A while back I fought through the haze of a cold to run my weekly Rockford Aces rehearsal. The previous week, I had a student come to rehearsal in a wheelchair, three days after knee surgery. It inspired me to recall the most epic story of being at rehearsal.
In Gold Company at WMU, you didn’t miss rehearsal. A trip scheduled before you auditioned and disclosed before the year started might have been excused, both otherwise I don’t have a memory of anyone missing a rehearsal. Including: the asthmatic soprano.
She suffered from terrible, debilitating asthma and at one point in the winter it got so bad she checked herself into the hospital for treatment.
Thursday afternoon, though, she checked herself out so she could make it to GC rehearsal. Not that she could sing – she sat by the sound board and took notes – but she was there.
Immediately after rehearsal, she drove herself back to the hospital and checked back in.
To me, this is the pinnacle of commitment. You get yourself to rehearsal because it’s your job. Because your fellow singers rely on you and you rely on them. Because a team requires sacrifice. This woman wouldn’t have dreamed of missing rehearsal, even in the hospital.
Reader, I married that woman.
PS: After we started dating and I lived firsthand through an ICU asthma experience, we worked together to get her asthma under control. No hospital visits in over a decade!