Mary, in case I never get to tell you in person,
I love you.
Yes. I know those are strong words.
Yes. I mean them.
I didn't know, that first day sitting across from you
with my registration card scribbled and crossed out
and scribbled over again in front of me
having our "meet and greet your first year advisor" moment,
the sound of the quad being mowed,
and the smell of Maine sun on autumn leaves
floating in through the open window
over the voices of students walking in front of Gibson
through it's halls, up its stairs, punctuated by
the sound of the double doors sucking open
and clapping shut,
the muted strains of tubas and clarinets
playing scales in practice rooms
and pianos being played in the offices next door
as hopefuls auditioned for the scholarship
for private music lessons,
the implications of our meeting.
I had no way of knowing how lucky I was,
of how over the next four and a half years
we would go from being student and teacher
to daughter and mother--
that I would go from wearing my Sunday best
and sitting stiffly upright, and talking about how
I was really more serious about biology,
to sprawled in your office sipping tea,
and bemoaning how I really wish I could pursue music,
or hunched over the keyboard hidden behind the door
with frazzled hair, clothed in shapeless sweat pants,
biting a pencil trying to "listen to where your ears
are telling you to go, the secondary dominance
wants to resolve to--Lydia,
you have quite a good pair of ears on you,
it's rather a matter of you trusting them,"
or meekly bowing my head as you
pushed over my final paper and saying,
"I think you know that--quite frankly--
this is shit, so, take until noon Thursday to rewrite it,"
(Oh, the patience you exercised!)
or laughing when you critiqued my piano performance as,
"at times a bit like starting a chainsaw,"
to designing costumes and sets for
Mozart's 'The Magic Flute' set in the jungle
while eating cookies in your kitchen.
I grew, from the cocky and ignorant
to the insecure and embarrassed,
to the humbled, yet hungry to always pursue
knowledge and beauty,
and found my voice to say,
"I don't know, but I want to know,
and I am not ashamed to say it,
or pursue it."
I never would have
found my way
into the arms of our counselors,
and learned that therapy was not only something
to not be ashamed of
but to seek out--and that mental health was possible
even for someone has tragically a mess as me,
had you not listened to me sob through
half-baked sentences about how overwhelmed
my 18 year-old-self was
and passed me tissue after tissue like some
comedically pathetic Warner Brother's cartoon set
till we were both swimming in Kleenex,
and it was they who would keep me from
attempting self-harm again,
and help me climb my way out of depression
again, and again, and again
a thousand miles from home,
or gotten clothes in time for
winter in Maine, the fall of my last semester
when my father had been hospitalized
and I had spent my summer earnings
driving 15 miles each way every day
to hospice when gas was $6 a gallon,
watching him slowly waste away
and come to Bowdoin with only enough money
for either books or pants but not both,
and you acquired money not just for pants
but for a plane ticket home for the funeral,
and convinced me to go, saying,
"Sometimes, it's more important to say good-bye
when the relationship with the deceased
was filled with conflict,
than if the relationship was loving,"
which were words that helped me
more than any words of condolence.
I remember the first time you answered my
rambling e-mails about a concept I didn't understand
at 1:30 in the morning,
and then, when I responded with another question
again, a fully formed, logical response at 2:00,
and then, to my chagrin
to find you at the pool in the lane next to me
doing laps before breakfast,
at which point I grumbled to my roommate
as we hastily shoved yogurt and granola into our mouths
on the way to class:
"I think she's actually a machine--
I mean, really, when does she sleep?"
(the mystery of which, I have not yet solved)
and you would still find time to have a lunch date with me.
This after you pulled me aside, saying,
"Sometimes you're on point, and sometimes
you're just off in outer space.
I think you need more sleep than 3 hours a night."
What is your secret!
It was not a rare occurrence--
there are threads upon threads of
conversations we've carried at all hours of the day.
(It can't just be coffee.
Perhaps you have cloned yourself
and the woman I know as Mary Hunter
is actually a hive mind of Mary Hunters.
I have no other explanation,
except perhaps you are immortal.)
I recall the quiet victory smile on your face
when I finally decided to surrender myself
to the joy of my life,
to solely study music,
as if you knew I would always come back around,
and the enthusiasm with which you clapped
at my performance,
at my glee,
at my bliss.
And every time I sit with my students
and pencil in tonal analysis,
and chid them, and praise them in both attempts and successes
I am transported back into your office,
and your voice saying, "Yes! That's right, you've got it."
I cannot explain to you how
hearing these words on my last day at Bowdoin:
"Lydia, I am so proud of you for graduating.
I have seen students
face less personal turmoil and challenges
than you and quit,"
has been the highest form of compliment,
from a person I most admire.
I cannot express how much it means
to hear from you
even all these years after,
and to make plans to see each other again.
And finding your supporting wings,
and unfailing faith,
reaching across the distance and
lifting me again this last year.
You have been, relentlessly,
my cheerleader,
rallying the troops--
if there was ever a way to quantify
how much I am loved--
a fact that had escaped me until this year--
it was how quickly #LydiaNation
came to my aid when you called.
I cried in the first few moments,
was astounded in the next few hours,
and lay, completely overwhelmed
in the days to come,
and understood for the first time in my life
that I am truly, deeply loved.
In these times, when I look back,
I marvel at my many blessings and am grateful
that I had the privilege
of being guided by you through college
and supported on the wobbly legs
of young adulthood--
that as a child from little means with no connections,
I would have a chance to have a teacher
who would so impact who I am today,
and inspire in me to do the same for those to come.
I owe you a great deal--
there are not enough
and will never be enough "thank you's"
to thank you, Mary Hunter.
Thank you.
