Missing you

My dear friend and mentor,

I can only suppose it was because you were such an extraordinary person in life that God chose you to be with Him sooner. It's the only reason I can come up with, and it comforts me. Last night as I bustled around the house doing small meaningless things, you were embarking on your last great journey, quietly, and with dignity.

I will always remember your voice and your laugh first. It was such a strong voice, the kind you notice when you are warming up your instrument and seventy others are warming up alongside you. This voice could cut through all that and promise that the work to be done that day would be Good Work.

When I told you of some funny story with my students, you'd laugh with that knowing look in your eyes, the crinkling at the edges telling me you'd seen all of it, and more, before.

I wish you could have seen my drastic new haircut, you'd have liked it.

When a pad fell out of my student's clarinet earlier this year, the first thing I could see in my mind was your fingers wiggling the keys in diagnosis. I looked at and thought about that pad for several days before I finally got up the courage to try to fix it myself. I asked myself, what would you have done? And then I did it, and the pad is fixed.

I appreciate so much how you would give lollipops to my children when we came to drop off instruments. They wouldn't sit still; they'd pat your dog and tear leaves off your plant and wander around your house and always beg to ask you for lollipops, and I always made them ask nicely because I wanted to show you what sweet kids they were, even if they were always touching your stuff.

I haven't told my students yet. To tell them will somehow make it real, that you are no longer with us.

What you did for me was take my band program to a higher level. You patiently explained to me things I should have known, like that I needed three original scores for Large Group and that I should have challenged one of my clarinet players to play a harder song for Solo & Ensemble. You showed me your space, your band, and explained how your program worked. It wasn't yours any more, you had passed your baton to younger hands, but the pride still shone on your face, the comfort and ownership still obviously evident.

You were a part of our community like no other teacher, like no other person. I can only hope to be a tiny fraction of what you were, and still are, to everyone.

I hope God has a pretty good trombone for you to play in his celestial jazz band, and that He put you in charge of all the wayward cherubim that haven't quite learned how to sit still in rehearsal. I hope God knows what He's doing, because He has made a lot of us down here sadder than we've felt in a long time.

I miss you so much and hope that I will see you again, maybe we'll finally get a chance to play in a band together. I need some help picking repertoire for the Winter Concert, for an ensemble heavy on clarinets and lacking low brass. I wish you'd just walk into my band room sometime and see how things are going...

I feel a little bit alone. I am not sure who now is going to teach me all that I need to know.

Your days got cut short, way too short. But did you ever LIVE. Every white glove, flute held straight, black shoe polished to a sheen, and every precise note and footstep is a testament to that.

Goodbye, Larry.

Your friend,
Kate