A Life Well-Sung

When I lived in New York I was a member of the Riverside Church. Among the people I met in that congregation was my friend Lisa Maldonado. She and I volunteered for the same committee, and grew to be friends as we discussed our lives in different parts of the musical world of New York.

Lisa managed an office and recording studio that belonged to one of the most prominent Broadway composers, Mitch Leigh. Thanks to my friendship with Lisa, I had the privilege of meeting Mitch on several occasions. He has enjoyed a long and lucrative career, but will always be best-known for his great show, "Man of La Mancha", wherein the lead character, Don Quixote, sings the most-recorded and most-repeated song in the history of musical theatre, "The Impossible Dream."

I was reminiscing about meeting Mitch Leigh as I watched tonight's celebration of the life of Senator Ted Kennedy. In its most recent revival, the great actor-singer Brian Stokes Mitchell portrayed Don Quixote and sang the great song to universal acclaim. Tonight he rendered it as a tribute to the senator.

I was struck as speaker after speaker, from family member to senate colleague to friend, mentioned Ted Kennedy's love of singing. Senator Hatch, his great friend and frequent adversary, talked about how he had written a song to commemorate the wedding of the senator to his wife Vicky. His long-time aide sang one of the songs they shared in frequent sing-alongs with family and staff. Apparently, Senator Kennedy made singing a part of his everyday life.

I find this remarkable because of the remarkable nature of Kennedy's life. For, in addition to an historic career in government, Ted Kennedy faced a life of almost Shakespearean tragedy, enough grief to have stifled the song of anyone.

If one is to believe both the Republican and Democratic speakers at tonight's celebration, Ted Kennedy faced the great challenges of life as patriarch of the nation's tragic celebrity family with a song. When invited to the home of the governor, he showed up with the conductor of the Boston Pops and a pianist so they could all sing after dinner. When presiding over the awarding of the Profiles in Courage Award to his rival John McCain, he arranged cakes and parties and led the singing of "Happy Birthday" to senator McCain's eleven year old son. The stories tonight all mentioned singing.

I am comforted that the more I learn about a life that was both tragic and noble, and always larger-than-life, I find that untrained, boisterous, unembarrassed singing helped to make that life possible. Singing seemed to help make the rough places plain, and the crooked straight. I am grateful to see these legislative rivals honor one another, and to hear that for every mention of political rhetoric, there were three or four mentions of singing together.

A lesson to us all.

And the world will be better for this,
That one man, scorned and covered with scars,
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable stars.