Skip to main content

Sammy's Concert Series

Earlier this week, I spent a chunk of a cool summer’s evening sitting in a dark parking lot at the Veterans’ Administration complex, listening to the muted roar of One Direction fans singing along to their favorite tunes. It was the fifth and final event in my daughter’s year-long endeavor to see her favorite artists live and in person.

It started with an October road trip to Moline, IL that included an overnight stay in an overly expensive hotel. I stayed in the room, plugging away on revision, while Sammy and her friend sang and danced with Demi Lovato in the arena next door. I slept on the pull-out couch while they commandeered the king-sized sleep number bed, reliving with breathless wonder every moment of the show.

The next stop was an arena closer to home on one of the coldest evenings of February. Not wanting to go downtown and back twice, Scott and I dropped the girls off near the Ariana Grande marquee, went out to dinner, visited the auto show, and finally made our way into a pub nearby where we waited for a text from Sam to alert us to the show’s end.

The third concert, Ed Sheeran at Summerfest, was my favorite, partly because I was the invited guest, but more so because he was incredible. Musical talent? Check. Engaging personality? Check. G-rated family entertainment? Not if you listened closely to the lyrics, but hey, I’m a big believer in free speech and raw artistic genius.

For the fourth show, we took another road trip—this time to Tinley Park—to see 5 Seconds of Summer or 5SOS, as they’re known to fans. I was a tag-along chauffeur, but we happened to have an extra pair of lawn seats that didn’t sell on StubHub (due to the addition of a second show shortly after the sell-out of the first), so I got to sweat it out with the unwashed masses on the lawn while the girls enjoyed the ambience of reserved seats.

One Direction was the last show on the docket and, though Sammy’s enthusiasm for their music had waned, she deemed it necessary to attend the show on behalf of her eighth grade self, who would have given her eyeteeth for such an opportunity. I dropped her off with a friend at the VA and watched them walk down the path to fulfill their fandom destiny.

As I drove off, I remembered another concert, one where Sammy was a performer and I was a member of the audience. She was a fifth grader, playing in concert with all of the orchestra students in the district, from elementary through high school, and I was a distracted mom who’d just received a call from my surgeon that relayed the unsettling news that the results of my needle biopsy were inconclusively “atypical” and would require further surgery to confirm or negate the possibility of a breast cancer recurrence.

I sat on the hard wooden bleacher and listened to the uneven and occasionally sour notes of newly minted violinists, grateful that I was able to be there, praying that I would be there for many more. I couldn’t tell you what melodies the orchestra played, but I do know that they’d never sounded sweeter.

Since that night, I’ve been blessed with five years’ worth of orchestral performances—enough to almost make me forget the urgency of each event, the importance of every single moment that I’ve gotten to spend in musical communion with my daughter. This tour of concerts—driven by Sammy’s preferences—gave me new chances to connect with my daughter, to listen to her nearly adult voice espousing authentic and informed opinions, and to savor each bit of time together.

Two years from now, Sammy will be finished with high school, perched on the edge of the nest and ready to fly. I’m perilously aware of how easily the moments slip away—and of the concerted effort it takes to stay present and enjoy every opportunity I have to be involved in her life.

My role in Sammy’s life is becoming more and more that of a bystander—and that’s as it should be. Still, I’m not quite ready to take my seat on the sideline.

I relish every opportunity she offers me to join her in the game.

Incompatible with Life: A story of hope

Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

The Tortures of Tamoxifen, Part 2

Though my oncologist was not thrilled with me quitting tamoxifen, she did give me her blessing. “Take a break and see how you feel. Just promise me that you’ll consider starting up again.” I stopped taking the pills and within a few weeks noticed an improvement in my energy level. My hot flashes were less frequent, weight management a bit easier. Running, my favorite leisure activity, stopped feeling like a chore. I couldn’t quite ratchet my pace back up to pre-cancer levels, but I could finally hold my own with my running buddies again. I harbored a small hope that stopping the medicine would put me back into my previous ovaries-still-in-action hormonal state of being. Sadly, aside from one scant period right after I abandoned the drug, my body stayed stubbornly stuck in menopause. My symptoms weren’t nearly as bad as they’d been on tamoxifen, but they were still there, mocking me. I started to have doubts about my decision. The drumbeat of, “What if?” reverberated in my ...
Read more

My Love-Hate Relationship with Teaching

I have a confession to make, one that seemingly meets the criteria of a mundane mid-life crisis: I love what I do, but I hate my job. I’m a kindergarten teacher by trade. I adore children—always have, always will—and have a natural affinity for the littlest learners. I enjoy watching their growth across a school year, the way they come in green and fresh as newly planted seeds at the start, and leave my classroom as saplings stretching toward the infinite sky of knowledge and understanding. I hate the metrics that are used to define my students’ performance (and my own). I loathe the over-reliance on a narrow band of assessment measures that ignores the intangibles of student growth and extinguishes the joy of learning. I resent seeing children reduced to numbers on a grid in the name of data-based decision-making. I cherish the time I spend with my students in the Zone of Proximal Development. I thrive on the everyday teachable moments that enable me to coach into my stud...
Read more

Blaming the Victim

“Everything happens for a reason.” It’s one of the most common rote responses we have when we hear of someone else’s tragedy. I’ve been on the receiving end of this comment more times than I care to count…and I hate it. Seriously, I’d love to see it eradicated from the English language. When people tell me that there’s a reason I got cancer, it implies that there’s a reason why they didn’t. When they tell me that there’s a reason I lost my baby, the unspoken message is—well, you know. Those words, strung together in an overture of sympathy, provide comfort only to the person speaking them. They represent a very convenient and human reaction to tragedy—seeking meaning in a way that enables us to distance ourselves from the possibility that such a thing could happen to us. Interestingly, I’ve never heard this phrase uttered by a parent who’s buried a child, or a widow who lost her beloved spouse. I’ve never heard someone with a life-threatening medical condition suggest ...
Read more