Generations of Encouragement

My father passed away yesterday, twenty months after receiving a cancer diagnosis that indicated a six month life expectancy. Our family is together, walking through the valley of the shadow of the mundane, planning the service and other details, receiving the thoughtful expressions of countless friends and family, checking that everyone has appropriate wardrobe, shuffling the items in the refrigerator so that more can be added, and many other tasks that you don't think about until they become necessary.

The tasks for today included my driving out to the rural cemetery where my parents have designated their place among my ancestors, and marking the spot where my father's grave should be. My three children drove with me, and we walked around the new and old sections of the graveyard, giving me the chance to make introductions. As I told my children about my forebears, I stopped at my grandparents' graves, and told them about the special respect in which I hold my father's father.

My father was born when the country was a year into its terrible depression, when his parents were in their early twenties and trying to scratch together a farm. Two siblings were added, and the little farm eventually had five pairs of hands to do the work. In poor, rural, depression-era Alabama, adding labor was essential to farming, and all the Johnsons worked hard.

School wasn't mandatory yet, and the farm work needed to be done, but the Johnson children stayed in school. My father excelled academically, and was a class leader. He even drove a school bus. And when he graduated, he went to college. What seems like such an inevitable choice in today's world was completely unlikely in that rural setting. For my father and his brother and sister to attend college guaranteed that they would pursue careers away from the dirt road that fronted the meager farm. Their parents let them go, knowing that their farm would remain small, but their legacy would increase exponentially.

My parents married and both became teachers. And my brothers and I grew up in a family where education was a high priority. We were taught to believe that we could achieve our goals through hard work and integrity, but we didn't have to talk much about it. It was demonstrated for us. And just as the normal path of children on a poor farm would have been to continue farming, the normal path of the children in my family was to pursue academically advanced professions.

When I decided to follow my great passion for music, there were many who thought it was a frivolous idea. Surely I couldn't earn a living, or represent the high ideals of my family by pursuing something that many people considered a hobby. I might have expected my father, who by this time was a college administrator, to urge me to consider a path leading toward academic or professional recognition or financial reward. But he had learned encouragement at the same time he learned honesty and hard work, in long depression-era lessons taught between the furrows of cotton or beans.

When I decided to major in music, he encouraged me to pursue my studies at the college I chose, and he and my mother, who was equally encouraging, drove through the night to hear my performances. When I announced that my graduation would soon be followed by graduate school, he said, "We'll help any way we can," and soon appeared with a trailer to help me move.

When my schooling ended and my career took its various turns, my parents became acquainted with each place, and heard many of my performances. When times were hard, Dad was quick to remind me how he considered me to be among the richest people he knew, thanks to my many opportunities to travel and see the world, and thanks to my opportunities to interact with the great art of the ages. When life was hard, he sat and revealed his wisdom about the situation, assuring me that I was safe and cared for.

Encouragement was a rare thing during the late twenties, but my grandfather's encouragement enabled my father to live a life of achievement and success. And it taught him how to pass encouragement along to his wife and sons, consistently expressing his support and love.

Making music is intensely personal, and open to frequent criticism. I think musicians who lack strong encouragement from others probably find it very hard to pursue their passion. And I think many people seek to encourage musicians, but don't have a fine-tuned sense of how to do it. But some musicians are blessed beyond measure, enjoying the relentless efforts of a world-class encourager throughout their career. I am one of those musicians. In our last conversation, he wanted to be sure I knew how proud he was that I had conducted an opera last week, and how he wished he could have been there.

It would be ridiculous to attempt a verbal expression of the degree to which my mother, brothers and I will miss him. But his encouragement is deeply ingrained in all of us. It was acted out every day, so we have seen it so much we have memorized it. And the true evaluation of whether I have learned his life-long lesson of encouragement won't come after one of my musical performances. It will come in the lives of my son and daughters, when they feel enabled to pursue their passions, no matter where they may lead.