PLEASE READ THE LETTER

Dear Patrick,

Today, June 3 1995 you graduated Magna Cum Laude from The University of Massachusetts Lowell with a Bachelor of Music Education. The last four years flew by and, in addition to having great times in the drum hallway, on and off stage, playing percussion, and having your own apartment off campus, it is the friendships that you will cherish most. As you walked across the stage in front of your friends, classmates and family, you realized that it was all over. You have gone from participant to spectator in what seemed like the blink of an eye. That thought only lasted a second replaced by a quick silent prayer not to catch your toe on the floor or your long black graduation robe and fall down on the stage. Thankfully your balance is still pretty good. No issues. Besides the graduation party tomorrow and going back to work at Canobie Lake Amusement Park on Monday, it’s time to finish the resume, get those letters of recommendation and mail out the packets to look for teaching gigs. You have no idea what will happen next, but you’re sure it will be an adventure. If you had to guess….as long as you land a gig that makes you happy, things will fall into place and before you know it, by the grace of God, you will be old, and transform from participant to spectator again. This time your stage is the world….Wanna take a look into the crystal ball?

You’re going to have 5 interviews and will accept a middle school position where you grew up. You know the town, most of the staff and you know that music and the arts are supported. It’s the 90’s and cuts are happening everywhere so having support is the deal maker. Three weeks into the gig, while teaching high school drum line at a Massachusetts school at a football game on a Friday night, you will fall and suffer a spiral fracture in your right femur. Doctors have already told you that it would be wise to use a manual wheelchair part time when the muscular dystrophy fatigues you, but your outlook is: as long as you are standing, you’re not handicapped. You will be advised to miss 12 weeks of school. Three weeks later, you will be back in you classroom. Your first year you are a “floating” teacher. Pat, this means you have no home base but will travel to several classrooms a day with music supplies on a cart while teaching grade 6, 7, and 8. You will begin to understand that college did not prepare you for classroom management, the “go-fast” pace of the school day, or parents who think you spend your hours picking on their child with the specific goal of ruining their life. In June, the other music teacher will leave and you will take over the band of 30 students.

The summer after your first year, you will drive from New Hampshire to California with a dear friend in a U-Haul. He is relocating to a job in Los Angeles and you take the ride, actually drive some of the time a then fly home. The travel bug bites you and the following summer you spend three weeks driving around the country with your girlfriend. You begin to think you have it figured out. You are almost 25 years old, and use that manual wheelchair only in emergencies. You worked hard in aquatic and physical therapy and your right leg, while weaker, still works enough to propel you. You avoid stairs and uneven ground. You save money, and go out less. Your focus is on school and your girlfriend. You still find time to travel to Atlanta to visit friends, as well as Phoenix to attend a national conference of music teachers. You are offered jobs in Baltimore and Alaska. You decline. Your girlfriend moves to Rhode Island and you split time driving an hour and a half each weekend and also sniff around for jobs in Providence.

She shares, after 2 years of dating that she is scared about the future, and living with your progressive illness. You will break up and it’s not pretty when you tell her that you never want to see her again. You will keep your word. You focus on work. You build the band from 30 to 50 and ask the principal to split it by grade levels. You get part of your wish: beginner band and advanced band. You realize that if you recruit enough kids that they won’t fit safely in the room, the administration will have to give you a band for each grade level. Your new teaching colleague agrees and you both get to work, planning trips, bowling days, pizza nights, exchange concerts with other towns and outdoor concerts. Some of it works, and some doesn’t but you’re going to have a hell of a lot of fun. The band numbers break 100 and you have a group for each level. You install an honors group, after school lessons, and a jazz ensemble. You will host and then run a state level band festival for five years, and meet many talented musicians. You still play gigs here and there and enjoy a decade of pit playing broadway shows, on drum set, in a neighboring town with an outstanding high school theater program. You fall in love again. Like a dope, this woman goes to graduate school in South Carolina and you become a frequent flier on USAirways. Not a dope….just living life and chasing the magic to get the stories and laughs. The towers fall in NYC, you become single again.

You turn 3o and lose the ability to walk. You are shattered and seek alcohol and make a bunch of bad decisions in a row. You don’t touch drugs or drive when you shouldn’t, but you go out all of the time, make some questionable friends and party with people that hero worship you and tell you how great you are. You feel like the world is caving in and you have no idea how to navigate while sitting in a wheelchair. You make more bad choices and it is suggested that you seek therapy. You do and it helps, but you will still flirt with too much alcohol for a good portion of your 30’s. You often wonder, in anger, why muscular dystrophy chose you. You have terrible lows, and amazing highs. You are lonely and all of your friends are married and starting to have kids. You complain to no one but listen to everyone else bitch about everything. Everyone thinks you are strong. They are wrong. You decide to empower yourself and get your master’s degree in counseling and human relations. You analyze yourself. A lot. It sucks. Your mouth continues to get you in trouble. You know you need to shut it but often your feelings get ahead of your thoughts and you say stupid things that bother people. You’re not as funny as you think you are. Your mouth will be your biggest problem and biggest attribute. You struggle with this for years.

If this doesn’t scramble your brain enough, you also win teacher of the year for the state of New Hampshire in 2007. You appear in the Rose Bowl Parade, as well as the Fiesta Bowl (twice), the Orange Bowl and the Macy’s Day Thanksgiving parade in NYC. All because of teaching band. Which, you will be pleased to know, is now cranking along at more than 200 kids in a school of 900 and they have begun calling themselves the Moeschen Mafia. You will cash in on this fun and give out bumper stickers for a $1 donation to a charity that supports muscular dystrophy research. You will raise almost $2,000. You travel to Washington D.C. to speak with members of Congress about rare disease funding, and the woman that runs the charity recognizes that you speak well and have a gift of making people feel comfortable. She sends you to Amsterdam, Italy, Belgium and Australia to spread hope for others living with muscular dystrophy. You will laugh as you realize that you still love to travel and ARE traveling BECAUSE you live with MD. Your heart and lung function declines and it will become harder to propel yourself in the manual chair. You will build an accessible house. Everything is cooking along. You date several different women but now you have enough life behind you to read their eyes. You know all of them will be short term. You build walls, stop sharing your heart and focus on work, friends, and helping Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy. In 2010, you are asked to keynote their annual national conference in Denver. You have met a gorgeous blond woman who teaches at the same school as you do. You don’t know her well but consider inviting her all the way out to Denver to listen to you speak about how beautiful life is. You go for it. She accepts. You are 37 years old in June of 2010. You have lost the ability to self-transfer from your chair to the bed, couch, toilet and shower. The disease is progressing. The highs and lows are back. You have no idea what to say to this woman.

The crystal ball turns foggy. End of part one.

Same time next week we will finish this letter from your future.

Patrick…..stay safe, stay sane, and stay tuned. Every little thing….is gonna be alright.

The room where I received my college degree.