New Hampshire author, educator and comic story teller Cindy Pierce likes honesty and, when possible, a healthy splash of humor. So when her 93-year-old mother died in 2019, Pierce channeled her grief into a one-woman show intended to honor her mother's life and resonate with others caring for aging parents.
The play is called Keeping It Inn, a title that refers both to the rustic New Hampshire inn Pierce’s parents ran for more than 30 years, and the devastating emotional losses people often keep tucked inside.
“People say, 'Oh, the show’s about dementia ...‘The show is a comedy show, a one-woman show.' No," explains Pierce, "It is about so many things. It’s about family, it’s about a relationship, it’s about a crazy inn.”
It’s about the complicated bond between mothers and daughters, about love and loss and what stays in your mind when your mind starts to go.
“It’s about life,” says Pierce, specifically the last six decades of her mother Nancy's life.
"She was a fiery, smart, funny, no nonsense lady,” she adds.
Nancy Pierce was born in 1926, went to Smith College and fell hard for a Dartmouth student named Reg. Cindy recalls her mother telling her, "Your father was the first guy I knew who didn't want me under his thumb. He appreciated my opinions. He liked my sense of humor. He let me finish my sentences.”
Reg and Nancy Pierce got married in 1949. Reg worked in advertising and the couple lived outside New York City. They had nine children.
Two of their sons, however, would never grow up. Angus died from measles just before his 4th birthday and Rodney died at 3 months. “And that, really wrenched," says Cindy. "And that happened five months apart and my mother was pregnant with my older sister."
There wasn't much time to process their grief, says Cindy, adding that her dad's high pressure, boozy, corporate lifestyle didn't help.
In 1971, her parents hit the reset button, bought a rustic inn and moved to Etna, New Hampshire.
“On a whim, they bought an inn and moved us up here with four kids in college thinking my dad's like, 'I went to business school, I'm a pretty good business guy, I can figure this out.'"
But Cindy says being an innkeeper was a lot harder than anyone expected, and after two years, the family lost all their money. At that point, she says, her father handed the business over to her mother and he took over all the housekeeping, the toilet cleaning, the bed making. "They just did it differently.”
At the inn, Cindy says her parents were a team and her mom was in her element despite — or maybe because — of the chaos of guests, so many kids and money problems. Cindy, the baby, remembers a crazy but wonderful childhood.
After her siblings grew up and moved on, Cindy and her husband Bruce Lingelbach took over the inn, and they watched Nancy navigate first widowhood, then memory loss.
"And there were times, you know, in the beginning when she started to lose her memory, and she'd say something, and I'd be correcting her hoping like, I could mop that up, that I could get her back on track because you're in denial."
She says Nancy's failing health impacted her children differently.
“And the thing is, if you don't want to see that your parent has dementia, and she doesn't want you to see it, she can do 10 minutes — she's got a few bits that she can throw out. And everyone's like, 'Look, sharp as a tack.' So once again, keeping it in, like, let's pretend everything's wonderful,” Cindy says.
As Nancy’s dementia worsened, long buried grief over losing her children resurfaced, which Cindy says was tough to see. And she says her mom would get understandably frustrated.
"But my mom and I, we laughed and loved and hugged right to the end. We had such a strong connection. It was a beautiful thing. But caregiving ... It tried my patience more than parenting three children and more than being a first grade teacher," she admits.
Writing about her mother helped. As a comic storyteller she tried to find the humor of it all and the love. Her siblings, she says, supported her and provided stories.
While the play has comic moments, it’s also painful in its honesty, and there's an underlying message that Cindy hopes other families will take away.
"Life is glitchy, parenting is glitchy ... same with being a sibling," she says. "So be kind to yourself, let yourself off the hook. That's what all my work is about."
Writing the play was one thing. Performing on stage as her mother was another. Cindy says her director challenged her to not just imitate her mother in the show, but become her.
“That was a transition that took me a bit," she admitted.
She remembers rehearsing a particularly hard scene when her mom is 82 and dealing with the loss of her husband.
"And all of a sudden, it felt like she came into me. I suddenly had new gestures, I had the neck position of her neck pain, her slight hunch," Cindy says. "It was the strangest sensation to feel her with me. I mean, it was powerful.”
She says her mom has helped like that more than once.
In fact, the night before her interview with Vermont Public, Cindy admits she went to bed worrying she’d forgotten how to do her mother’s hairstyle and what products and sprays she needed.
When she woke up, she says her husband told her he found a strange message on their land line’s answering machine.
“And it’s from at least five years ago," says Cindy. "It’s the hairdresser and the person comes on and says, ‘Hello Cindy.' I don't even think she says her name but she talks about having me drop my mom off after her doctors appointment as late as possible."
“That's when I feel like big Nancy is like, 'Hey, I know if I appeared in the living room to say hello you would die on the spot. And I know you got a few shows coming up. So I think I'll make sure you know I'm here in this way.'”
Cindy Pierce performs Keeping It Inn May 11 at the Southern Vermont Arts Center in Manchester; May 31 through June 2 at Main Street Landing in Burlington; and at the Briggs Opera House in White River Junction June 7-9.
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