At the church I go to, the same church that Coleen and I went to, there is a bulletin distributed each week to the attendees. The bulletin contains a variety of items, the most important being the outline to the day’s service. There are other pieces of information like who the ushers are and announcements of upcoming church events and functions. The content I was most interested in when I was in church two days ago was listed under the Prayers of the People. That is where they list the names of people on the prayer list and also where they list the names of people whose anniversary of death had occurred during that week. That was what I was focused on last Sunday because it was the week of the first anniversary of Coleen’s death and I was looking for her name in the church bulletin.
Coleen’s name wasn’t in the bulletin last Sunday and I didn’t know why. I assumed that the church had a record of such things and her name would automatically be acknowledged. From previous bulletins, it seemed to me that the deceased person’s name was listed the Sunday before the anniversary but I couldn’t be sure of that. Yesterday I emailed the woman at church who prepares the bulletins and she informed me that the church does not automatically insert the names of the anniversary deaths. She explained that with a $50 contribution, the name would be entered in a “memory book” and in turn would be acknowledged in the bulletin every year on the week of the anniversary of death. I thanked her and told her I would bring the check with me on Sunday and she promised that Coleen’s name would be in this week’s bulletin.
It might seem like a small thing, a name in a bulletin, but not so small to me I guess. I feel that Coleen should be remembered in lots of different ways by lots of different people. Not just me and not just her family but bigger than that. Coleen’s gift of life touched many different people on many different stages. I can’t reach out to them all, I don’t even know them all, but I can get her name in a church bulletin and on this internet and let some people know along the way.
I have wrestled with several things regarding September 18, 2014. It is the one year anniversary of Coleen’s death. I’m not sure I like the word “anniversary” though. That word conjures up thoughts of happiness and celebration to me. And not just me as it turns out. When consulting Google on a search for anniversary synonyms, those were the exact words that presented along with festival, jubilee and holiday. None of those come close to representing my feelings. It is not until I Googled “death anniversary” that I found the darker side with words like cessation, departure, and bereavement. My truth is I don’t much like any of those words. None of them seem to fit.
I have a friend named Sue from the support group I attended last winter. Our group ended after meeting for eight weeks but we have stayed in touch since then. Sue wrote me an email last week after an especially dramatic full moon saying that she was thinking of me and my upcoming “One Year Memory Day.” Not “anniversary of death” but “Memory Day.” I thought that was the perfect way to phrase it, the perfect way to say it. Yes, September 18th will always be the anniversary of Coleen’s death and the time will always be 8:40 PM. But I don’t have to remember that day and that time and what her world and everyone’s world looked like right then. None of us have to think about that side if instead we choose to make it a “Memory Day” to remind ourselves of Coleen and the light she shined on us all. To remember her smile, her voice, hear her laughter and endless words of encouragement. That is what September 18th will be to me each time it cycles through the calendar. Not an anniversary of death but a remembrance day, a memory day. Thank you, Sue.
I know I have written about this subject before but I don’t care. It is so important to me and my family that I am going to write about one last time … for now at least.
Lindsay is the one who first noticed it. She feels that her mom talks to her through music, especially when she is driving alone without her daughters. That is the time when Lindsay is least distracted and has the most awareness. One of the songs that Lindsay heard frequently was the Beatles classic “Here Comes the Sun,” written by George Harrison. Legend has it that Harrison wrote the song at Eric Clapton’s house after a harsh England winter and during some internal struggles with the business side of the music business. It was his optimistic plea for better days.
During the past year, I have heard that song more than any music. Admittedly, I have chosen to play it frequently but there have been many occasions when it has just presented itself almost at random, almost just barely noticeable in the background. Many of those times have been during family gatherings, others have been much more private listenings at opportune times. I know that our entire family has heard Here Comes the Sun” frequently and I believe passionately that it is not a coincidence. Strange as it might sound, I concur with Lindsay that hearing that song is in fact a message from Coleen.
So what’s the message? What part of the lyrics is so specific to our situation? To me, it’s all of it. There are really only three different lines to the entire song plus the chorus of “Here comes the sun and I say, it’s alright.” The lines, each preceded by “Little darling,” are “It’s been a long, dark, lonely winter,” “The smiles are returning to their faces,” and “I feel like ice is slowly melting.” And then each of those lines is followed by a variation of “It seems like years since it’s been here.” Pretty simple stuff for such a classic and legendary song. Here’s how I interpret those words and personalize them as a message to me:
The “long, lonely, winter” is Coleen’s death. The “smiles returning to their faces” is the healing process I am going through. I also think of my granddaughters when I hear this line as they have especially taken to this song which they refer to as “The Sun Song.” And of course “I feel that ice is slowly melting” is an extension of my getting better and moving on with my life. The Sun? That’s the newness, the hope for better days, the discovery that I have many discoveries to make. The sun is my optimism for strength, courage, relationship, and love. The sun is Coleen winking at me, telling me it’s getting better and it’s okay to move forward. The sun is also the newness rising in my life, people, places, endeavors.
The most recent time I heard HCTS was one week ago. Lindsay invited me for dinner and not just me, but she asked me to bring my friend Ruth with me. Ruth and I have been together all summer and although Lindsay and I have talked about her a few times, they had not met. Shortly after we arrived, I heard it. It was playing in the kitchen on the internet service “Songza” through a bluetooth speaker I had given her for a Christmas gift. I don’t know who else heard the song but I did. I smiled and took in the music and the words and the message. That interpretation had me thinking that truly, it can be alright.
Coleen has sent that song to me many times. I thought maybe it was time for me to send it back to her. A little bit modified, a little bit personalized. It’s sung to her, to my family, to myself, and to the new people in my life.
There has been a guitar sitting in my house for quite some time now. About two weeks ago I decided to do something about it. I started playing it again. I use the word “again” because years ago I kind of taught myself a few chords and played a little. I was never very good and had no confidence to play in front of people. But I did have enough basic knowledge and ability to purchase and own a guitar. So I did that. After a while I grew frustrated with my lack of progress as a great guitar player and lost interest in playing.
About that same time my son Patrick, then a teenager, picked it up. He was a natural and quickly figured out the secrets to the instrument that I could never conquer. He was good enough to write some songs and perform at open mike nights around town. His singing voice was much different from the way he spoke and it was interesting to hear him play and sing. His recent living excursions in New York City and now Savannah, GA have left him without either extra space for a guitar or apparently the desire to play it. So my old guitar, which he inherited, has been lying around my house for several months. It had been unused but always visible and many times when walking past it I have been tempted to pick it up.
There were three recent events that inspired me to start playing again. On July 8 one of my favorite bands, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, released a new recording. Actually it was a very old recording of a concert tour they did in 1974 but released now for the first time. It has 40 songs on it plus a DVD video of eight songs. I was inspired by the sheer talent those guys had and the way they played each other’s songs in that group setting. I had heard the songs before but not with the passion and enthusiasm I heard them when I listened to the new/old recording. And to see the video of those eight songs took me right back to that year when I saw them perform in Cleveland during that tour. Hard to believe that all happened 40 years ago and hard to rationalize where all that time went. And why I was waiting all those years to play guitar again.
One of my frustrations when I played before was my lack of ability to properly tune my guitar. As all instruments do, my guitar would lose its proper tuning and I just did not have an ear for correcting that. So I would ask people to help me or take it to a music store and ask them to do it. Eventually, I was able to purchase a battery operated tuner which worked to a certain degree. When I decided to pick up my guitar again, I immediately considered my previous tuning dilemma and started to search for the electronic tuner. Of course I had no idea where it might be and did what I should have done in the first place: Look for a guitar tuning app for my iPhone and iPad. I found several and installed what looked like the best one and my tuning problem is no longer a problem. I simply bring up the app, hit one string at a time and turn the peg until the app screen shows green and I am in tune. I am always in tune.
My third inspiration is either a woman or myself. Or more likely, a combination of the two. Girls like guitar players and they like singers and although I am neither of those things, I am suddenly not afraid to try. When I played before, nobody was really interested in hearing me and I wasn’t very interested in being heard. But in this incarnation of me, I am not only able to play and sing for someone but I am actually eager to do so. It’s not like I think I’m any good either. I have just started to get calluses back on my fingertips and while playing, I make lots of mistakes and sometimes forget the words. I don’t care though and I don’t think my audience does either.
So an interesting thing happened to me just a few mornings ago. I was still in my first cup of coffee when I grabbed my guitar and started strumming a few random chords. I had these words come out that started with “I’m seeing things through her eyes …” then some other words and I started writing things down and more words happened and I wrote those down too. A couple of hours later I had enough to call it a song and I couldn’t believe what had just happened. I have heard about writers being gifted with streams of creativity out of nowhere. Some call it the muse. Whatever it was, it happened to me that day. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not signing a recording contract and what came out of me that morning is not that good. But I don’t care about that because it’s mine and it’s exactly what I wanted a certain someone to hear. That evening I took my guitar to her house and played her “Fields of Flowers” and she loved it. I mean LOVED it. And even though I was pretty nervous and made a bunch of mistakes while playing it, I loved singing it to her. And as if that wasn’t enough, I made a video of me playing the song and posted it online so she could watch it and also just because I could.
I have never done that before for anybody. None of it. Part of the new me? Discovery? I don’t know. Some things are just so easy for me now. Things that would have been have challenging before just seem so natural now. Things that seemed so far away, so unreachable are now at my fingertips. Things nobody was interested in suddenly have meaning. And it’s all just so much fun.
Back a few posts ago, I gave birth to the idea of combining a quote from Abe Lincoln with a sketch Coleen made of a flower. I decided that the sketch she drew was of the exact same flower Abe referred to in his quote and thought it should be immortalized. I don’t know that I have done that, but here is what I did do.
The internet is full of companies with websites selling their products and services. Regardless of what you want or need, it can be found with a simple Google search. I wondered about having lapel pins made. Specifically, lapel pins of the flower sketch. It
didn’t take long to find several websites that could provide this service. I chose one, sent a photo of the flower pin and received a proof of the proposed design within a few hours. It was good but I didn’t like some of the coloring and asked for a revision. I had that the next day along with a price quote and after I supplied my credit card info, an order was placed for 100 flower pins. No tax, no shipping charges, made in China.
They arrived two days ago via UPS and I could not be happier. I want people to have them like they have the breast cancer pink ribbon. I want to give a pin to everyone in the family. I want to hand them out at the “Strategies on Hopeful Living” conference being held in Coleen’s memory. I want her friends to all have one. And her granddaughters.
To me, the pin represents the story of a woman’s fight against breast cancer. It represents every ounce of courage and hope that became that fight. It speaks to me about a love of family and a wish to make all things somehow, alright. And it says that there is more to be done, more story to be heard. It is a flower planted so others can see the beauty of life, and treasure it and fight their own battles for every precious second. It’s more than a drawing Coleen did one day. It’s a symbol of her life. It’s the flower planted where they thought a flower would grow. Her and Abe.
Ever since I discovered Coleen’s drawing, I knew I was on to something. It wasn’t until I saw it as a lapel pin that I realized it meant more than a symbol of Coleen’s spirit. The flower also represents the journey I have embarked on as my own kind of breast cancer survivor. It reaches out to me with encouragement to replenish my life and recreate myself. And it reaches out not just to me, but to all surviving spouses suddenly finding their way alone instead of with their partner. What better symbol for new seasons and new beginnings than a beautiful flower with fuchsia trimmed petals? Rising anew from the dormancy of winter to grow fresh and strong.
Someone a long time ago decided that a pink ribbon should be the logo that would forever represent breast cancer. I don’t know what will become of the flower but I do know that it is much prettier than a pink ribbon. And it is much more pure and untarnished. And it is more genuine and heartfelt and meaningful and original. It was drawn by a woman who knew she was dying from metastatic breast cancer. It was her message of hope to the rest of us, to her family and friends and sisters in survival whom she was leaving behind. If she could plant a flower, this would be the one she would plant. I like to think she left it here as her way of telling us to keep planting flowers where we think they might grow.
A few weeks ago I was listening to NPR in my car. I have been listening to NPR a lot these days which is kind of ironic because I never did that before I bought my new car. Guess I am seeking more culture in my life these days. In the past I mostly listened to AM sports talk radio which is pretty mindless, especially in the market I live in. There just isn’t enough interesting material to keep things interesting.
So recently I have been dialing up the local NPR affiliate, WBFO 88.7 FM. That’s where I heard an interview with Nicole Atkins. I had never heard of her but she sounded kind of intriguing in the interview. Confident, sassy, strong voice and strong opinions. I liked those things about her, She sounded like what I would want my next girlfriend to sound like. And if she had a tattoo somewhere, practiced yoga, meditated, and wore beads and a peace sign, all the better. Truth was though, I had no idea what Nicole Atkins looked liked or what she was wearing. I only had my senses of hearing and imagination to rely on.
The music interviews on NPR are as informative as you let them be. In this case, the listener was treated to a little question and answer with some song snippets thrown in along the way. Those musical interludes were little more than teases for the entire song and entire record. But they were enough for me to purchase Nicole’s new release, “Slow Phaser” from iTunes. I think she will get a royalty from my purchase but with the current state of affairs the music business is in, I can’t guarantee it.
I liked the 30 second song teases that were played during her interview. There seemed to be something about her message and delivery that appealed to me and left me wanting a little bit more. When I listened to the entire recording, I discovered a sequence of four songs that was outstanding and could have held their own compared to the best of the best. One of those songs, “Cool People,” sounded like a Beatles song fresh off the Abbey Road album. It is that good. And the closing number, “Above as Below.” not only brings to mind the John Lennon masterpiece, “Across the Universe,” but it also paints a wonderful metaphor of heaven and earth.
Nicole Atkins and her “Slow Phaser” is the first music I can identify as happening after Coleen’s death. I’m sure there was something else but this is the first set of songs with enough impact to make itself memorable to me. The song “Girl You Look Amazing” will always remind me of a somewhat tumultuous relationship between myself and a very beautiful woman who recently entered my life. Not sure how all that will eventually play out, but that song will forever remind me of these days and Barbara M and how amazing she can look and be.
I remain fascinated with the songs on this album and how they are the first new music I have embraced as a widower. I have ventured to a few music clubs and heard live, local bands and have enjoyed that. But it’s not new music when I have already heard the songs being played. Nicole Atkins gave me the gift of new music and without knowing it, also the gift of new discovery. This music is new, different, after Coleen, and during someone new. Who is also new, different and after Coleen.
I like to think that any new and positive discovery I make is a step further in my healing. It makes my journey more interesting and the letting go a little bit easier. Sometimes its new music, sometimes new people, or a new picture on my wall.
