In the Netflix bio-doc Marty, Life is Short, actor Martin Short tells the story of his mother’s courageous reaction to learning she had terminal cancer when he was a teenager.
Short’s mother had developed a lingering cough. After determining that the cause was cancer, the doctor told her she had three months to live.
His words did not align with the mindset of a mother of five.
After receiving the prognosis, Short’s mother’s resolute response was, “This can’t happen. I have another child to raise.” She then turned to his sister Nora and simply said, “Pass me the grapes.”
Martin Short says in the interview that “pass me the grapes” became a symbol of courage in his family.
Lose your job? Pass me the grapes. Flight gets canceled? Pass me the grapes. The love of your life breaks your heart? Pass me the grapes.
“Pass me the grapes” is a way of acknowledging bad news without surrendering to it, demonstrating resilience, and focusing on what comes next. Short’s story about his mother resonated with me for several reasons, not the least of which was its relevance to the art of being a good teammate.
Sometimes the burden you carry is unavoidable. But the way you carry it can keep it from becoming someone else’s burden.
We tend to think being a good teammate means helping someone else carry their burden—and it can. But Short’s story reveals the other side of that equation: Sometimes being a good teammate means carrying your own burden in a way that helps others carry theirs.
That doesn’t mean pretending the burden isn’t heavy. It means understanding that when you’re part of a team, your response to adversity is rarely yours alone. The people around you are watching, absorbing, and often taking their cues from how you respond.
You can’t always control what happens to you, but you can control what you give to the people who have to go through it with you.
Short’s story about his mother isn’t just a lesson in courage; it’s a lesson in emotional contagion, service, and responsibility to the people around us.
His mother could have easily chosen to wallow in self-pity. She could have chosen to focus on the bad. She could have shifted into “me” gear. Instead, she thought about how her response would affect those around her.
The thought of losing its matriarch could have crippled her family, especially if they saw the news cripple her. But she did not allow that to happen.
The fact that her family latched onto the specific words she used in the face of adversity—“pass me the grapes”—made her response that much more impactful. The phrase became shorthand for something bigger: We have bad news. We acknowledge it. And then we keep going.
Short has played plenty of memorable characters over the years, and those characters have given fans plenty of memorable lines. Jiminy Glick’s “I take great umbrage.” Ed Grimley’s “I must say.” And Franck Eggelhoffer’s “Very nice.”
But frankly, as far as memorability goes, none of them compare to “Pass me the grapes.”
As always…Good teammates care. Good teammates share. Good teammates listen. Go be a good teammate.
