Love is all you need.

Yesterday I had one of those amazing affirmations that makes me believe that I am doing some good, somehow. My baritone, the drama student, has to do a jury this term, and we were discussing repertoire. I started looking farther down the road and asked him if he was still planning on studying singing next year, when he informed me that he didn’t know if he’d be back to Bushop’s in the fall. In fact, the only reason he came back at all this year was to continue studying singing with me.

I was so incredibly touched and honoured to have him say this. He wants to go to a university out west to finish his drama degree because it will offer him more of what he’s not getting here, but he put it off for a year so he could continue to work with me. I asked him if he would put that in writing, and he said, “Sure.” His girlfriend, who had two lessons with me when she was here on holidays before Christmas, liked me so much she puts me on her resumé as one of her coaches. That really touched me, too.

When I was feeling particularly low the other day, I was chatting online with one of my best friends, complaining that I felt as though my life was like grains of sand slipping through an hourglass, that I really have nothing to show for any of the things I’ve done or do. He said that that wasn’t true, that my legacy was in the people whose lives I had touched, not works of art or recordings. I said that I wished I could see those results, and he agreed, but assured me that they existed nonetheless. I suppose my experience with my student yesterday shows me that this is true to a certain degree.

I have always felt that the only truly worthwhile things we have in life are our relationships with others and the love that we feel for our family and our friends. If my house were to burn down and I were to lose absolutely everything material I own, it would not matter as long as all my loved ones were safe.

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