Friday the 14th was one of the longest days of my life, and full of tears almost from beginning to end (save for a much appreciated respite in the middle of the day when life reverted to some semblance of normalcy) – but there were also many smiles. Allow me to share a few of them with you.
Honestly, I shed my first tears as I first drove up to Union Grove High School at about 7:20- on a gorgeous autumn day- as I saw all the cars, all the kids, all the backpacks, all the signs that it was a perfectly normal school day, save for the fact that later that day was the funeral of the school’s choir director, Kris Novaez, and her husband. I think if I had driven up to the school on a gray, rainy day where the whole world seemed to be in mourning, I would not have been crying in my car. But the very fact that it was such a beautiful day made this turn of events all the more painful and bewildering and intrusive into the normal fabric of our lives.
Then smiles. Walking into the choir room itself felt great. The students were a bit subdued but closer to their typical spirits than I would have imagined possible – and the two guys who had been shepherding them for the last couple of days, Union Grove’s recently retired band director Scott Cicotta and Waterford H.S. choir director Derek Machan, were doing such a good job of keeping the kids loose and relaxed while still allowing them to feel their grief. Then I began noticing the signs that have adorned the walls of the choir room for a long time – each one immortalizing something funny or dumb (or both) that a choir member had said at some point – with the name of the person who said it attached to give credit where it was due. I’d noticed them on my past visits and I thought they gave such a vivid sense of the affectionate and fun rapport between Mrs. Novaez and her singers.
My second tears came as I waited towards the front of the room, waiting for the rehearsal to start. (I was there to play piano for the choir.) My eyes wandered to the blackboard where two big cards had been posted- and it turned out that they were from the choirs at Waterford High School, which is in the same conference as Union Grove – and in some ways rivals. I began reading what various Waterford students had written to their Union Grove counterparts: I’m so sorry for your loss . . . We are all here for you . . . I can’t imagine how hard this is for you . . . Keep singing. Your director would want you to. . . We share our music hearts with you . . . and again and again, Stay Strong. I actually had to amble into one of the corners of the room and pretend that I was admiring the paint on the walls, when in fact I was trying to compose myself.
I could smile again when the students finally began rehearsing. (Obviously no one was rushing the students in a week like this.) Mr. Machan handled that moment so well, I thought, not by saying “Quiet! Settle down! Take your seats! We gotta get started!” but rather “Do you feel like singing?” And evidently they did because they took their seats just like that and a few moments later were singing “An Irish Blessing” by Douglas Nolan, with me at the piano and Darlene Rivest – a frequent collaborator with the choir – playing violin. This piece is a traditional part of nearly every single Union Grove choir concert, so they scarcely needed to even rehearse it, but I’m sure it felt great for them just to be doing it – and sounding so good and so poised.
I was smiling through all of that, but when I wandered out in the hall while waiting for the next period to commence (and a rehearsal with the younger choir) I came across a huge poster-sized card hanging in the hallway on which all kinds of U.G. students- both singers and non-singers- had written tributes to Mrs Novaez such as: Music won’t be the same without you . . . You’re the nicest and happiest teacher ever . . . My day is boring without you . . . Everybody will remember how your smile would light up the room. We love how even when we screwed up a part of a song, you always knew we could do better . . . Those are just a few of the many beautiful tributes emblazoned on that big poster. But there were two others that I have to mention, and just thinking about them makes the tears well up in my eyes all over again. One of them said “Mrs. Novaez, you made me brave on my first day of freshman year. Without you, I would be lost.” There was something so concrete about that tribute- pointing to a very important day for this particular student and the enormous difference that Mrs. Novaez made for the better, something which I’m sure this student will remember for as long as they live. Another said “Mrs N, although I didn’t have you as a teacher I loved to see your bubbly face. I wish I got to know you better. I was so looking forward to having chorus with you next semester.” Nothing could have better underscored how much was lost in this tragic accident. . . that it wasn’t just past and present choir members who lost a dear teacher, friend and mentor- but also those who by rights should have enjoyed that same privilege and pleasure – and now cannot.
I was grateful that I was able to spend the rest of the morning and the first part of the afternoon in blessedly normal activity – cleaning out my car (because I was giving someone a ride to the funeral) and then teaching several voice lessons at Carthage. And because a vocal pedagogy student was observing the last two lessons, it forced me to really focus on each lesson and the task at hand, which was ultimately such a relief.
Later came the drive to St. Peter’s Lutheran Church in Waterford, where Kris and her husband were active members (and where Kris was organist.) The moment you walked through the door, you could feel the heavy grief in the air, and it was shared by everybody there, adults and students alike. It was almost a relief when I got to gather with the choir members in the fellowship hall for a warmup. They were serious, with their sorrow just beneath the surface, but doing remarkably well. I took them through three or four of my favorite warm-ups, and then said that I thought it would be appropriate if they did a vocalise or two that Mrs. Novaez liked to do with them. Almost immediately, someone suggested a rather intricate exercise involving fast moving numbers- and the students (out of habit, I suppose) looked up at the clock on the wall to help them keep track of where they were in the numerical progression. And then, as if that weren’t complicated enough, it evolved into a four- part round, sung perfectly . . . after which one of the students said “Mrs. Novaez must be smiling right now!” Smiles and tears were in close combination at that moment.
As for the funeral itself, the students astonished me with their ability to sing under such heartbreaking circumstances- both the aforementioned “Irish Blessing” at the beginning as well as Peter Lutkin’s well known setting of “The Lord Bless You and Keep You” at the end. It was really just at the very end of the service, when the palls were slowly and ceremoniously taken off of the two caskets, which then were slowly wheeled out of the sanctuary, that the students‘ reserve began to evaporate and the crying began – to such an extent, in fact, that a couple of students‘ mothers came up into the balcony to try and offer some comfort.
I want to talk about one more moment when smiles and tears intermingled – and it was at the supper afterwards in the fellowship hall. Just before the meal was served, the mother of Mrs. Novaez asked if all of the members of the choir present would join her on the other side of the room – and as they gathered around her, this woman – bearing her own crippling grief at having lost a child so unexpectedly – proceeded to talk with those students about how much they had meant to her daughter. She spoke to them with a beaming smile on her face and a twinkle in her eye – SO reminiscent of Kris herself – and I wonder if any of those students could possibly know how precious that moment was. I stood back several feet from the back row of students, not wanting to intrude, and yet needing to at least be close – as though there was a radiance that I needed to feel. I hope that those students who gathered around Kris’s mom in what almost seemed like a huddle in a football game (but with black dresses and tuxedos!) came away with the crystal clear message that death does not have the last word and that all of us must, in the words of memorial bands we were all wearing, must Let Music Live.
Or as said so beautifully in a Henry Purcell song that a student of mine sang yesterday in a voice recital, “if music be the food of love, Sing On!” Even when your heart is breaking.
pictured above: Union Grove choir members in the midst of their final warm-up, in which they sang one of Mrs. Novaez’s favorite vocalises. If you look carefully, you may notice how many of the choir members are looking up at the clock on the wall.