasionally some soup, but she was always drinking coffee. She was always carrying around what seemed like an impossible amount of papers. She was impossibly cool.

I don’t really think I understood as a teenager how lucky I was to have Catherine in my life. I knew that she was important to me and I knew that she made me feel seen, but I don’t think I understood how influential she would be to my life, both personally and professionally. I had a strong, female role model that pushed me to be loud and ask for the things I wanted. What a rare joy.

When I went to college, I still regularly emailed Catherine and talked to her on the phone. I was incredibly indecisive about what I wanted to study, but the only community I knew how to be a part of was the theatre community, so that is where I ended up, thanks to both my habitual nature and many long conversations with Catherine about how I should pursue the thing that I felt good at and that I liked.

There was a while where I thought maybe I could still pursue acting, and its not that I am a bad actor, but it wasn’t my passion. Whenever I would mention acting, Catherine would say, “Sure, but don’t forget about directing.” She was the first person that ever saw leadership qualities within me. Directing is inherently a leadership role, and she knew I could do it. Whenever I doubted myself, I turned to her. I felt a kinship with her: we both used our anger to drive our passion, we both had a certain stubbornness to us. She was kind and understanding without being a pushover. She knew how to apologize. She knew how to admit her mistakes. And she knew how to do all of this with teens, no less.

One of the hardest things for adults to do is to treat teens as equals. She understood that we all had individual ideas that we wanted to express and she knew we needed an outlet for expressing them. Teens can’t always emotionally regulate and she respected that. She didn’t belittle our dreams, instead she worked her hardest to help us achieve them.

This is all to say that I never found another mentor. Maybe in part, because while she was still living, I didn’t feel like I needed one. I had the perfect one, thank you very much. In retrospect, this was a poor plan considering that I left college not really connected to any of my professors. I am and always have been shy and connecting with people felt arduous. I wanted them to just automatically understand me the way that Catherine had, but I’m not sure I’ve ever met someone other than Catherine who is capable of understanding their students so swiftly.

She was so gentle and yet stern. She understood my fragile depressed brain and allowed it the space to cry and create because it needed both. She didn’t let me give up on things she knew I could do. I wouldn’t be practicing theatre, let alone alive, without her guidance.

Catherine isn’t physically here anymore, but if there is anything I believe about death it’s this: you can see the impact a person had by how many people are changed by them. Her students, whether or not they pursued theater, are somehow stronger or braver for having known her.

When she died, her son, Cyrus, asked me to speak at her memorial service. I was honored and scared. I didn’t know how I was going to explain to everyone what a devastating loss this was. I felt guilty, like maybe I didn’t deserve this honor. There were only a handful of us, her former students, who were going to speak.

I have so many memories of her and yet none at all. They all sort of boil down to a feeling: a warmth, a comfort, a drive to do better. I remember the year that she gave us presents on her birthday. A journal for each of us. A very Catherine gift. I remember, at my high school graduation, her hugging me and whispering in my ear, “You did it. You’re out of here.” I remember calling her from my friend’s dorm room in New York City and talking to her for two hours, much to the chagrin of the person I was visiting—I’ll admit, not my best guest behavior. I remember skipping the first half of one of my AP Calc classes to sit in the auditorium with her while she just let me cry and she listened and she let me tell her how I was feeling. I remember watching Jesus Christ Superstar in her living room with the other theater seniors. (This may sound weird, but I went to a lot of my teachers houses senior year—I don’t know if this is specifically a weird private school thing, but it happened.) I remember her showing me how to take blocking notes during my first full-length directing process. I remember laughing. So much laughter. About anything and everything. I remember emailing her whenever I was panicked about my future. I remember the last time I saw her.

Last July, I got my first tattoo: her signature on my inner bicep. It was from the letter she wrote me upon graduating. Now, that letter is what I read whenever I am panicked about my future. She believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself.

Something she said in that letter has always stuck with me, “You will learn more about yourself and others every time you [direct], if you want to do it, because you are a person who is actually interested in growing with every new experience, thus you will get better and better.”

I try to remember that whenever I am disappointed in a process. I am always learning something new about myself and others, about what I am capable of, about what I still need to do to be better. She taught me that. She says I have an interest in it, but it’s only because she taught me how to want to get better and how to want to see my failings so that I can improve upon them.

I don’t know if any of you have noticed, but, um, shit’s pretty bad right now. It’s sad and depressing and I can’t get myself to do anything. I often wonder how Catherine would have faced a literal pandemic. What would Catherine do? I sort of just assume she would have tackled it the same way as her shows, or her “production,” or men who were to big for their britches. There would be a plan; there would be no self-pity; she would have checked in on all of us. Because that’s just what she always did. She would keep on trucking. She always did. She was a prolific note taker. Every single thing she did had a plan and a note about the plans.

There isn’t much else to do but to keep on going. To check in on people you care about. To ask for help when you need it. To take the time to learn things about yourself you didn’t know before.