Grief is sneaky...

This is an essay I wrote several years ago, that was published in the news here, after my music director's death, after a long bout with cancer.

Grief is sneaky. It doesn’t care about propriety or logic. I was reminded of this recently, after the death of the Buffalo Philharmonic Chorus Director and Westminster Church Organist, Thomas Swan. Thomas was not my friend in the sense the word is reserved for, nor was he my brother or father. When I tried to explain my exact relationship to him, I found myself making excuses for my tears, my sadness. Friends stared blankly as I grieved, unsure why I was so upset. Now in the days following his death, it has become clearer what he meant to me, and likely, to many others who sang under his direction.
Thomas was a musician, a leader, and a mentor. We looked up to him for guidance, for approval and instruction. We wanted to please him. He took groups of assorted singers, at varying levels of ability, and pulled us into a cohesive whole, over and over again. We rose to his occasion, to his pleading for commitment to the music. He taught us the value of joining together despite our differences, of preparation, of individual responsibility. He expected the best from us, and we gave it to him.
Thomas was the gateway to a world I’d thought was gone from my life for good. I played the clarinet when I was younger, but gave up on the idea of becoming a performer for various reasons a seventeen-year-old believes are important. Watching an orchestra perform was painful, as I sometimes regretted my decision to follow another career path. But with my first nervous audition for the chorus, not having sung in many years, he granted me entrance to that world again. The first time I sat down behind the orchestra for a rehearsal, I began to cry. I cried for the loss of my clarinet, but also because I knew that day was the beginning of my new musical life. I credit Thomas with that.
“Music is my life,” he’d said, and he made it our lives too. There were moments during performances when time stopped, vision was compressed, and the waves of music ran through all of us. He was a conduit to higher levels of experience. Without his determination, consternation, caring and stubborn insistence, we could not have reached those places.
I joined Westminster Church, after visiting one Sunday, simply to hear Thomas’ church choir. I returned for the music, but also because he had introduced me to a place I felt immediately at home. He pestered me about joining his church choir, and I resisted, claiming I was over-committed. Finally, after one of his resplendent Christmas Eve services, I waited for him downstairs and asked to be admitted into his small choir. The combination of his passionate direction and the spiritual aspects of church choir continued to transform my life. Now I was performing with a professional chorus and orchestra, and contributing to the spiritual life of a church every Sunday. I even began to play my clarinet again.
My deepening musical experiences affected other aspects of my creative life as well. I wrote poetry about the music and I shared some poems with Thomas. Thomas, who did not praise unless he meant it, thanked me publicly for a poem I had written about a performance of the Brahms Requiem at the Basilica. I was overwhelmed that this man who I so respected, in turn respected me as a writer. I was buoyed by his confidence in me and my writing life became more prolific. I found myself filling journals again. Creativity that had been lying dormant was released. The music I was privileged to share with him permeated my life.
Music is not an extracurricular extravagance, a competitive ego trip, or a solitary endeavor. It is community in the finest sense. It is love and responsibility and trusting in one another. Thomas understood its importance. He envisioned its path to higher levels of experience and existence. My grief illuminates the impact of his vision and music. He connected us to him, to each other, to ourselves and to the world. Could one say these things about any musician or conductor? Possibly. But I am making the point here to say it about Thomas Swan.
I know why I loved him, why I stood in tears under the choir chancel at the end of his memorial service, why every time I open my mouth now to sing he enters my thoughts. He was not my friend, my brother, my father. I realize now I do not have to make excuses for my grief. Thomas was my Church Choirmaster and Organist. He was my Music Director.