Life is More Than Music

Megan: 1963~2008

Today was a wonderful time of reunion and rejoicing.  Music Camp started today- I've been going there for 9 or 10 years, and we thought that it wasn't going to be able to open again this year.  But it did, and I am happy.

When one has been doing something like this for so long, there is a bond that is formed that cannot be explained.  The people that were my teachers have become my friends.  The friends that I made I carry on into other areas of my life.  Reunion is rejoicing, and reunion is a lot of running around giving hugs.

But life is bittersweet.

My very first violin teacher at camp was an incredible woman named Megan.  When I first met her, her daughter was just born- she's ten now.  Every year in between was  talking about what the year had meant to both of us.  She was an incredible woman.  I thought the world of her.  Through our conversations, I learned that life was hard for her.  But she kept pushing through.

Last summer, she gave up on life and committed suicide.

Today, I look in her mother's eyes and I see so much pain.  I look at Michelle, who's only ten years old.  I wonder what she thinks- does she think that her mother didn't love her?  Because she did.  Megan loved so many people.  

And I think of a poem called Music I Heard.  The first verse:

Music I heard with you was more than music,
And bread I broke with you was more than bread.

Now that I am without you, all is desolate;
All that was once so beautiful is dead.

I  guess this is life.  We love, we lose.  Because we love, life is beautiful, but it is also bittersweet.  Because we love, we feel loss.  But we always remember.  Life is More than Music, and it's for that reason that More Than Music is the name of the camp.

...And in my heart they will remember always, -
They knew you once, O beautiful and wise.