Music Speaks

Maurice Denis (French, 1870-1943); mother and child

During my husband's residency, my pursuits turned inward as I became a stay-at-home mom.  But avenues of expression always reveal themselves, and this particular instance was one of them.

Sadly, a nurse that worked with my husband delivered a baby who had heart disease; the baby boy had died at only 3 weeks of age.  Such a tragedy definitely brought on a reality check for many, and a reminder that sorrow in this world leaves no one behind.

So how do you help in times like these?  How do you reach out and comfort someone in the midst of their heavy loss? First of all, prayer is powerful--bringing them before God and begging for His comfort and grace.  In addition, my husband asked me if I'd be willing to play the piano for the funeral services, and of course I consented.  I remember meeting with another nurse to go over a solo, and working on the music with a very heavy sense of loss for this family.  The services were beautiful, but even as I sat on the piano bench, tears streamed down.   Not even knowing them, I felt the burden with them.

In a strange way, I felt like my music sort of spoke for my husband words that he couldn't say.  I think it was his way of helping and encouraging when there was nothing he could do personally.  In fact, he couldn't even be there at the services because of his work schedule.  So in effect, I represented him with my music.  And once again, our worlds merged in a way I never could have imagined.

Music Night at Our House

Edgar Degas, "The Orchestra of the Opera"

My husband has always showed an interest in my pursuits.  He's forever enjoyed taking me to the symphony and attending my recitals and performances.  In fact, he's so clever in realizing that music is an excellent way to bring people together, not to mention a wonderful means of personal expression, that he put together a Music Night in our home during medical school. It was such a popular idea that even the two deans of the med school attended, one of them as a performer too!

When I think about it, it was a huge undertaking, although it didn't seem like it at the time.  We simply spread the word about the event and invited all our instrumentalist friends to come and perform. It was surprising how many musicians emerged out of the woodwork! Seriously, I had no idea that most of them played an instrument.  In the end, we had two guitarists, two pianists, an upright bass (played by the dean himself), a bassoonist, a flautist, and a few others.  Some of us practiced together ahead of time to perform concertos and the like, and of course there were plenty of solos.  We pulled out the pastries and coffee, and sat back for a night of music...a night to remember.

To this day it continues to be one of my favorite memories.  I was thrilled to have all of those talented people in my home, sharing music together.  For once, it was like they were speaking my language; I could understand them!  This time it was my "shop talk" they were using! And I appreciated the way my husband blended his life with mine.  Beautiful.

When Two Worlds Intersect

Francis Day (American, 1863-1925); "the piano lesson"

Joining my husband's world and embracing it doesn't mean I leave my own talents and ambitions at the door.  It's not dropping them off, losing my self-identity, or in effect, not being "me" anymore.  It's not an unreasonable choice of mine, and it's not a burden my husband has placed on me.  It's all part of an amazing role that I happily fill, and it started the day I married this man, if not earlier.

But with it comes balance, and creativity.  It takes imagination to figure out how to pursue my talents and interests while I'm supporting my husband in his. In the beginning, when he was in medical school, I was still in college (crazy, huh?), and then when I graduated, I used my degree in music to pay the bills.  So really, my talents had a huge impact on his career when you think about it.  And since I was deeply involved in the musical world, it intersected with the medical world in some really fun and interesting ways.

For instance, early on I gained a medical student as a piano student.  Sometimes I'd teach him at the medical school on the crummy piano in the lounge, and sometimes he'd come to our tiny apartment.  Most of the time he hadn't practiced (and for good reason, when in the world would he have had time when his hands were in the anatomy lab every living hour?).  Looking back, I think that experience was hilarious--me trying to fix his fingering and lack of musicality, while he was just needing a creative outlet, a break from his strenuous work in school.

That was just the start of the merging of two completely different worlds.  And maybe that's not the answer to how to blend these opposite interests, but it was a start.  And there's plenty more stories where that came from.