After 560 days, we were welcomed to the rock by Joel Hatch yesterday, where he first appeared in “Come From Away” as the mayor of Gander. What we weren’t expecting was just how cathartic that welcome would be.

I have many ways to take this story, but if the writers could take 4,000 hours of documentaries and whittle them down to a 100-minute musical with only 12 actors, 14 chairs, and three tables, I can compile what I have to say into one muse. (I hope).

But we have to go back in time to when we first hoped to see “Come From Away.” Joel Hatch and I had already started a Twitter relationship. I found out quite a bit about him, but mainly that he wouldn’t be in that show we planned on attending. But the three of us planning the trip reserved the Broadway classroom, thinking that would be fun instead.

First Trip — 560 Days Ago:

✓54 Theater-goers
✓Bus, snacks & water
✓Restaurant reservation
✓Broadway classroom reservation
✓Non-refundable Tickets

Speaking of tickets, I had a bad premonition the Thursday before the show, and I contacted Harvey early that morning. “Whatever you have to do to make this happen, cancel those tickets. We got to get our money back or at least get a different date.” And he had a similar restless night’s sleep thinking the same thing.

We had to write a letter to the manager at the box office to explain that we were concerned about the health of older people coming on our trip due to the coronavirus. (No one called it Covid then. Boy, were we worried that we were overreacting).

And we got the letter in with the promise of getting our money back three hours before Broadway went dark for 18 months. (Boy, were we lucky that we took ourselves seriously).

Fast forward to this July, with talks of opening up Broadway again, we regrouped. Our planning abilities weren’t nearly as sharp as they had been the first time around; no longer were we raving about what outstanding tour guides we were, but we got tickets for September 25th. We lost some people and had to gain some others, and we no longer had the Broadway classroom option.

But I had started tweeting Joel Hatch again, and our relationship grew from tweets to emails to the promise that he’d be in the show this time and give us a talkback at the end.

With thoughts of our first failed trip still in our heads, we could only hope that Covid didn’t get the best of us a second time around.

Second Trip–560 days later:

✓51 Desperate, Broadway-Deprived Theater-goers
✓Bus, brownies, and water
✓Boxed lunches to eat on the bus (but serendipitously, we got to NYC early enough to picnic in Bryant Park)
✓Tickets with proof of vaccination, an ID, and a mask
✓Talkback (Yeah, Joel Hatch!!)

The first Saturday matinee in 18 months since “Come From Away” closed, and we finally got to Broadway. What a historical moment!

But these entire 560 days of our lives have been historical–not to mention the show itself (it’s about 9/11, after all). It was a lot to take in.

But the writers, David Hein and Irene Sankoff, gently led us into “Come From Away” in a way we could all handle it.

They delivered the story to us the Gander way, as Joel Hatch explained at the talkback. The writers would tear up, and then the Gander person they were interviewing would share three funny stories. So the script was written that way, three funny stories for every one that hits you.

And then his castmate, Pearl Sun, who we remember as the woman who took care of the animals stuck on the airplanes in Gander, joined the talkback, too. She said some moments are hard to deal with, but we move on; and by the end, you’re on your feet with the band.

Indeed, we had a new appreciation for the love of humanity and how to move through life’s difficulties–we even made peace with those haunting 9/11 moments in our lives. There was a power of healing on that stage and stirring in that audience.

And a chance to heal from this whole Covid ordeal, too, while we laughed at the two mentions of toilet paper. It’s like they knew that would become a thing when they said, “Looking for toilet paper.” and “Stop bringing toilet paper to the Lions Club.”

There were moments we could get swept away to something more personal, like when Joel Hatch is singing “Welcome To The Rock,” heck, I had a rock growing in my breast this time last year.

We’ve all been through our hells and maybe still going through them, but this show reminds us that all our individual stories are somehow collective, just like all their characters are compilations of multiple Gander counterparts.

We all have a well of sadness inside of us. And we were all letting it out yesterday. Audience members had red eyes, I couldn’t breathe like someone had punched me in the chest, and even Joel Hatch, when he finally got on stage for the talkback, couldn’t help but cry, too. The stagehand brought him a box of tissues.

It made me ashamed about a time in my life when I couldn’t feel like I could openly cry. A girl in 7th Grade lost her mom. After the funeral, she returned to school, and I couldn’t talk to her or even say hi. I didn’t know what to say, so I ignored her.

But “Come From Away” teaches us not to shy away from scary subjects. It teaches us how to laugh three times and cry, share our stories, and move on.

Pearl Sun had tears in her eyes too, and I can’t remember who said it, Pearl Sun or Joel Hatch, but it could have been either one of them, really, “Share the kindness you see on stage; share it with the world.”

If you can’t get to “Come From Away” in person, or even if you’ve already seen it, you can check it out on Apple TV; Sun said. That way, you can see more closely its machinations–close shots of the work people are doing emotionally.

When asked how Covid affected them, Sun said, “The appreciation of being together again is so much greater. We took it for granted because it was taken away for 18 months.”

Joel Hatch didn’t have to respond. His tears said it all.

We need each other–it’s a symbiotic relationship between the actors and the audience. Being deprived of one another for 18 months has taught us that.

For Playbill, Joel said, “I love the sound of an audience before a show. Each audience has its own personality, and I can’t wait to stand backstage and listen to those final moments before the show.”

I read his quote back to him, and he said with an adorable grin, “You don’t know it, but there are these little slits we can see the audience through.”

“Come From Away” helped me go back in time to mine the problematic parts, whether 9/11. Covid or cancer, but it’s all okay because we did it together, and somehow in that short period, we healed together, too. There’s always a place like Gander; you can make that place wherever you want it to be.

Yes, I wasn’t there for my 7th-grade classmate, it’s true, but the other day a woman rode up in the elevator with me at the hospital, and then we sat near each other. Her hair was shorter than mine, and I didn’t even feel weird about asking her, “Are you still in treatment?”

She said yes and gratefully rushed into her story. We laughed and talked, and she told me more. The doctor was running 30-minutes late, but they called my name way too soon, and I had to go. She was crying and smiling, and I told her to hang in there. “You’re my OTB, and I’m yours. Don’t you ever forget it. I’m praying for you, and I love you.”

Yesterday was a 560-day deferred broadway dream come true, but we weren’t expecting that our time there would teach us how sharing our stories can heal. Like the Come From Aways in Gander, we too, wouldn’t want to leave.