Called to Serve...

Kristina usually does the blogging but the majority of this blog entry is from Ken.

This is a picture of Dr. Doug Bush, Professor of Organ at Brigham Young University, and my former supervising professor. He's now serving somewhere else. I owe this man an extreme debt of gratitude.  He taught me much more than just how to play music.  He was a wonderful person who treated each of us as though we were his own children.  He was the epitome of Christian behavior, a true gentleman and a brilliant scholar. We will all miss him terribly. Because of his teaching I passed all of my entrance exams here in Texas, and even scored 100% on the essay portion of the exams--all thanks to his critical eye and high expectations.  We all have teachers in our lives that have made a significant impact, and Dr. Bush is one of those in my life (I have many).  If I can become even half of the man that Dr. Bush was I would see it as an amazing accomplishment.  I hope that he is able to connect with those family members who's lives he studied and documented.  I hope that he will get to sit down with the great musicians whose music was so integral to his life.  As for the rest of us, we will just have to "keep a smile on that beautiful face" and carry on, and probably eat some good pastries and German chocolates (which apparently it has great medicinal properties) to fill the void.

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Thoughts from Kristina...

We found out today that Dr. Bush slipped into a coma this morning and passed away after being diagnosed with cancer just a few weeks ago - tumors in his brain and lung. News from Utah gave us hope that treatments might be working but it wasn't meant to happen. We saw Dr. Bush just before we moved to Texas. He invited us over to his beautiful turn-of-the-century home and made us dinner. He took us on a tour through his home and showed us the incredible amount of family history he has worked on over the years. He has an entire library dedicated to geneology. This man knew the people he came from! At that dinner, he told us about his childhood, the experiences he had that swayed him toward becoming an organist, and his "close call" with becoming a Mormon Tabernacle Organist. Before we left that night, he invited us to come and have an authentic German Christmas dinner with him in December. We're so sad knowing that won't happen. Dr. Bush was always so kind to me. He would always tell Ken to invite me along to things. He had a great sense of humor and Ken always had stories to share at the end of every school day. Dr. Bush had a large vocabulary and often used words that you wouldn't expect to hear at BYU (hilarious). He always had funny little comments that kept Ken cracking up. He was such an amazing influence on my husband. I know that Ken was blessed to have been able to study under his supervision for two years. I'm sure Dr. Bush is giddy with excitement while chatting it up with Bach right now as we speak. He was Bach's greatest fan!