John Adrian Mulder: 1952-2025

I’ll be playing the organ for John Mulder’s memorial service on Sunday, May 18. My heart is heavy. 

Dr. John Mulder was not only a physician, loving husband and father, devout Christian, gifted musician, and internationally recognized palliative care expert. I am honored to boast that he was also my friend! 

John died at Vanderbilt Hospital in Nashville on May 1, his body finally rejecting a transplanted lung that had extended his life by 8 years. He was 74. 

I could spend time telling of his extraordinary skills as a physician, of the hundreds of babies he lovingly and tenderly brought into this world, of the miraculous intervention in my personal medical history, of his internationally recognized skills in palliative care, and of his incredible musicianship, but, this is a HUMANTY FOR PRISONERS site. Still, the accolades are legion. 

John didn’t get involved with incarcerated men and women until I did…and if that goal was good enough for me, it was good enough for him. 

Upon reading my book SWEET FREEDOM, which tells the story of my ten-year fight to free a wrongly convicted prisoner and how that effort led to the formation of HUMANITY FOR PRISONERS, John suggested that we put together a small musical group to support this work. At his insistence, the group was  also called SWEET FREEDOM! 

Under John’s leadership, musicians David Mulder, Cal Olson, Lee Ingersoll and Doug Tjapkes joined him in playing numerous concerts, indoors and outdoors, to raise funds for the continued operation of HFP. Despite numerous roadblocks, he and I were even able to take our musical group into Michigan’s only prison for women, Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility in Ypsilanti. Long-term residents of the facility still talk about our concert there. 

John didn’t stop at live concerts. He suggested that an album by SWEET FREEDOM could raise even more funds for the cause. He supervised production of an album, bearing the same name, featuring old gospel favorites. The SWEET FREEDOM CD is still being enjoyed by hundreds of supporters. 

And then the final hurrah…one that humbles me. 

John and his wife Lisa (whose friendship I also treasure!!) encouraged me to record a piano album. I have accompanied singers who recorded albums, I have directed choral groups that have recorded albums. But, this 88-year-old dude ain’t no professional keyboard musician! John personally came to my home to do the recording and engineering. Upon John’s request, his friend Brian Speer of country gospel’s renowned Speer family did his magic with mixing. A CD entitled IN THE GARDEN was produced. John personally inserted a card in every album jacket encouraging listeners to send a donation to HUMANITY FOR PRISONERS! 

I’ll never be out of words. I’ll never be out of emotions. But this is all I can handle right now. 

RIP, my dear friend and brother John Mulder! You saved my life! You brightened my life!