Family

I don't know how a lot of people classify their college experiences, but I do know how I remember mine...it was a home.

Our music department was so much more than a branch of our college, it was a genuine family. The bonds we formed, the trust we placed in each other as we worked and struggled and gave so much of ourselves in our performances, and the caring we felt from so many sides have all made a huge impact on me. I have often recounted how blessed I felt to attend a small, close-knit college like Simpson, and be a part of a department with such a rich history and reputation.

This morning, I found out that my voice teacher, Maria, is entering hospice care and is not expected to live much longer. For those of you unfamiliar with voice studios, I can only describe them as your home base. The place you seek encouragement, feedback, and honesty. Where you know you will be pushed beyond what you feel you are capable of, but will also have your teacher and studio-mates right there with you. Your teacher guides you in your professional choices, and you trust him/her to direct you wisely. It's an intense relationship, but one that serves for your betterment.

Maria has been a part of Simpson's Music Department for many, many years. She has always been quite the style icon at Simpson, and well-known for her remarkable taste in shoes :) There isn't a day that I can recall when she wasn't dressed to the nines. When I was there she was the Chair of the department. After my freshman year, when my first Simpson voice teacher left the school, I had to try and figure out which studio would be a good fit for me. I was blessed in that first teacher, in that I learned a lot about what I needed in a teacher, which was someone who would push me, and not allow me to give only half, or be content to be on the sidelines. That was Maria. My first year in her studio, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She was remarkably resilient, and by the following year, was on the mend. A couple of years ago, I heard that her cancer had returned, but that's all I really knew.

While I was in grad school, another of the Simpson voice teachers passed away after her own battle, and she also had been a faculty member for several years. So to now know that we will likely lose Maria too feels a little like our family is falling apart. It's the way of the world, and the relentless march of time, but it's still very hard. So much has changed there in the last 6 years that I'm not sure I would recognize my home, but those familiar faces of the faculty were what made it enduring. I can only hope that I will be able to go to Iowa for a funeral, and celebrate this remarkable woman...wearing my very best high heels.