GRIEF

I'm only a couple of weeks away from being 63 years old.  And I have been blessed in that I have had few opportunities to experience real grief.  Part of that is that I have not lost too many loved ones before their time.  Part of it is just me.


I think grief is the loss of something or someone who has entered your heart and lived there.  The loss of such a person or thing is unbearable.  Grief happens.


But apparently not to me.  I have had the uncanny ability to walk away from lifestyles, people, situations, jobs and just calmly move forward.  Not looking back.  Grateful for the past, but focused solidly on the future.  


I have lost both my parents and a few friends.  And I was sad about that.  But I truly think I have only experienced disabling grief once in my life.  And that is when my boys moved out of my house when they were in high school and went to live with their dad.  During those times, but for the gift of a couple of angel/ friendships, I'm not sure I would have chosen to go on.  I could not see the future.


That was the worst case.   I survived.  I made it through the quagmire and came out on the other side.


And in the ensuing years have found the most wonderful life.  I'm so glad I persevered and got to where I could look back with perspective.


Okay. . . that was background.


This is an epic week in my life.  I will be saying goodbye.  In a major way.  And I've said goodbye before, so no big deal. . . . right?


On Sunday I will sing my final concert in the Kennedy Center conducted by Norman Scribner.   Big deal. . . . no one is dying.  Right?


So we've been rehearsing the Brahms Requiem.   Norman has always said that the Bach St. Matthew Passion is his all time favorite piece.  Which is also mine, interestingly enough.  But the Brahms Requiem is practically his signature piece.  


The thing about Norman is that he is an obsessive student of music.  In all the years I have sung with him,  which has included repeating works every so often,  he has always demonstrated that each and every time he approaches a performance, even of a piece he should now "know in his sleep,"  he continues to study and strive to glean what the composer intended.  With music scores from the past, it is fascinating to begin again on a piece, and have to erase the former markings because he has rethought the whole thing.  It's new every single time.


The Brahms Requiem, if sung in a regular concert situation, is a gut-wrenching piece to sing.   It is so much a part of me that I can't remember not knowing it.  This will be my third time singing it with Norman.   To have to sing it under these circumstances is like asking someone to sing at the funeral of a loved one.  This is no funeral.  But it is the end of an extraordinary era in the life of music in Washington, DC.  But what this man has meant to me personally is something I cannot even begin to put in words.


So I have been wondering in the past few weeks why I have not had the energy I usually have.  And why I can't seem to make decisions right now.  And today on the way home from choir as I listened to the Brahms on my IPod,  it occurred to me.  I'm grieving.  This is grief.  This is profound loss.  


I don't know if I will continue on with the new guy for one more year.  Because I can't make any decisions right now.  But I know that come Sunday afternoon, I and all my choral colleagues are going to have to dig down very deep and give this man what he deserves to get. . . . a Brahms Requiem for the ages.  He will be stalwart.  He is so engrossed in a music rehearsal or performance, that each and every note is important to him.  His brain will be where it needs to be. . . . solidly on bringing out of the group that which Brahms intended.


And I need to be able to do the same. To be in that moment, and not let my brain go where it will want to go.  . . . . to the significance of those words and that gorgeous music and that man.


I am so beyond grateful to be able to be a part of this concert.  Singing with the Choral Arts Society has been easily one of the top 5 events of my life.  Now if I can just get through the concert, be present, soak it in.  This is very hard. . . but I wouldn't miss it for the world.


http://youtu.be/pXopMPYpz0o