Releasing the Notes

I remember a lot of little chats I had with my mother over the years. Some took place in our front yard as we pulled the stubborn morning glory from the front yard. Some took place in my parent’s room late at night after I rolled in way past curfew. Some took place as I sat with her at work, playing games while she cleaned.

But the most poignant ones I remember took place in a hospital room.

I had recently been married, was in the middle of figuring out what I was going to do with the rest of my life, when I found myself spending a lot of time in the hospital with my mother. There was a whirlwind of tests, tumors, diagnoses, doctors, and surgeries.

And while all of those things felt like they were coming at a furious pace, there was still a lot of time sitting with family and talking. She shared a lot of interesting things about her life in those times. Accomplishments, people she was proud of, things she regretted, mistakes she had made. So many of these things are tucked away somewhere in my brain, and one by one they have been coming back, allowing me time to chew on them, and then sorting them into the parts of my brain where they belong.

The one that has persisted, almost hauntingly, for the past few years has been the time she told me “I feel like I am dying with my music still inside me.”

At the time I assured her she had done so many important things – she was an excellent mother, a doting grandmother, an exemplary member of our small community (as we could see by the garden-like countertop of flowers in her hospital room, not counting the ones I had taken back to my apartment because there just wasn’t room, and the wall of get-well notes from students at the school she worked at as a custodial worker).

What music did she have left?

She had changed and saved lives by just loving people and listening. She lived a full, if short, life.

But she still had plans. Plans that would never come together now. Goals that would have to live unreached, unfulfilled.

And now that phrase is changing the direction of my life.

I have a job where I get to change lives as well. I looked forward to this job through years of college, and knew how fulfilling it would be to change so many lives. How unsettling it was when my first year felt hollow. Then my second. Then my third, then the new school I worked at, the new age, the new topic. Hollow.

I knew I was having an effect on lives. Kids were learning. I helped kids each year through tough topics- math, persuasive writing, friend troubles, body changes, depression, loss, self-harm, suicidal thoughts. And this came at me year after year, regardless of age. I talked to an 8 year old about his suicidal thoughts, helped a 12 year old get the courage to tell her family she had been raped, and have had old students come back and tell me how I had saved their lives by just caring.

So why did I feel so hollow?

I had a beautiful wife, 5 amazing and adventurous children, a community that I loved.

But I was dying with my music still in me.

This is my attempt at letting that music out.

This is where I am –

Releasing the Notes.