You Are Different, Fred

A month has gone by since the play I’m Proud of You - which we co-produced with Harrisburg, Pennsylvania’s Open Stage theater - ended its four-week run. The reception we experienced was phenomenal. The superlative feelings we felt during and after each performance continue to remain intense and real for us. When we’re out in public and meet with or  run into people who attended a performance, we continue to hear how much the play’s message and performances dug into their hearts and made them feel as if they were in the presence of something profound, something special, something sacred.

“It’s what the world needs right now”, so many people declared, grateful that we brought its message to a weary, fractured world. 

In the scene that is the emotional heart of the play, the journalist Tim Madigan’s - whose memoir the play is based upon - journal entries are recited. In them, Tim writes about his feelings of inadequacy, shame, depression, and anger. He writes that his life is “slipping away”. That he wants to hide from the world. That he doesn’t want to be in the world anymore. That the pain of living is “just too great”.

It's the only place in which he feels he can be fully honest. 

But in desperation, or maybe inspiration, Tim decides to expose his truth to his close and trusted friend Fred (Mister) Rogers, in a June 1996 letter, asking if Fred would be proud of him.

He shares his feelings of humiliation and fear with Fred. He admits that no matter what he did, he never felt as if he was enough, especially for his father. 

Tim says that he wouldn’t be here today, if he hadn’t taken the very vulnerable risk of unmasking himself before Fred and saying what he had never said to anyone else before. 

“You are different, Fred”, he declares. I don’t have to do anything to earn your love and approval. You seem to see something in me that I can’t see in myself. That difference gave Tim the courage to be vulnerable.

“You are different, Fred”.

And in a most powerful, cathartic letter in reply dated just a week later, Fred unabashedly, unconditionally, declares that he is already proud of Tim, has been since the day they met, and always will be proud of him. That “nothing could ever change that”.

Yes, Fred Rogers was different. He did not judge. He did not condemn. He did not shame Tim. He simply loved Tim unconditionally, and gave him the safe space to unburden himself without fear or regret. Fred, then, simply kept on telling Tim that he was proud of him, and never stopped telling him. He didn’t give up on Tim. He didn’t find fault with Tim. Fred simply, unrelentingly, loved Tim into being less ashamed, less frightened, more reassured, and more confident that he mattered, was worthy of someone being proud of him, and was absolutely loved.

Fred saw the goodness in Tim. He saw the potential in Tim. He saw the beauty in Tim. He saw the pain in Tim and soothed it with his empathy and compassion. He saw the sacredness in Tim and showed him time after time after time that Tim deserved - because he was a human being - the gift of knowing all of that about himself. It changed Tim’s life - for the good.

Yes, Fred Rogers was different. He was unrelentingly generous, gracious, and kind. He looked for the good in everyone. He found it in everyone. He expressed it to everyone.

Someone To Tell It To’s values closely, deeply align with Fred Rogers’ values and the intentional way he lived out those values. We try our very best to do the same. It is at the core of our being and our serving. 

In this Mental Health Awareness Month, we celebrate those good people who try to do the very same, as well. It is those people who are different, too, who are changing the world, making it safer to express our fears, and creating the spaces for everyone to feel heard and known, and providing the care and concern that begins to help others to be set free to live in places of peace, gratitude, and love. 

You can be different, too.