A life you love

"A life you love." 
- Charles Dickens, Tale of Two Cities
This past Saturday, on the lawns of Tanglewood under a starlit sky, my best friends, family, and thousands of others were performing or enjoying a live performance of one of my favorite works, Verdi's Requiem.  It's a masterful composition that evokes poignant emotions each time I perform it.  In it lies joy, sadness, despair, hope, and redemption in a performance with marked fortitude followed by subtle, hushed whispers.  The chorus and orchestra mesmerize the audience with a range of dynamics and tempos that combine to create a unique experience even among the great works of this repertoire.

I won't be at Tanglewood again this year as I prepare for another deployment, this time to the Horn of Africa.  I'll miss the grand vista of the Stockbridge Bowl that opens in a wide expanse behind concert halls, the elephantine trees that spread their thick, grey boughs over the warm, smooth grass, and the ever present musical themes floating through the air.  For a musician, Tanglewood is an enigmatic place that takes little effort to expunge the worries of life and simply resign to a mystical existence where what you love is all that surrounds you.

I thought about Tanglewood as I spent my last few weeks in Sudbury, along with all of the facets of my life that I'll miss.  When you know you will be apart from something so familiar, even the familiar can seem fresh.  The tree I never noticed in Great Meadows Wildlife Reserve, the trail that I run when the air is crisp and damp in the New England morning that appears greener and more inviting, the school that my daughters attend has slight change in hue in the afternoon light, all of which a little more noticed by eyes that would normally be fixated on the here and now.

Missing what I'm leaving behind is always the hardest part of deploying, in particular leaving behind Carrie Lou and the girls.  When people ask why I've chosen to do this, it's hard to adequately explain how I feel about making the sacrifice to deploy.  I don't need the money, I don't need the job, and I don't need the excitement in order to feel fulfilled as a person.  But as Dickens' character says, it's for "a life you love," and to me it's for the life my girls love.

There is a great deal of suffering and repression in the countries of eastern Africa.  Governments that siphon off the riches of their country's natural resources, fanatical leaders that promote barbaric mutilations to further their religious agendas, and abusive warlords who build their fortunes on the backs of those that are indentured.  In much of Africa, a young girl with dreams is oft left with little opportunity to realize those dreams, each one slowly whittled away as the years pass and the promise of a better life fades further in the distance.

My girls have a life they love, safe within the confines of a wonderful community that supports them and their mom while I deploy once again.  I truly believe my sacrifice is in some small way preserving that life.  But more importantly, I hope my sacrifice can bring a life to love to others that struggle just to survive in countries that have been ravaged for years as they struggle to emerge from under the thumb of colonialism, internal strife and civil wars that have decimated what many believe to be part of the cradle of civilization.

Maybe I am too idealistic, too naïve to see any fallacy in believing that small changes and sacrifices eventually combine to become the force behind real and permanent change.  I'm just unable to bring myself to believe that. 

My courageous family is unwavering in their support even with the hardships we'll face.  Our friends show no lack of support from our musical, academic, professional, and social circles.  And everywhere I go, my fellow Americans display an affection and gratitude for service that is unparalleled.  A deployment is a sacrifice that is simply a part of the life I love.