I have just spent the last couple of days back in one of my former hometowns,  Atlantic, Iowa- where my family lived from 1974 to 1980  Those were the years I was in high school and starting college…  the years in which my religious faith became more than just something passed on from my parents and became something I truly claimed for myself …  the years when I was able to shed at least some of the shyness and hesitancy that had been such an important part of my personality …  and these were also the years when I first began to seriously studying singing, setting out on a path that has brought me immeasurable joy and satisfaction over the years.   That journey began in Atlantic.

When you add all of that up, it’s obvious why I feel such a strong connection to the place and feel such profound gratitude for what I experienced there and for the friendships that were formed there.  .  . even though my family didn’t live there very long, even though we moved away  more than 30 years ago,  and even though my complicated and hectic life has made it very difficult for me to get back there for visits, especially over the last couple of decades.  When I do the math, it doesn’t seem possible that a place in which I have spent very little time should matter so much to me.  But I guess this is a case of quality trumping quantity.  The time I did spend in Atlantic was powerfully formative, and as time goes on, I find myself  becoming ever more appreciative of the place and its people.

And that’s why,  when the opportunity came up to return to Atlantic this weekend to participate in the 90th birthday celebration of a precious family friend named Fletcher Nichols,  I jumped at the chance to return to this former hometown for the first time in at least a decade.

A little history:  When my family moved to Atlantic in 1974,  I was a shy, awkward bookworm …. skinny as a rail ….. desperately sad to be leaving Decorah (a place I loved) and especially unhappy to be leaving my best friend,  Marshall.  My mom knew how concerned I was and actually told me in a very tender, private conversation,  that if after moving to Atlantic I hated it as much as I thought I would,  she and I would move back to Decorah.  I can’t imagine she was 100% serious about that,  but it meant a lot to me that she was willing to say it – and that promise actually helped me come to terms with the move and made me willing to accept it at least for the short term.   And you can probably guess what happened:  Atlantic proved to be not so bad after all…. and one of the biggest reasons why it quickly felt like home was when we became friends with an extraordinary family in our new church:  Fletcher and Avonelle Nichols, and their eight children:  Jane, Dick, Jill, Shirley, Sherry, Amy, Allison and Bill.   I still remember the first time we went out to their dairy farm and were shown their award-winning milking operation.  (I was astounded, among other things, that they had named every one of their dairy cows- and could tell them apart.)   But what was more important than these city slickers being introduced to life on the farm was coming to know this amazing, vibrant, loving, joyous family.

(One vivid memory.  There was some event at St. Paul’s designed us to welcome us there.  And at some point in the evening,  I wandered upstairs to try out the pipe organ… which was a lot less scary than talking to people I didn’t know.  Well,  Amy and Allison were ordered by their parents to follow me up to the balcony to introduce themselves to the new kid who was their classmate. And being the obedient daughters that they are, they complied. . .  and for years after that they would joke about how limp and lifeless my handshake was-  I’m sure for them it felt like they were shaking hands with a handful of oatmeal.  But thankfully, they didn’t give up on the new Preacher’s Kid and before long we had struck up a good friendship which I deeply valued, particularly in those difficult and awkward first few months.)

My family and the Nichols family became quite close – but I feel an additional sense of gratitude and indebtedness to Fletcher and Avonelle because of an incredibly generous gesture to me:   they arranged for me to continue my piano studies with a wonderful teacher in Atlantic named Mary DeWulf – who had taught all of the Nichols – but beyond that,  they also insisted on paying for those lessons.  And they paid for at least most of my voice lessons as well with the amazing Cherie Carl.  (I’m pretty sure some of those voice lessons were actually “on the house,” but still. . .)  That was back in the day when people would express appreciation to their pastor in all kinds of different, tangible ways  – but this kind of generosity was truly extraordinary.

Allison was actually the Nichols with whom I was the closest- we were kindred spirits in a lot of different ways and most of the deepest, most meaningful one-on-one talks I’ve had in my life have been with Allison.   But Amy and I forged a powerful bond of our own as frequent singing partners . . . culminating our senior year in Atlantic High School’s production of “Showboat” with the two of us playing Magnolia and Gaylord.    College took us geographically in different directions, but we still sang together from time to time… most notably in surprise appearances on each other’s senior voice recitals (Amy traveling all the way to Decorah and me traveling all the way to Blair, Nebraska) – as well as in a memorable joint recital we sang back in Atlantic as a fundraiser for a family whose high school son was paralyzed in a tragic freak wrestling accident.   After college, our opportunities to sing together dwindled to a very precious few- with the most memorable being a very special birthday party for Amy’s mother Avonelle,  who at the time was in remission from the cancer which would ultimately claim her life.  All the siblings were there – of course – for what had to be the most meaningful birthday party of their lives –  and I was profoundly honored to be there to sing with Amy.  (At the time, I don’t think I fully appreciated the courage it took for Amy to sing so beautifully under such difficult circum-

stances.  The more I think about that,  the more moved and impressed I am.)

I came back to Atlantic a few years ago to sing for Avonelle’s funeral (singing “Great is Thy Faithfulness” and “FInd us Faithful”) – and promised the family that I would be honored to do the same when it came time for Fletcher’s funeral.  And over the last several years,  I’ve received more than one email from someone in the Nichols family saying, in effect,  “it won’t be long now.”  But Fletcher has toughed it out through a number of difficult physical setbacks,  due in no small measure to the devotion of his second wife, Colleen – as well as the love and support of his children and grandchildren, to say nothing of his many friends and admirers.   And so, with his 90th birthday approaching, the oldest of the Nichols children – Jane Becker – got the crazy idea that she would fly me to Atlantic to sing for the big celebration they were planning.  And in what I can only regard as a bit of lovely Divine Providence,  his birthday fell on a weekend when – amazingly – I had no pressing obligations at Carthage (the only such weekend of the entire spring when I had no concerts to conduct or recitals to accompany) nor any obligations at church (because I always give my choir the Sunday after Easter “off.”)   If this birthday had been any other weekend, I could not have come.  But because it was Saturday, April 6th,  I could do it – and did it!

And what a joy to be singing again with Amy….. two hymns plus “Make Believe” from Showboat, that show we did together back in the spring of 1978.  There were a lot of smiles and tears in the room,  and at some point Amy herself told me that it was so fun to sing together and be brought back to a very very happy chapter in our lives.  Music – and singing, especially – has an almost miraculous capacity to do that . . .  like the aroma of Grandma’s famous chocolate chip cookies baking in the oven can transport us back to a pleasant childhood scenes many decades in the past. . .  only much more powerfully and on a much deeper, more lasting level.  The proof of that is really with Fletcher himself,  whose memory has become extremely porous.  When I talked to him in his room at the Heritage House rest home Saturday morning,  he must have asked me ten or twelve times “how’s your dad?” – with no recollection of the information I had just conveyed to him a minute or two before- and it seemed like he recognized me in only the most tenuous sort of way.  But Sunday morning, the day after the huge celebration (which a couple hundred people attended)   when Jane stopped by to look in on her dad and to see what (if anything) he remembered from the party,  one of the things he said was “wasn’t it something that Greg Berg came back to sing.”   And he even said something about how he wished that my siblings could have come as well-  even specifying a couple of them by name.  I am absolutely certain that this had nothing to do with anything I said to Fletcher- but from the extraordinary power that music has to penetrate to the deepest places of our mind and soul.

By the way,  I somehow managed to do all of my singing with Amy with dry eyes and without a lump in my throat.  What got to me the most, emotionally, was when all seven Nichols kids and most of the grandchildren in attendance got up in front to sing their dad’s favorite hymn, “Count Your Blessings” – which was also their Grandfather Nichols’ favorite hymn. . . a hymn which became dear to Fletcher as his own father dealt with an especially savage form of cancer that ravaged him in all kinds of painful and (to him) even humiliating ways.  That hymn was a powerful source of comfort for both Fletcher and his father through those dark and painful days.  As I played the piano for the Nichols clan on this most recent occasion as they sang this together,  I found myself struck again and again by how perfect the words were for Fletcher and his family through this really challenging time in the life of their family:

“Are you ever burdened by a load of care?

Does the cross seem heavy you are called to bear?

Count your many blessings, every doubt will fly-

and you will keep singing as the days go by.

 

Count your blessings.  Name them one by one . . . “

My own list of blessings – already too long to easily count – grew still longer this weekend.  And I count myself especially blessed to have been the recipient of such kindness and generosity from Fletcher Nichols and his incredible family, and blessed to sing with Amy yet again. . . not for a funeral but for a joyous birthday celebration.

pictured above: Amy and I rehearsing at the Heritage House for the performance we would sing later that day.