What Tom meant to me

My friend and mentor Tom is dying and we will never see him again. I can't even begin to count how many hundreds of thousands of mourners I am just one of. His students, their parents, the community, everyone who saw his bands perform was touched in some way by his expertise and his passion for music. This is a life well-lived, if you are mourned by so many. And mourned especially deeply for being taken at such a young age, only in his fifties. He had many rich years of retirement, mentoring, guest conducting, and enjoying his grandkids ahead of him.

My little pieces of Tom were just not enough to learn what I desperately need to know. He walked into my band room when I was 8 months pregnant with my daughter and tried to sell me his services, and I wasn't in the mood for salesmen then. He came back though, and I'm so glad he did because we made a relationship that would have lasted the course of my music teaching career if his life hadn't been cut short. He would come into my class and look at my equipment. He would listen to and work with my students on their solo & ensemble pieces and our selections for the large group contest and offer us constructive criticism. Most importantly, he let me come by his house after school whenever he was around and drop off instruments that needed new pads or had stuck valves. He always had lollipops for my kids. A few days later he'd return the instruments to me at school himself. He was that kind of guy.

My students loved him because they knew him and trusted him. They could tell instantly he was an expert, and they respected him for that.

I put my head down every once in a while, thinking of the brilliance of his mind that is being shut down by insidious cancer cells. My grandfather died the same way. He lay in his bed in the dining room of his house on the Chesapeake, looking out at the water and the sailboats. I hope that those familiar and beloved images penetrated his fog of confusion and gave him comfort in his last month. I imagine Tom the same way, surrounded by the sounds of music and the sights of his precious instruments and mementos from a life teaching music.

I am at the stage of disbelief. I have a clarinet that needs a new pad, and I wish I could just take it over to Tom's house today after school, show him how the kids have grown, chat with him about the prospects of my band program this year, and see him in a couple of days walk into my classroom. The kids would contentedly eat their lollipops on the way home.

But I can't. He probably wouldn't recognize me, and the nimble fingers that used to instantly identify where a problem was on a flute or saxophone would be clumsy.

Part of me wishes I could go to him and say goodbye face to face. The other part knows that the memories I already have are the best way to remember him. The way he came up to me at the large group contest and whispered into my ear while the clinician was working with my students, "you've come a long way, I'm really impressed." High praise indeed from a band director of his stature, which left me with an enduring motivation to keep working hard and instilling the love of music and ensemble playing into all of my students.

I believe that is his legacy to me and to all of us. Although I feel bereft of a vital resource, an essential component of my journey as a music teacher, I know he'd want us all to continue teaching the best way we can, make the best music possible and nurture our students toward a lifelong love of music.

So I shall.

For now, he rests quietly, waiting for his last moments while his friends and family comfort and care for him. I'll have to wait until he is at peace, and then I can truly begin to grieve.