Music to Grieve By

So today I thought I'd write about some of the music I listen to that is most helpful as we live with Mom's care. And the truth is, it is music to grieve by. Every day as I watch Mom deteriorate, even slightly, the grief continues and accumulates. It's as wearing as her daily care. It is, in fact, almost inconceivable, which is why finding something like music that acknowledges grief, accesses it, and/or comforts it is something I spend time thinking about.

(Warning: I'm a Lilith Fair kinda gal, which explains the pool from which I dip. )

The most obvious choice is Rosanne Cash's Black Cadillac (2006). Written after losing her stepmother (June Carter Cash, d. 5/15/2003), father (Johnny Cash, d. 9/12/2003), and mother (Vivian Distin, d. 5/25/2005) in the space of two years, the album is clearly a personal portrait of loss. At the same time, Cash leaves room for the listener to access his or her own grief, whatever that may be. Two of my favorite songs include "I Was Watching You" and "God Is In the Roses." Throughout the album, Cash speaks directly to, about, and for her parents, especially her dad, Johnny Cash. In "I Was Watching You," she speaks to him, singing, "All these years to prove how much I care / I didn't know it, but you were always there / until September when you slipped away / in the middle of my life / on the longest day / now I hear you say / I'll be watching you / from above / cause long after life there is love."

Lest you think she gets maudlin, in "God Is In the Roses," she takes the stock image of a rose and makes it concrete and real, playing, I believe, on the cliche, "God is in the details":

God is in the roses
the petals and the thorns
storms out on the oceans
the souls who will be born
and every drop of rain that falls
falls for those who mourn
God in in the roses
and the thorns



The sun is on the cemetery
leaves are on the stones
there never was a place on earth
that felt so much like home
we're falling like the velvet petals
we're bleeding and we're torn
but God is in the roses
and the thorns

If I could play one song at Mom's funeral, that would be it.

There is also Cash's song "September When It Comes," from her Rules of Travel cd. It's her only recorded duet with her dad, and it's unbelievably touching. He was clearly weak when they recorded it, and his voice is a little scratchier than usual. Plus it's about aging, and was recorded in his last years. I heard Rosanne interviewed on NPR's "Fresh Air" after it came out, and the whole concept of the song and performing it with sick father was incredibly moving. Here's one verse:

"I plan to crawl outside these walls / Close my eyes and see / And fall into the heart and arms / Of those who wait for me / I cannot move a mountain now / I can no longer run / I cannot be who I was then / In a way, I never was." To hear Johnny's voice creaking a little on that verse is poignant, to say the least. And then for him to actually die in September--that's synchronicity.

Another album that gets frequent play around here and helps me keep in touch with my grief is Annie Lennox's Songs of Mass Destruction. While not specifically about grief, both the tone and lyrics set the mood. Most notable for me is the song "Dark Road." It was on this morning, and these lyrics jumped out at me: "I can't find the joy within my soul / it's just sadness takin' hold / I wanna come in from the cold / and make myself renewed again / it takes strength to live this way / the same old madness every day / I wanna kick these blues away / I wanna learn to live again." It's not that I feel my life is that oppressive all the time, but sometimes you just have to give vent. Another song on this album that gets me is "Lost." On this one, it's not the lyrics as much as Lennox's plaintive voice wailing that one line, "We're lost." It speaks grief to me, and speaks to my own grief, watching my mother die by degrees.
Of course, Lennox plays some much stronger, driving songs, and those can help process feelings, sometimes regardless of the lyrics. It's a very addictive album.

The other album on my most frequent rotation list really has nothing at all to do with grief, but Sia's singing is moving nonetheless. Some People Have Real Problems is my favorite, but Colour the Small One has some great songs, too. I got interested in Sia after seeing her phenomenal video for "Soon We'll Be Found." I'd never seen anything like it. Then my granddaughters fell in love with it. If Sia is playing now, and that song comes on, Avri freezes and says, "Listen! It's my favorite song!" She and Kiana try to do the signing then (she does some ASL in the video), but that usually evolves into general interpretive dance. Anyway, Sia is a great one for a contemplative soundtrack.



Looking at an incomplete list of my itunes music, the Beatles get several mentions ("The Long and Winding Road" being the first one to pop into my head), Elton John a few (see, I do listen to some male music), Peter Gabriel, and a few odd other assorted characters. More to be added? No doubt. I could revisit this topic over and over, I believe.

Incredible tenacity

Well, apparently this positive thinking isn't working as well as I'd hoped. Six weeks since the last time I wrote. Honestly, though, I did feel like writing again the day after I wrote that last post, but I had so many other things to do, I waited. And then I just had so much to do. How does one get out from under this?

I have work. I only work part-time, but it is teaching, which always needs more time than you have. Right now I've got two sets of assignments for each of two classes to grade and return. And this is my afternoon off, so I won't do it now.

Besides my "regular" job, I have Mom. And we do get paid for taking care of Mom. Though I prefer my oldest brother's way of saying it: "If you don't have enough money to live on, then you won't be able to take care of Mom." So we get paid by her trust (thanks, Grandma, for willing enough money to Dad that Mom can be provided for after his death!)

Mom is still holding on with incredible tenacity. She's down to 97 pounds, fully dressed, and she's all muscle and resistance. We try to get her dressed in the morning, and she clamps her arms to her sides, and steels her knees so they can't be separated. We try to get her to drink, and she won't swallow. We try to brush her teeth, and she grabs our wrists with a grip that leaves bruises. It gets frustrating, and no one really understands what it's like. Half the time I don't even understand what it's like. I think about how much time her care requires, and sometimes I wonder how she can so completely zap my energy. Then I think about the battles we try to fight on her behalf (the latest being with her day care about the absence of safe parking they provide), with her battling us at the same time, and I don't have to wonder. But keeping that awareness present, so I remember that I'm not crazy or whining, is difficult.

Now that I've started writing, my mind is uncovering all sorts of threads to write about. Can I retain them for more than a minute?

We almost folded the other week. We have three cats and a dog. Our cats our 13 and 14 years old, so they have some health "issues" of their own. One has a special food to prevent tartar build-up on her teeth. One has arthritis, so needs to eat a soft food we can mix her Cosequin into. The third one has kidney disease. We almost lost her last November, but she's doing really well now, thanks to a special food she doesn't like and to twice-weekly subcutaneous treatments. If you're not familiar with what a subcutaneous treatment is, it's basically giving her an IV. Which she hates. We bought a special bag to bind her in so we can control her long enough to stab her and squeeze 150 mls. of fluid into her. We have to feed the three cats separately since they each have their own special foods.

Then two weeks ago we had to take Cleo the wonder dog in for a teeth-cleaning. She had to have two broken incisors removed, which put the cost at you-don't-want-to-know, but worse than that, she wouldn't eat, had accidents overnight, and had diarrhea for ten days in a row. That was the straw that came perilously close to breaking the camel's back. I really was not sure I could take care of one more living creature. Oh yeah, I was simultaneously conferencing with my freshmen, what they call "developmental advising," making sure they weren't failing school and/or suicidal. It was a lot all at once.

But, here I am, with an afternoon off, but ending this post before I tell EVERYTHING there is to tell. Jeanne wants to use the computer as we sit here in Starbucks, and I really should let her. Besides, I don't want to get into the habit of this writing thing. People might get the wrong idea.

p.s. I am aware of the irony that I need to take an afternoon off from caring for Mom in order to have time and energy to write about caring for Mom.