It is Finished

It is finished, this chapter of my life that began so unexpectedly 2 years ago.

June 2012--I was still reeling from a rather abrupt move to Los Angeles from my beloved San Francisco Bay Area.  A family emergency compelled me to leave behind 40 music students (violin and piano) without saying goodbye, and the faces of my students--particularly the 5 and 6-year-olds--haunted me in my sleep.  With the sudden change in my life,  the music that had always been a part of it faded away and died.

In some ways, I was relieved.  Music chose me more than I chose it, and it was refreshing to be released from its grip for a time.  My ears, always oversensitive to musical imperfections, reveled in the break from instrumental sounds produced by children, becoming instead receptacles for words spoken by the elderly.  In listening to my residents, I became a counselor, an advocate, and to many, "like my daughter".

How many people in the world are lucky enough to be "like my daughter" to nearly 100 seniors?  

Today was my final farewell party, and again I played my violin for the residents I was leaving.  To fit the demographics of this particular building, I took out the "Cuban" section from my "International Medley" and put in a Korean folksong and a Persian tune.  The goodbyes today were even more heartrending than the previous Farewell's.  My male residents could not hold back their tears, and my female residents clung to me, some convulsing with sobs and whispering in my ear in long embraces.

It is a deeply moving experience to go through something like this.  In a way, it is a bit traumatic.  I didn't know when I started this job 2 years ago that one day, when I left, I would be responsible for breaking so many people's hearts.

I weep with gratitude tonight, humbled by the fact that I was allowed to experience such connections with these human beings, these residents that my company paid me to help advocate for and find resources to help them age in place.  What started out as a job given to me by a friend who needed a replacement ended up being a profound testament to this quote:

A thought that came to me tonight--Empathy is often deepened by our own experiences with suffering.  2 years ago, when I arrived at my job, I had lost not only my 40 music students, but also the community I'd built up in the Bay and a chance for a love and a life I'd always wanted.  I felt abandoned by God and betrayed by certain ideals with which I'd been brought up.

I moved back to a SoCal lifestyle that made me feel very out of place.  When I first moved to the Bay, everyone thought that I would be making my new life there.  My parents rented out my old room to a tenant, so when I returned to LA, I didn't even have a proper bed to sleep on.  During my time in the Bay, my spiritual community consisted of young married couples who were starting to have families.  When I moved back to LA, my old friends were busy being married or engaged or about-to-be-engaged. I had to build a new community with single young adults, and that definitely felt like going a few steps backwards in my life stage.

So when residents told me about their experiences of moving to the States, of taking steps backwards in social status (some were professors and doctors and engineers in their Old Country), and in feeling lonely in a new environment, I felt more sympathetic.  I resonated with feeling displaced in a place that one now had to call "home" and having to make a life for oneself under less-than-ideal circumstances.

As Life would have it, abundant blessings and rich friendships have come out of my relocation to LA, and the chapter of my professional journey which has now come to a close was one of the best things about this move.  This week, I tenderly turn over the final page of my time as a Resident Service Coordinator, and I give up my time as a working adult for a chance to be a student again.  Somehow, in the process of seeking to gain complete and conscious closure, I have turned to music to guide my process, and in that process, my violin came out of its shell and began to sing again.