How Mourning Taught Me How to Live

It takes a village to raise a child, and I was blessed to grow up in a neighborhood full of the best adult friends and teachers a kid could have. My Scoutmaster, Wally Rupp, took me on adventures and helped me turn my weaknesses into strengths. His brother, Keith, had immeasurable faith in me even when I doubted myself, and he always met me with the kindest smile and sincerely asked how I was doing. My youth leader in the local church congregation, Gordon Daniels, treated me like family and taught me how to live happily near God in an increasingly tough world.

I could spend all month writing tributes to the host of people who helped make me who I am. But few have had a greater influence on my life than my piano teacher, Pam Larson.

Pam played the organ for our congregation every Sunday. As a church organist myself now, I can honestly say that it's the kind of position where it's easy to just show up and not really think about what you're doing. But Pam always took it seriously. She cared about the way her music inspired reverence at church. Her music was her testimony; she played the organ with the hope that someone listening might actually draw closer to the Savior.

As a piano teacher, Pam taught me more than just the theory and the scales and the notes. Learning how to play the piano was only the first step; the most important part to her, I think, was how to make the piano mine, how to pour myself into the music and paint pictures with the sound, how to become the keys and the pedals and the strings and feel more deeply than I'd ever felt before. Pam made me a musician. But in a lot of ways she helped make me a writer, too.

Ten years of piano lessons turned my mentor into a cherished friend. By the time I started high school, I couldn't wait for our weekly visits. We talked as much as we played music. She cared about what happened in my life, and through her teaching she gave me something that has gotten me through countless challenges. I don't know where I would be without the piano. I don't know where I would be if Pam had never been my teacher.

The summer I turned seventeen, my family drove through Canada to see our Alaskan relatives. Over three thousand miles lay between Salt Lake and my grandma's doorstep. The entire trip would take three weeks, and knowing I would be without a piano the whole time, I spent the morning of our departure getting my fill of the keyboard. I played until we finally left in the early afternoon.

My mom's phone rang as we sped up the freeway on-ramp heading out of town. Then came the news that turned my whole world upside down.

Pam passed away at 12:30 that day.

I couldn't cry in front of my family, couldn't express my anguish at the loss of such a dear and treasured friend. I wouldn't have had the words to do it, anyway. I don't even have them now.

It rained the entire drive from Salt Lake to our first hotel in Montana. I had exhausted myself holding everything together all day, but at last I found some privacy when my family left me in the car to get our room keys. In the safety of the darkened parking lot, raindrops trailing down the windows, I wept loudly for the mentor who had given me so much.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ gives me hope that I will see Pam Larson again. One of my favorite scripture verses says that "that same sociality which exists among us here will exist among us there, only it will be coupled with eternal glory, which glory we do not now enjoy" (D&C 130:2). We will play the piano together again.

But the pain didn't go away overnight. Pam's death left a gaping hole in my life. For a while, it hurt too much to play the piano, so I didn't do it. Sometimes even hearing a piano was too much. The light of music went out for a long time.

I'm not writing this for pity, so don't give me any. Instead, I want to tell you what I learned from mourning for my friend:

The way to keep someone alive in your heart is to use the gifts they gave you.

It's okay to hurt when someone you love dies. It's okay to be sad, to weep, to struggle. But if that person made you smile, you don't honor their memory by never smiling again.

If they made you laugh, nothing will make them happier on the other side than to hear your laughter.

If they gave you children, love them and spend time with them.

If they made you appreciate the beauty of the world, go out and enjoy the world.

If they taught you something, teach someone else.

I'll never stop missing Pam. But every time I sit down at the piano--whether in my living room or in a crowded auditorium--Pam is still alive.

A tribute I built shortly after Pam's passing. Based on the Lego rendition of myself, I had a lot more hair back then.

Today marks ten years since my teacher passed away, so I thought it fitting to share a video of myself playing the piano. This one's kind of old, but I couldn't think of anything more appropriate: William Joseph's Sweet Remembrance of You.