Tag Archives: grief

May7

Dear Me

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Advice to my younger self…

Dear Me,

You are about to turn 51 years old, which used to sound ancient but now seems merely middle-aged.  And over the decades you have managed to learn a few things that would have been really helpful had you known them earlier.  So here is a list of Do’s and Don’t’s from Present-Day Me to Younger Me.

Do take the nap.  Anytime the grown-ups encourage (i.e. try to force!) you to do so, TAKE THE NAP!  Someday you’ll be exhausted and wishing for the chance to nap and you won’t have the time to do it.

Do ask for piano lessons, as early as possible.  You will choose to study music in college and having some piano training will help you more than you can possibly imagine.  And keep asking until your parents let you do it.  Don’t take no for an answer.

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Do kiss that boy at the party.  He really likes you.  A lot.

The other boy at the other party…don’t kiss him.  And don’t give either of them your phone number!

When you find those perfect black pumps, the comfortable ones that make your legs look great and take you through countless performances, all four choir tours and both your recitals in college—do buy a second pair.  It’ll be more than worth the money and you’ll be glad to have a backup pair when the originals eventually wear out.  (I still miss those shoes.)

The same goes for any other “perfect thing” you find and love—your favorite pantyhose (especially in the most flattering shades of black and nude), good tweezers, the slumber mask that fits just right and provides comfort when you have a headache.  Do buy extras.

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Do get your bras custom fitted.  It’s not about vanity, it’s about your health.  Your neck, back and shoulders will thank you.  And follow the Lingerie Lady’s advice: always have at least 3 properly-fitting bras, 1 to wash, 1 to wear and 1 to spare.

Don’t wear a white slip under a black dress.  The last thing you want is for your underwear to glow in the dark.  And don’t skip the slip.  Mama was right about the need for one.

Do take care of your skin, remembering that your face extends down to your chest.  Your neck is especially vulnerable, and so are your hands.  Learn to be satisfied with the pale complexion God gave you.  Trying to get a tan is pointless for you, and you will regret it later when sun damage starts to show up.  Pray that spots and wrinkles are all you have to worry about!

People you love are going to get sick and die.  Your Dad, in his misplaced desire to protect you and keep things “normal” for you as long as possible, is going to tell you things that go against what your gut is tellling you.  Don’t listen to him.  He is WRONG.  (You will learn that he has been wrong about a lot of stuff.)  Follow your intuition.  Go and see Uncle J.B. in Texas while you can, even though your leg is in a cast.  Take time off from work sooner and spend more time with Mama before she goes back into the hospital.  And when she is gone, spend more time dealing with your own grief and less time worrying about Dad’s.  He will be just fine.

After Mama dies, you won’t feel like singing for a while.  That’s OK.  But don’t let it go for too long.

Don’t let anyone tell you that your dreams are foolish.  You can decide later on which ones are worth following and which ones are not.  But it’s your decision to make, not theirs.

Do have a plan…but be open to surprise.

Do start reading the Bible daily.  God will use this discipline to change your life.  It will become as vital as food, water and oxygen…and just as nourishing.

Always remember that God loves you.  There is nothing, NOTHING, He can’t forgive.  No tragedy, no crisis, no failure, is beyond redemption.

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May1

Dear Lola

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Just In The Neighborhood…

I drove by your house the other day

I was just in the neighborhood

Had some time between errands

and thought about you

My car seemed to know the way

by itself

having gone to check the place

so often after you died

I was curious to see if

the new owners were changing things

A car sat in the driveway

and a wreath of yellow daisies

hung on the front door

limage

Not your style at all

but still

signs of new life

in your old house

and I thought

This is good

Someone is making

a fresh start here

Meanwhile

I snuggle under your blanket on my couch

I see my candle glowing inside

one of your wine glasses

and your drums and basket

nestle on my bookcase

And I too

try to

make a fresh start

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Jan7

Pie Jesu…Blessed Jesus

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Faure’, John Rutter, Mama, Doc and me…

I can hardly believe that it’s been almost 30 years since British composer John Rutter was on campus at Carson-Newman for a choral workshop to introduce his English-language edition of Gabriel Faure’s Requiem.  I was a junior, my junior voice recital was that same week, and I had the distinct honor of singing the soprano solo for the performance of the Requiem, under Rutter’s baton.

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I was in such a twitch in the weeks prior to the workshop and my recital, I don’t think I fully grasped the magnitude of the event at the time.  One of my professors told me later that she couldn’t believe I got through that week still standing.  Looking back, I realize it was by the grace of God and lots of caffeine!

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(Me singing the soprano solo in the Requiem, John Rutter conducting, February, 1985.)

That week was not my first experience with the Faure’ Requiem.  I had performed it in high school with Knoxville’s All-City High School Chorus.  The soloists were adults Dr. Gerald Ballard, the director, had brought in for the concert.  Dr. Ballard had been my Mama’s high school chorus teacher at the old South High School some 25 years earlier, so I knew him at first only through Mama’s recollections of him.  I later borrowed his Requiem score so I could have the Pie Jesu for scholarship auditions.  I misplaced it and then forgot about it until it surfaced some years later. I value it as a prized possession now, and pray that my inadvertent theft can be forgiven.

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The workshop/performance at Carson-Newman was a highlight of my musical life.  Singing a solo with John Rutter conducting was a once-in-a-lifetime experience that I will always remember.  “Doc” Eric Thorson had just the year before taken the reins of A Cappella Choir at school, and it was his responsibility to prepare us for Rutter’s arrival.  He told us that Rutter, being an Englishman, might be a more reserved conductor than we were used to, and to pay close attention to what could be very subtle cues from him.  As it turned out, John Rutter was a whirling dervish of a conductor, with flailing arms and an outgoing manner.

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(Rehearsal with John Rutter–I am the shortest one on the front row.  Some things never change.)

Flash forward to February, 1998, when once again I had the privilege of singing the soprano solo in the Faure’ Requiem, this time under Doc’s direction with Knoxville Choral Society.  My sweet-and-spicy Mama had died just a couple of months before, and looking back, I don’t remember what I was thinking auditioning for the solo that time except that I might not be in any shape to sing it.  Little did I know the gift God was about to give me.

Almost 13 years exactly from the time I sang it at school, I sang it once more.  The music itself was the same…but my understanding and experience of it were completely different.  Still very much in grief throes from Mama’s death, the text of the whole mass spoke to me afresh, particularly the words of the soprano solo movement, Pie Jesu.

“Pie Jesu, Domine,

dona eis requiem,

dona Domine, dona eis requiem,

sempiternam requiem.”

Blessed Jesus, Lord God,

grant them rest.

Grant them, Lord God, rest,

eternal rest.

At the end of Mama’s illness, she had suffered so much and was so tired. I told her that if she was ready and needed to go on, it was OK.  In my family experience and work with hospice, I’ve learned that it is important to give the patient permission to go; it can give them peace at the end of life.  My spiritual life during the end of Mama’s sickness was a bleak period when prayers didn’t happen so much as just anguished groans of my heart.  Had I been able to actually pray, it would have been for her suffering to end, for peace…for rest.

She died, and her rest finally came.  Standing on that stage at The Tennessee Theatre singing Pie Jesu once again, Faure’s music spoke peace to me as I took another step in my grief journey.  This is the power of Music…the power to heal, comfort, and transform our pain into something of beauty.

Dec9

Tears Of A Clown

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When a helper needs help…

A couple of months ago, I found a little dead bird outside one of the large plate glass windows at work.  The windows are slightly mirrored on the outside, and birds fly into them from time to time, breaking their little necks.  This bird was exquisite and tiny, with greenish-yellow feathers on his back and wings, and a whitish breast.

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Outside he was intact, with no visible injuries.  So beautiful and small. But inside, he was broken.

I’ve been feeling like that lately.  Today was the 17th anniversary of Mama’s death, and the days of the week this year are the same as the year she died.  I remember things like this.  Plus, two days ago was a full moon, which in my experience brings on more vivid dreams.  Mama’s anniversary and the moon waxing toward full have brought on a lot of dead people dreams.  I’ve had dreams of Mama, Aunt Ruby and Aunt Martha and Lola clustered very close together in the last couple of weeks.  Even Ernie The Wonder Beagle showed up in a dream.

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The people I am closest to know that I have a sensitive side; they’ve been subjected to it throughout our lives.  But, while I consider myself to be pretty transparent most of the time, I don’t expose my tender places a lot.  I’m a good listener (so I’ve been told, anyway) and more often than not, I am the person who offers the shoulder to cry on.  Even my Enneagram research bears this out.  I am an Ennea-type 2—The Helper.

And that’s great.  Most of the time.  But it is a mixed blessing.

Most of the time I am a jokester, a clown.  I laugh easily and usually I try to bring others along for a ride on The Goofball Express.  That is the side of myself I am most comfortable with other people seeing, and I think it’s the side they are most used to.

It’s hard for a clown like me to even NEED help, much less to ADMIT that I need it.  It feels naked, exposed.  It feels vulnerable.  I tend to be much more comfortable with the vulnerability of other people than with my own.

But clowns like me cry sometimes.  Our tender places need to be soothed and comforted.  I have struggled the past couple of days with grief and sad memories, feeling weepy and lonesome.  I told Sweet Pea a little while ago that sometimes I just get so tired of missing people.  He listened to me with loving concern and compassion, telling me there was no need to apologize (which I always do when I cry.  Old habits die hard, I guess.  My tears were generally not accepted very well as I was growing up, except by Aunt Ruby.).  He has dealt with many tears of mine over the years, and while it hurts him to see me hurting, he listens without judging.  It’s a priceless gift.

My bouncy, clownish self will return soon enough.  There are gag Christmas presents to give and ugly sweaters to wear.  There is music (and cake) to be made.   But this day…this day has witnessed the tears of a clown.

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Sep4

Harbingers

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Bearing the signs of change…

Relief is coming.  I see the signs most vividly on my dogwood tree.  While the temperatures in East Tennessee are still hot and the humidity is still high, my dogwood tells me that fall is on its way and soon there will be respite from summer’s moist, heavy air.

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The past 2 summers have held an additional heaviness for me as well, the weight of grief bearing down as oppressively as the soaring temperatures and wilting humidity.  Stepping physically into the heat feels much like stepping onto the path of mourning, as though somehow my energy is being drained from me, body and soul.  I know this path well.  It seems like I’ve been walking it for most of my life.  Still, its familiarity does not make it any easier to navigate, nor any shorter.

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But relief is coming.  The changing colors on my dogwood tree are just the earliest harbingers of changes yet to begin.  Soon the maples, oaks and other trees will begin their turning from summer’s greens to the parade of warmer shades brought on by the cooler temperatures.  Such a graceful paradox, cooler bringing warmer and vice versa.

Relief is also coming for my grief.  There will never be a total removal of pain from the deaths of those I love, nor should there be.  But gradually, over time and with the changing seasons, the pain becomes less sharp, always lingering but not as suffocating as before.

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Relief is coming.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jun14

The Mystic Chords Of Memory

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Music, moments and bringing Mama along…

I have just returned from what can only be described as the adventure of a lifetime.  Knoxville Choral Society took a group of singers to New York City to premiere local composer John Purifoy’s “Chronicles of Blue and Gray” at Carnegie Hall!  We met up with several other choruses from around the United States to rehearse for a couple of days and gel ourselves into a unified chorus to perform this masterpiece, the first major work of its kind in choral literature in that it commemorates the Civil War period of American history.  Knoxville Choral Society commissioned this work in honor of our esteemed conductor and artistic director, Dr. Eric “Doc” Thorson.  Without him, and the desire of so many people to honor him, this work would not exist and our Carnegie Hall pilgrimage to premiere it for the New York audience likely would never have happened.  John Purifoy’s labor of love in crafting this poignant and moving work has touched many people and I pray that it will touch many more for generations to come.  It deserves to be heard my as many people, in as many places, as possible.

There are so many moments from the trip that I will always remember, the first being a “wow” moment in my ongoing weight loss journey.  For the first time ever, I flew in planes where the seat belts not only fit around me but had room to spare.  As large as I was, for as long as I was, this was a huge relief.

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I made the acquaintance of a number of our singers I did not know before (and who are now Facebook friends as well, so we can continue getting to know one another better).  I am short, so I generally sit down front and don’t see a lot of the people behind me. That will change when we start back for the fall.  I will venture out of my section more and try to be more social.  And several people I knew casually became wonderful friends on this trip.  My friends Jenny and Jere graciously welcomed me on their pilgrimage to St. Patrick’s Cathedral, my one for-sure bucket list item. As we walked around that magnificent place, I was astonished at the beauty even amid all the scaffolding there right now for renovation.  And my friends stood by as I lit a candle and offered a prayer in that sacred space.  We stayed for mass as well, my first Roman Catholic mass ever.  And at St. Patrick’s to boot!  Even a sarcastic varmint like me can find holiness in a place like that, and since it was our first night there, it helped to set the tone for the rest of the trip for me.

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I serve as Chapter Mother for Alpha Gamma Chapter of Delta Omicron International Music Fraternity at  Carson-Newman University, my alma mater and the chapter I was initiated into as a college student.  Two of my Delta Omicron students made the trip with us. Katie Brown and her mother came and sang, and it did my heart good to see a mother and daughter joining together for this experience, even as I missed my own precious Mama.  Katie Jo O’Neal came as well and I had the pleasure of sharing a hotel room with her.  She and I really had the chance to get to know each other, for which I will forever be grateful.  We are goofball kindred spirits, bonded together by music, faith and humor.  Seeing young musicians grow and stretch makes my heart swell with pride.

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(Katie Jo, me and Katie Brown—I’m the filling in the middle of a Katie sandwich and it’s awesome!)

Katie Jo and I shared a room with Rebecca, a lovely woman who was a pleasure to get to know.  She and I shared some wonderful, meaningful talks in the evenings while Katie Jo was still out and about town.  We more “mature” ladies tended to return to the room earlier to settle in for the night!  Also, we need to take “selfie” lessons from Katie Jo, the undisputed master of the art form!

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(Selfie fail with Rebecca)

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(The Roomies)

 

Another mother-daughter team made the trip as well, my friend “Queen” Elizabeth Partridge and her sweet Mama, Susan.  Susan did not sing with us but she enjoyed the trip plenty, sightseeing, shopping and graciously sharing a couple of meals and a lovely carriage ride around Central Park.  It was so sweet to see their relationship, and it made me wonder what mine would be like with Mama if she were still here.  I’d like to think we would get along as well as Elizabeth and Susan do.  It was generous of Elizabeth to share her Mama with us.

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(Elizabeth, Susan, Katie Jo and me)

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(Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mother Susan)

Elizabeth has lost a significant amount of weight in the last year as well, and another bucket list thing I wanted to do was get all dolled up in our Bombshell dresses and have a night out for dessert.  (I know, it’s paradoxical.  Don’t judge me.)  A little treat now and then is not only OK, it’s necessary.  We were completely overdressed, but we went to Junior’s Cheesecakes for dessert and sashayed in like we owned the place.  Dessert was delicious and the company was delightful!  Afterward we walked around, shopping and taking in the sights, sounds and aromas of the Theatre DIstrict and Hell’s Kitchen.  We both enjoyed playing dress-up and, if I do say so myself, we cleaned up pretty well.  And another “wow” moment was that we walked around for about an hour and a half, and I was wearing heels! Before surgery and weight loss, that would have been unthinkable.

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I shared a story with John, the composer, when the idea of a trip to Carnegie Hall was just being discussed, over a year ago.  Back when Mama was still with us, Knoxville Choral Society talked about a very slim chance of taking a trip there.  When I mentioned it to Mama, she was over the moon with excitement.  She said, “If you all take a group up there, you HAVE GOT to go!  Daddy and I will help you pay for the trip, whatever needs to happen, if you have a chance to go to Carnegie Hall, you’ve got to do it!”  That trip ended up never happening.  In the ensuing years Mama became ill and died, I let singing go for many years and that dream was all but forgotten.  

Flash forward 20-some years to now, when I finally made it to Carnegie Hall.  I told John and numerous other people I’d be bringing Mama with me the only way I could—her picture in my folder as I sang.  I carried her and others along as well: Sweet Pea and Our Boy Roy, Aunt Ruby, “Doc”, who for several reasons did not make the trip with us, and Dr. Teague, my college voice teacher.  But Mama was the one who held the Carnegie Hall dream in her heart.  We finally made it.  

On concert day, John and I spoke before we entered the hall and he reminded me of my story and asked to see Mama’s picture.  I was humbled that he remembered such a detail on what had to be one of the most monumental days of his life!  And I was proud to show him my folder and all the people I brought along.

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Mama was with me.  She is always with me.  We are indeed surrounded by “so great a cloud of witnesses”, as John and I reminded each other before the concert.  Mothers and daughters, the ones together on Earth and the ones separated briefly between here and Heaven…musicians past, present and future…the bonds of faith…the melody of music and the harmony of humor…the mystic chords of memory.

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Mar14

Happy 89th, Aunt Ruby

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Your first birthday in Heaven…

And we all miss you every day.  I haven’t been as diligent about keeping in touch with your kids as I’d like.  It’s hard with all our schedules being crazy like they are.  I know that’s no excuse.

Thank you for showing up in my dreams when you have, even when it’s been bittersweet.  The first dream was so hard.  I dreamed that we were in a huge gymnasium somewhere, with me up high in the bleachers and you down on the gym floor.  I couldn’t get to where you were no matter how hard I tried, and all I wanted was to reach you.  I guess that just speaks to how I feel about you since you died.  Sometimes all I want is to reach you, but I can’t be where you are.

The few dreams since then have been sweeter because I’ve been able to hug you. In each dream I’ve just held you for the longest time, pressing you into my chest until I could feel both our hearts beating at the same time.  Like if I pressed hard enough, you would leave your imprint on me.

The truth is, you DID leave your imprint on me, in ways I’ll probably spend the rest of my life thanking you for.  Lord, how I miss you.  How we all miss you.

Part of me still can’t quite reconcile myself to the fact that you died, even though I was there when it happened.  I felt your last breath, your last heartbeat.  I guess I just know that, while you are gone from this Earthly life, you aren’t really gone.  I’ll be able to reach you again someday, to hold you close and to share an eternity with you and Mama and all the others who are with you in Heaven.  For now I have to be content to know that you are healthy and whole there, surrounded by God’s love and reunited with so many of our loved ones.  Heaven must be so beautiful, and even more so with you there.

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So, Happy Birthday in Heaven.  I hope you and Mama and the rest of The Big Five can sit down to a big meal together, laughing and remembering the many happy times we enjoyed together.   I miss you every day, but I know you are with me in the ways that really matter, and I know that I will see you again someday.  I love you.

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