Even at the tender age of 3, Mariah Teller could feel the music.
That was obvious anytime her dad showed her the Trans-Siberian Orchestra film “The Ghosts of Christmas Eve.”
“As the music would pick up, she’d kind of start feeling the music and bobbing her head,” Mariah’s mom, Terra Teller, recalled with a little laugh. “Super cute, super cute. She was funny. … She really loved music — all kinds of music. That was a big part of who she was.”
When Mariah was diagnosed with a brain tumor and given a “death sentence,” Terra Teller said, the family decided to take her to “her laser show” — the young girl’s affectionate name for a Trans-Siberian Orchestra production.
That winter of 2013, at the age of 3½, Mariah met the band.
She died just a few months later, in April.
“It was just really super special, and something that we’ve always held close to our heart,” said Teller, who lives in Bountiful, Utah. “So every time Christmas comes around and we see that TSO is here, we always are reminded of her love for them, and also their kindness and our love for them.”
Trans-Siberian Orchestra has been performing in Salt Lake City for over 20 years, and Teller estimates she and her husband, Mike Teller, have seen them eight times. She’s always loved the storylines TSO incorporates in their shows, and how the band blends so many different styles of music together to do it — along with a healthy dose of lasers.
“It just works,” she said. “It’s so beautiful and so powerful.”
This year, in need of a pick-me-up after some health and financial setbacks in the family, Terra Teller looked into getting tickets for one of the TSO shows at the Delta Center on Nov. 19. When she saw the prices, she knew it wasn’t in their budget.
But to her surprise, Trans-Siberian Orchestra picked up the tab.
A surprising phone call
Teller was cleaning her house when she got a call from the Utah-based radio station KBER 101.
The radio hosts Lindsey and John “The Metal Mailman” surprised her with the news that she and her husband had been given tickets to the Wednesday night TSO show and meet-and greet.
The radio hosts said they’d heard about Teller’s story and reached out to TSO about securing tickets for the family.
“I was super excited,” Teller said. “It’s just such a special history between us and them. And we’ve been going through a lot of hard stuff recently, and so it was very special to get that call.”
The show comes as Teller’s husband has missed a significant amount of work due to severe health challenges, including leukemia and pneumonia.
Mike Teller’s leukemia diagnosis actually came in the summer of 2014 — just three months after Mariah’s death.
“We didn’t even have the time to grieve or recover from losing her before we were thrown right back into this battle again,” Teller said.
Her husband’s battle, though, was different, Teller said. Unlike Mariah, he would live for many years. But it would be a long, drawn-out fight on the body. He’d have to take chemo every day for the rest of his life.
“It was a blessing, but we were still, we were so depressed,” Terra Teller said. “We weren’t living. ... We were at the worst, the saddest, the most heartbroken we’ve ever been.”
To slowly claw themselves out of this darkness, the Tellers made a life-altering decision — one that caught the attention of KBER 101 and won over the hearts of Trans-Siberian Orchestra.
Moving forward — and channeling Mariah
“When we lost Mariah, our world literally crumbled,” Teller said.
As it turned out, the best way to put the pieces back together was to channel their daughter in everything they did.
“Riah was just always so loving. She always wanted us to take care of everybody,” Teller said. “She was always so worried about a little kid who was crying or unhappy. … It was important to her that everybody was well taken care of and happy."
While grieving the loss of their daughter, and navigating Mike’s cancer diagnosis, the Tellers made what probably to many seemed like an unexpected decision. But for the family, there was no other option.
They enrolled in foster care classes and opened up their home to children in need.
“If we’re focusing on helping someone else, we’re not caught up in our sorrow,” Teller said.
“I told my husband, ‘We’re here. We’re alive. Our daughter’s not. We have the opportunity and the chance to fight — she didn’t,’“ she recalled. ”What are we going to do with that time that we have here? Are we going to sit here, depressed, and live a shell of life ... or are we gonna make the life that we have left, even though it’s a hard, hard life and it’s a struggle, are we gonna make it worth something, you know?”
Initially, Teller envisioned welcoming a little girl into her home so she could do some of the mother-daughter things she was missing out on with Riah. But three brothers under the age of 3 needed a home, and her heart broke for them.
They ended up staying in her home for over three years. Eventually, the Tellers got the opportunity to adopt two of those boys (the middle child went back with his dad).
A few years later, the Tellers welcomed another sibling group into their home — three girls and a boy.
They now have added six kids to their family, ranging in age from 7 up to their oldest, a 19-year-old who recently graduated high school early — 13th in her class.
“We thought, ‘We’re doing something right,’” Teller said.
“It is hard,“ she continued. ”They all come with issues ... because of their lives before, but you know, we all really love each other. ... The finances have always been a huge struggle, especially around holidays and things like that. But as a family, we’ve always stuck together and found a way to make it work.”
And through it all, they’re healing each other, Teller said.
“They’re healing us from our loss and our current fight with my husband and his cancer, but we’re also healing them,” she said. “And it’s been a beautiful thing.”