A Celebration of Special-Ness

Em's spring choir concert was tonight, and it was great.







The retiring choir teacher mixed things up since it was his last concert. He had the kids dancing, he had them haul a parent or loved one (or two) up on stage for a sentimental number (You Raise Me Up), he invited members of the audience to come up and sing if they wanted to on a number he figured anyone who'd ever taken a semester of vocal music knew (and for which he had sheet music in case they didn't).







I knew Em picked the artist formerly known as Frau Lobster to go up on stage because my ex wife, Em's mother, is not a big bald freak in a Hawaiian shirt sitting front and center snapping pictures compulsively through the show. Nothing is more mortifying to Em than the thought that someone might know she's related to that guy.



Plus, she knew her Mom would cry.




I passed up the opportunity to go up and sing 'My Lord' next to her because my Dad and his wife had already gone up and the expression on Em's face was too rich as she tried to process this. I stayed put and took more pictures. Hindsight, I should have gone up and not only sang, but with my arm thrown around her neck after giving her a noogie.





Speaking of hindsight, this whole shebang was a cut above Mr. W.'s usual concerts. He's a nice guy, obviously loves teaching, takes the kids caroling in downtown Gardner at the holidays, etc. But I've always thought he could learn a page or two from the Feebster, the vocal music teacher at Mo's school.



So here's a concert where he showed the flair and creativity that gets the kids and the audience to embrace the music on a higher level and it's his last concert. I have to wonder if he's aware that he could have done this sooner (and probably would have found the results rewarding).





This isn't to criticize him, it makes me wonder what all I'm doing in my life that may be perfectly adequate but could be ramped up to a higher level. If you knew that whatever you're about to do is a last time, a finale, a punctuation mark on your career of doing whatever that is, would you do it differently?



And if so, shouldn't you?



The frustrating thing is, I suspect, it's almost impossible for most people to see it in their own cases. I can root around in Mr. W.'s eye for a splinter or two, but no doubt I have big old gnarly logs in my own. For instance, I didn't get up there and give Em a noogie and sing...