go.Jimmy.go

RETURN ADDRESS:
James Wood
Easton, Pennsylvania
Class of 1987
Still Listening

TO:
Edward “M” Milisits II
Choir Director Emeritus
Somewhere Beyond the Music
No Zip Code Required.

---

Dear M,

I’ve been thinking about you lately.

Actually, that’s not entirely true. I think about you more often than you’d probably expect. Sometimes it happens when an old photo pops up on Facebook. Sometimes I’ll hear a song or a piece of music and suddenly I’m seventeen years old again, sitting in that music room at Easton High School where you taught chorus and music theory. And sometimes your name just wanders into my head for no particular reason at all.

Funny how that works.

You’ve been gone for almost five years now, which makes writing this letter a little strange. I’m fairly certain the postal service doesn’t deliver where you are, and even if it did, I’d probably need more than a Forever Stamp.

But there are things I never really said to you when I had the chance. So I figured I’d take your own advice.

Talk to me.

Remember that?

Whenever one of us was struggling with something—homework, music theory, peer pressure, or whatever catastrophe seemed capable of ending the world when we were teenagers—you had those three simple words:

“Talk to me.”

It was more than a catchphrase. It was an invitation.

And maybe, all these years later, that’s what I’m doing — Talking to you.

I don’t think I ever told you just how important you were to me during those formative years.

High school wasn’t always an easy place for me. Like a lot of kids, I was trying to figure out who I was while simultaneously hoping nobody else would notice that I had absolutely no idea.

I wasn’t an athlete. I wasn’t one of the popular kids. I was skinny, painfully shy amateur guitar player, and spent a lot of time wondering exactly where I fit into the grand scheme of things.

Then there was your choir room.

I belonged there.

You taught me about music, of course. You taught me how to breathe properly, how to listen, how to blend and how to take all of those notes printed on a piece of paper and somehow turn them into something that could make people feel.

But you also taught me something much more important. You made me feel like I mattered.

I can still picture you in that room every morning, usually surrounded by students.

Someone would have a question about music theory. Someone wanted your opinion about a District Chorus audition piece they were working on. Someone else probably just wanted to talk.

You were like a celebrity holding court, except instead of Hollywood, your kingdom was a high school music room.

There were plenty of times I had questions too, but I was usually too shy to fight my way through the crowd. Instead, I’d wait until everyone left and then approach you.

I remember telling you one time in 1986 that I was thinking about majoring in music education. I even wanted to attend the same state college you had attended. At seventeen, I thought I had everything figured out. Turns out seventeen-year-olds are idiots, because life had other plans.

The last time I saw you back then was high school graduation night in 1987. That’s when life happened. College. Work. Marriage. A family. Bills. Mortgages. Careers. All of the things nobody warns you about when you’re sitting in a high school classroom wondering if you’re ever actually going to use algebra or cursive handwriting.

Music slowly moved further into the background, and for more than twenty years, so did you.

Then someone told me that you were directing an adult choir once a week at a chapel across town. By then you’d retired after thirty-three years of teaching, and I’d long since abandoned whatever dreams I once had of becoming a professional musician and had built a career in information technology and writing instead.

But when I heard you were directing a choir again, something stirred inside me.

Maybe it was nostalgia, or maybe it was the realization that somewhere beneath the IT job and the responsibilities and middle-aged guy I’d become, that seventeen-year-old kid was still hanging around inside of me.

Whatever it was, I decided to show up.

I remember walking into that first rehearsal and immediately feeling exactly like I had in high school.

Awkward.

You were talking with several people and hadn’t noticed me.

I’ll be honest, for a moment I seriously considered turning around and leaving. It had been years since I’d sung in a choir. What if I couldn’t do it anymore

More importantly, what if you didn’t remember me?

After all, you’d taught thousands of students during your career. Why would you remember one skinny, introverted kid who used to sit in the corner?

I finally mustered up the adult courage to walk over and tapped you on the shoulder.

“Hello, M,” I said. “Do you remember me?”

You turned around.

I’ll never forget the look on your face.

“Oh my gosh!”

Then came that big handshake.

“It’s been a long time.”

Just like that, the decades disappeared. For a few seconds I wasn’t a husband, father or middle-aged IT guy. I was your student again.

You told me that night that I should call you Ed. After all, your name was Ed Milisits and we were both adults now.

I tried. I really did. But it never felt right. You weren’t Ed to me. You were “M,” and you always would be.

For the next ten years, Tuesday nights became something I looked forward to. Once again, I was standing in a choir under your direction.

Life has a strange way of bringing things full circle, albeit many years/decades later.

One year I even worked up the nerve to suggest that we perform a piece we’d sung during my senior year in high school: Os Justi. You liked the idea but warned me that getting it approved by the music committee might be a long shot.

Years went by.

Then one morning an email from you appeared in my inbox.

“Thought you’d be interested to know that ‘Os Justi’ is on the Winter program list! We WIN!”

We win.

I can still picture you saying it. And somehow, thirty years after I’d first sung that piece as one of your high school students, I got to sing it again under your direction.

I don’t think I fully appreciated how special that was at the time. I do now.

Then came 2020, when the world shut down and so did the choir.

I was going through some difficult things in my own life then. You were dealing with challenges that made mine seem pretty insignificant by comparison.

I emailed you from time to time. I wanted you to know I was thinking about you, but I also knew you were a private person and I tried to respect that.

There are times now when I wish I’d written more. Asked one more question, or had one more conversation. I guess that’s one of the cruel little lessons age teaches us. We always think there’s going to be another Tuesday night.

Until there isn’t.

Every once in a while, Facebook will show me some ancient post I’d completely forgotten about. I’ll scroll through the comments and suddenly there you are.

“M.”

For just a second, it feels like you’re still here, and I smile.

Sometimes I’ll still think about that high school music room. Other times it’s the adult choir rehearsal hall. I’ll remember your humor, your stories, your expressions and that unmistakable energy you carried into a room.

Mostly, though, I remember how you made people feel. You made us believe we could do something we weren’t entirely convinced we could do.

You made us laugh.

You made us listen.

And then you would raise your hands… and somehow got all of us to raise our voices together.

That’s a pretty good legacy, M.

Thousands of students walked through your classrooms and rehearsal rooms during those thirty-three years. We grew up. We scattered. We became teachers, parents, grandparents, doctors, musicians, accountants, computer guys, writers and probably a hundred other things. But some small part of us never really left that room.

I’m older now than you were when I first knew you, which is something my teenage brain couldn’t possibly have comprehended back then.

And after all these years, I’ve finally figured out something I wish I’d understood sooner. The best teachers don’t simply teach you a subject. They become part of your story.

You became part of mine.

So wherever you are, M, I hope there’s music. I hope there’s a slightly out of tune piano nearby. I hope you’ve got a choir assembled.

And I hope you’ve saved a spot somewhere in the corner of the bass section for one more skinny kid from the Class of 1987—although I should probably warn you that he’s not quite as skinny anymore.

Someday, God willing, maybe I’ll get the chance to sing under your direction again. Until then, I’ll keep singing down here.

And I’ll remember.

Thanks for the music, M. Thank you for the laughter, and thanks for giving a shy kid somewhere he belonged.

Most of all, thanks for always being willing to say those three words:

Talk to me.

I finally did.

Rest easy, M.

James Wood
Class of 1987