"Empire State" - a marching band tribute to NYC

[mskochen]

First, a story from the band director:

My 9/11 memories are so vivid. The phone call from my mom, the inability to turn off the television in my apartment in Cheney, to turn off my tears. I called the HS I coached at, CVHS and told them to cancel marching band practice that day. I was useless. But I refuse to relive that day today, instead I would like to share a story that helped connect me to the memory of those souls that were taken from our side too soon.

In 2011, I had a freshman student finishing her first year in HS. She was an average to below average trumpet player who believed she was desperate to become great. She discovered very quickly her freshman year that she had some catching up to do. She practiced so diligently. Skipping lunch to practice her trumpet, asking me questions that I had never been asked, and paying attention in class with a focus that was so piercing. At the end of her year she told me sheepishly that she wanted to join our marching band. I was so thrilled, our band of misfits needed someone like her. Someone so remarkably average, someone to root for every day, someone to look up to because she would always come back - never discouraged. We needed someone who was so scared to join that she joined, in order to overcome her own fears.

But there was a catch. She asked me if she could miss a rehearsal in September. One little Saturday rehearsal. It was May and I could hardly care less about marching band next fall. I assured her that one rehearsal wouldn't make or break our season. The September day before she was to finally leave, I asked her for the first time where she was going. She explained that her mother had planned a trip to NYC to see the dedication of the 9/11 Memorial at Ground Zero for the tenth anniversary of the tragedy. I was very impressed with her mother to say the least, what a profound trip.

We rehearsed that Saturday with a little spot in the trumpet section missing. We did miss her smile, we missed her focus and we certainly missed rooting for her to get that one move on her 15th try. But we went on.

Tuesday morning she is back in the classroom and I ask her about the trip, particularly the groundbreaking of the 9/11 Memorial. She looks down at the ground and asks me in her trademark sheepish way, "Mr. Parker you know it was okay. But you know how my last name starts with 'S'?"

A knot tightens in my throat.

"It just took so long to hear them read my dad's name."

I couldn't say anything. I could only reach out and offer a hug. Her unassuming nature was real. The loss of that day, the resources of mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters that were taken from our neighbors, our students - taken out of that building and away from our mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, sons and daughters is unspeakable. I had never met someone impacted so greatly. Her daddy was a Marine. He was at work. He was just at work. He was her daddy.

The math in my head moved quickly in that moment. This young girl was my son's age at the time of the attack. He was at work. He was her daddy. Sadly for me, this student had to move away before I could see her graduate. But thankfully, I could Facebook stalk her and see the events unfold as she grew up. Her Dad is so proud of her. And he was a Marine! She is so kind, and she is my hero of 9/11.

She's in college now and we talk every now and then. But I think of her, and I cry for her just one day a year. She's my hero because she has endured and she is a patriot for LIVING her life. That is what it means today, Patriot Day. To LIVE our lives.

The New Chapter -

But then in 2016 some friends of mine on a school bus were just talking about this story randomly on the way home from a marching band competition. How the story touched so many of us, but how every year our band reformed - the students could identify less and less with tales of 9/11. We wanted Momo's story and in turn the story of another 3,000 families to be felt by the kids in the band that now no longer were even alive back in 2001.

We wanted to write a show for the marching band to perform. Not about 9/11 but what it meant to be from New York. How it sounded, how it felt when it crumbled and mostly how it felt to watch it endure and rebirth itself with even more solidarity. The tales of heroes, sacrifice and hard work. What a great idea for music to transport our students to a transformative time.

But how would they know? We just tell them? The same way we tell them history, science, math? Or could we transport them literally to the world we wanted them to express?

So we took them to NYC, for the week that would end in Patriot's Day. They would hear the cacophony of taxi horns, shouting, whistles and they would touch the soil of Ground Zero, they would hear the phone calls from Flight 93, WTC1, people sending their goodbyes. And they would touch the names of Todd Beamer, Captain "Paddy" Brown, and Marine Corps sergeant, John Scharf.

This week has been so heavy on my heart, for almost three years. The planning, the amazing students we have here and supporting us at home and the inspiration that one person has impacted so many lives. But here we are, 120 people watching their world grow, feeling their lives and perspective change. All because a sweet young girl had to miss one marching band practice.

It certainly feels odd in one sense but appropriate in another, Happy Patriot's Day Momo. We will never let one day erase your story from the memory of time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwAKrGqpNio