I was, am and always will be a mama’s boy. Not in a creepy, Norman Bates, refer to her as “mother” with dead eyes way, but just for the simple fact that my mom and I shared a beautiful, positive and close relationship that has always been a loving rock in my often chaotic life.
Some of the relationships I have in my life and the conversations within them are like a Britney Spears song. Sure, it might be fine and catchy but it took Max Martin and a whole team of super producers to make it happen. On the other hand, my relationship with my mom Betsy and the daily talks we had were like jazz, just organic and intuitive. We’d never know where they would take us but the results were almost always superior.
So, when my mom passed away after a short battle with pancreatic cancer in 2017, my world fell apart. A hole was created in my heart that to be honest, still does and probably always will remain. How does one recover from experiencing such a profound loss? The one tool I had that I knew I would rely on was storytelling.
A few years prior, I started getting on stage sharing stories from my life and it instantly clicked. While I’ve always leaned towards humor, with storytelling I could do that and also tap into my own vulnerability. At my mom’s funeral, I even told a story that I had told on stage and eventually went on to tell it on a PBS show. But that’s as far as it went.
The first months after her passing were a blur. Creatively, I was shot. I’d try to write ideas down and it was all just too new, raw and painful. And then someone pissed me off.
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There was a person in my life who was doing things in my mom’s name and, while said individual might not have meant to be disrespectful, I couldn’t help but feel hurt that they wouldn’t run it by my brother and I first or, at the very least, give us a heads up. I politely said as much in a private Facebook message and received the following response:
“YOU DON’T HAVE A COPYRIGHT ON YOUR MOM’S LEGACY.”
To say I saw red doesn’t even begin to describe the wave of anger that came over me upon reading those words and in fact, the good folks at Crayola would need to invent a whole new color to accurately depict what I felt.
To just cut this person out of my life wasn’t enough, I needed revenge. So I did what any sane, rational person would do in this situation: I attempted to copyright my mom’s legacy. As it turns out, this person was correct — you cannot legally copyright a human’s legacy. However, in the court of Greg, they were guilty of being a heartless weenie and the only suitable punishment was to write a one man show all about it.
And that’s the true story of how You Don’t Have a Copyright on Your Mom’s Legacy (and Other Dumb Things People Say When You’re Mourning) was born. Someone was a huge jerk and I had to get my revenge. As it turns out, I got so much more out of it. The more I wrote, the more I was able to process my sorrow, anger and pain and release much of it.
A lot happens when you experience loss and sometimes you just have to laugh it off. For those who have had to go through it, I hope you can connect to the healing of this show as much as you do the anger.
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