To Infinity and Beyond
I first met Mr. Leopold in the fall of 2018 when I was invited to attend a “parent’s evening” at the Garden House. It was our son, Jake’s, first year at Otto Specht and I really didn’t have much of a sense yet of what went on at school. I just knew that Jake was happier to go to school than he had been for many years. That night, we parents participated in “morning greeting” just as the students did every morning. That was my first exposure to Sam’s “listening meditation,” his exhortation to the children to “come to rest” and “open up to the listening.” My first reaction was “Jake actually sits still for this whole thing?” The answer was a resounding yes.
Jake always responded with joy to Sam’s music, begging him over and over to play “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” or “Happy Birthday,” but Jake’s love of music was not new. The listening meditation was entirely new to Jake and to me.
In March 2020, when school closed because of the pandemic, our family, like many others, was having a very difficult time. Jake could not access remote learning, except for thirty minutes of Zoom with Mr. Leopold for “Music and Meditation” at 9:00 am each weekday morning. For weeks, I sat next to Jake while Sam encouraged the students to open-up to the listening. Sam was the only person outside of our family that Jake and I saw regularly for weeks. At the end of the meditation, he would tell the children that “this feeling of well-being, this sense of calm, this rough sense of fun,” “it’s your true nature; it’s your birthright, and you can have that feeling any time you want.” We were all so raw during those weeks, I used to get choked up every time I thought of him saying that. I still do. The last thing we felt during those days was a sense of well-being, calm or any kind of fun, rough or otherwise. I still remember how sad Sam was when John Prine died from COVID. But even on those days when he was sad, Sam’s voice was just what we needed. His rendition of “What a wonderful world” then was so poignant. But much more often than sad, I saw the fun, as the boys sang and danced to his eclectic musical selections. It was during those months that I really understood why Jake was so connected to Sam’s music and to the listening meditation.
Sam had a curious mind. He really wanted to know how the kids’ minds work. He genuinely wanted to understand so that he could meet them where they were, whether through music or song writing or movement. The song he and the students in Garden House wrote called “Scratching and Yawning” still makes me and anyone who knows Jake smile. I loved Sam’s spirit of optimism about what the kids were capable of learning. Jake has had and continues to have many wonderful teachers. But I don’t think anyone has reached Jake on as deep a level as Mr. Leopold. For that, we are so very grateful.
As Sam grew sicker, I still stayed in contact with him by text. At the celebration of his life, our family shared with him how much he meant to us all and I told him how Jake would still watch his music and meditation videos at home from time to time. He was happy to hear that. When I told him that we learned from him that “we can come to rest whenever we want” he said “Isn’t that terrific! I’ve found that too. In my life the introduction of that exercise brought a complete paradigm shift after which I never looked back.” I feel that way too. The last thing Sam wrote me, in a text in mid-October, was “Thank you Jake for bringing us all together. This is your service, and you perform it perfectly! Rest as often as you can.”
When I heard the sad news from Jeanette, I immediately shared it with Jake and the rest of the family. I didn’t know how much Jake would understand or how he would react. He often reacts in atypical ways. He was quiet at first and I wasn’t sure if he had taken in what I said. Then, almost immediately, he asked if we could come to rest and open-up to the listening, open all the way out . . .to infinity and beyond. Truly, Sam’s was a life well-lived. We miss him but are comforted by our memories of him, including wonderful videos of “music and meditation” class. I’m smiling thinking of him resting forever with a sense of well-being, calm and rough sense of fun.