The Music Plays On

It occurred to me, yesterday, during Super Bowl's halftime show, when Bruce Springstein and the E Street Band performed, that the music plays on...and on...and on. "The Boss" had been interviewed prior to the event, and spoke of a deceased member of the band, a gentleman whose life was cut short from skin cancer. You could see it in his eyes when he spoke, the grief is there, the pain of loss, the sadness, and he even shared how they miss him in every day, in every performance. Yet, there they were, packing a 2 hour show into 12 minutes and the world listened, watched, and loved it! The performance had every element of enthusiasm, complete with fireworks and true celebration. You would have not thought that the group was a grieving "family" of sorts, that someone was missing, that their lives were, and are, in some type of shock, because the music played on. Indeed, the music played on.

That is the way it is with whatever we are facing, coping with, or acknowledging in our own lives. It is the not so gentle reminder that life goes on, in spite of what we are living with, in spite of how we feel we will never laugh or smile or enjoy a song again. But, we do. I recall, so vividly, the ride home from the hospital the morning Allison left this world. It is as if time stood still in one way, and that I was walking and riding, slow motion, through something so unknown and foreign. And I was! I remember the coolness of the January air hitting my face in the parking garage, I recall the bag of her personal items being placed in the trunk, and the sounds of early morning...trash trucks, honking horns, school buses with squeaky tires as they pulled up next to us, people going about their normal day. I recall it, but didn't feel part of it. I know we didn't turn the radio on, and I know I didn't for many months. We rode in silence, and I continued to do so for a very long time. Maybe not intentionally, it just happened. Maybe something keeps you from invading your thoughts with music or talk radio at a time like that. But while we rode in silence, I will never forget a car coming up alongside of us, with two or three high school or college students in it, waiting alongside of us for the light to turn green. I was looking at them and I know I stared as they all sang inside the car, looking happy, and just singing that song. I cannot imagine what my face revealed, but I know what was in my heart, crying out, as if to say, "how can you be singing, how can the music be playing, we are numb here". Indeed, we were more than numb, we were in shock, moving through a fog that would become ever so familiar, ever so consuming, ever so painful and lift ever so slowly, yet would hover forever. Yet, the music played on.

One day, I found my foot thumping to that very music. It was foreign to me, this little spark in what had become a darkened world. I listened to the words again, I felt movement in my soul, I reached out and began to explore different types of music and new artists. I even turned the music on in the house. One day it happened, and it evolved slowly, and a slow humming came to my throat. I barely recognized myself, I was almost singing. How could it be? How could my heart be free enough to sing, yet breaking in the pain of all that had happened? Then one day I did sing...was this a sign that life keeps on and that I could, too? Was it acceptable and fine for a grieving, pain-stricken mother to sing out loud, enjoy the moment and the art of music and to live again? It was more than "okay", it had to be done, it was time, in my own time, the music came back, the joy of sounds, the melody of life, the words and the stories, it was time. I never thought it would happen, but it did, the music played on, and my heart felt free, for just that song, or just that performance, or for just that moment in time. And it was right.

Yes, the music plays on, and thankfully, when we are ready, it is there, it has always been there, waiting.