IN THE FACE OF LIFE AND DEATH, WILL ACT: MICHELLE BEST

It was by happenstance that my family and I came upon the little area beyond Chelsea Piers with ping pong tables and a few food vendors about four years back. We were wandering on a Saturday, playing tourists in the Big City. There was another family there as well, a mom and two girls my boys’ ages, and a little small white dog, chasing after the ping pong balls.

The mom flashed a big broad smile and walked over to us. “I’m Michelle, that’s Maddie, and that’s Gracie. And that,” she pointed to the little dog, jumping back and forth and around like one of those little battery-operated dogs you see in a toy store, “is Betty.”

Her accent was Southern, and so was her attitude: expansive and friendly, like we were all of us neighbors.

I smiled at her and pointed at the dog. “It’s amazing, I was just thinking, how dogs are like little anti-depressives.” She nodded vociferously, as if she knew exactly what I meant. We learned then that Michelle was “a widow,” a word she curled her mouth around dramatically and followed with a loud boisterous laugh that lasted through high highs and low lows, her long dirty-blonde tresses shaking as she threw her head back with great mirth and mettle.

Strength came to mind. Resilience. Fun.

She was an actress so serious about her craft that she lived right on 42nd St. In the recollection of the story of our first meeting, Michelle always quotes my husband, Geordie, as saying that when she told me she was an actress, he said, “And here’s where she lowers the boom…”

I was collecting inspiring artists, and it was obvious from the start that I’d found one in Michelle. Her personal story was dramatic, told with a flare for the extreme. Living and dying both were going to be loud, and joyous, damn it. (Here's where she'd grab you by the ass, with both hands.

I immediately took her number and told her I’d call. Did she want to work with kids? Of course, she was already an acting coach, and she rattled off her CV in the way only a die-hard dedicated theater actress living in Times Square could. I knew none of the names, but I knew she was serious.

Michelle and her girls came out to Brooklyn a few weeks later so Michelle could work with kids at the Fall Festival at my boys’ elementary school in Park Slope to raise money for InspireCorps, my nascent nonprofit. They came back to our place and stayed for hours. They were almost immediately like family.

A few weeks after that, Michelle joined me to do a “Live at Lunch” program at PS81, a series of fast lunchtime workshops that would expose the school to the arts via some seriously inspirational artists.

Her idea for her workshop was perfect. It was all about using improv to help the kids get to a “group mind,” something she knew by instinct they needed. It was beautiful and transformative, even for the 10 minutes she had with each group. Click here to see her in action.

It is hard to understand community, harder yet to build it, but Michelle had worked hard herself to build one, through tragic circumstances, holding up a brash middle-finger to the Universe if it thought it could push her around and prevent her from living up to her name, Best. I could almost see her wagging her finger along with her gorgeous curves, “Nuh, uh; oh NO you don’t.”

Michelle came with me every week to that school, imparting that “you can’t kick me around” attitude to kids who had, in fact, like her, been kicked pretty hard. That booming voice and that bold resolve won their respect and, after a time, they were putty in her hands for molding. One young boy who’d been bullied for being ‘girly’ even had the courage to come out and admit he was gay, and his detractors were hard-pressed to do anything but respect him. With a group of girls, Michelle was able to build a “circle of trust”she

wrote about beautifully. She shone a light on how much better love is than being mean.

These days, Michelle acts, teaches, directs operations for an investment advisory and raises her beautiful girls (and Betty) with such an incredible tenacity and zest for life it’s amazing. Her energy is unparalleled, although I saw her quiet and calm it in the face of love when she read the role of Kate Chopin in a play written by her friend Rosary Hartel O’Neill in my house earlier this year (click here for a review of the reading). She played opposite a former Actors’ Studio Drama School classmate, Chris Stack, and the steamy simmer of desire was palpable.

She has just (in her spare time) written an incredibly gripping one-woman show about her husband Marcelle Le Du’s all-too-quick diagnosis and death from bladder cancer-- Close the Door; Open the Widow--that leaves the audience aghast at the harsh reality she faced but amazed at how she did it with such incredible grace, and humor.

“That's one thing that baffles me at this stage: people saying to me, ‘I don’t know how you’re doing all this Michelle,’” she says from the stage, her summer-sky blue eyes staring straight at the audience. They are leaned forward in their seats, with tissues attached to their eyes and noses. She laughs that hilarious happy hee-hee-hee, defiant in the face of anything downcast. “Like as if somehow there is a choice in the matter, and that you have said to the Universe, 'you know what-sign me up for that. I'll go for it. What the hell!'”

Michelle Best. You gave me no choice but to bring you in to InspireCorps and into my life. Your resolve to break out of the doldrums and sing out loud instead is captivating and contagious. Thanks for the inspiration! Love ya!

Follow Michelle on Facebook, or at www.michellekristinebest.com

Shalom. Inshallah. Peace be with You.