Old Friends and New Friends 3.26.10

When I was growing up, I heard often about my former bishop's granddaughter, Jill. She was an amazing pianist and a brilliant student, a year ahead of me in school and all of the elements of The Remarkable Jill made her seem somehow fictional. And then I went to BYU and glory be, The Remarkable Jill was also a piano major studying in my new teacher's piano studio. The Remarkable Jill WAS all she was cracked up to be, but she also became my dear friend.

I have lots of Jill stories, but one of my favorites is from the last year of my master's degree. My cellist friend, Nicole (another Remarkable Friend) and I decided to fly to Colorado for a concerto competition. The problem was that we had to find an accompanist, and we couldn't find one in Colorado, so we asked Jill if she might fly with us and be our lifesaver. She thought about it, finally said yes and we had an incredible weekend, full of great music and being followed in a bad area of town by some scary people.

The kicker was that she had said yes even though she was a MOTHER WITH A BABY. She had to leave her nursing baby at home. I still can't believe we asked her. Obviously, I was NOT a mother yet.

ALSO, she thought there was a chance the plane would crash and we'd all die, but she decided to do it anyway.

That's a real friend.

Jill is one of those friends that you can forget to call or see for a long time (like a couple of years...), but when you call her, it's like no time has passed. I love this kind of friend. AND she's still Remarkable Jill. I could tell you all about the remarkable things she's done in the last 15 years, but that would make a very long post.

So Jill has some remarkable children. Her daughter Catherine is in 8th grade and plays the flute remarkably well. She had a competition in Salt Lake, and Jill asked if I could watch her youngest son during the competition. That was a big yes. Ben and Seth had a blast. They've never met (shame on me), but you never would have guessed it watching them play hard.

So here's to old friends and new friends. I hope Seth and Ben get a lot more time together in the future thanks to piano group.

What? I haven't talked about piano group? Oh, I'm so excited about piano group. I'll save it for later, though.