Hmmm....sounds come in many forms. What do I want the tone or sound of my blog to be? I confess that it will not stay the same. Tonight I feel as though I need to sound off. Not in an angry way, but to vent in a positive and healthy way. I mean I surely do not want to create any more negative karma in my life. Still there are a couple directions I could go with this. I mean I could write as a mother of two grown children, or as a woman in her second marriage after the one of 35 years fell apart, or as the friend of many different types of women with whom I have long-standing and yet different types of relationships, or as the daughter of an 88 year old youthful mother...or a daughter who misses her dad....or the joys of being a grandmother...or how I love to write, sing, dance, paint, walk in the woods along the creek, stroll along the beach on a crisp autumn day, or play fetch with my sweet little dog...you get the picture.
The song I heard a little while ago in my car was the old standard For All We Know (We May Never Meet Again). It brought tears to my eyes, thinking of a few loved ones that I will never see again at least not in this present life. Then I thought of how there are people I cared about but have lost track of and even with the advent of facebook have not found them. There are people I have loved and will always love that are no longer in my life. I wonder why that has to be. If you have truly loved someone, why can they not be a part of your life always, not just in the memories, but in a tangible way? Love does not end, if it is truly love. It may be placed on a different shelf in the memory of your heart, but love is love. Then there are my grown children. I long for them to see me for who I really am and not simply the imperfect mother I was or can still be. When my Dad was so sick and I realized he was not going to be around much longer, I regretted not spending more time with him, not getting to know him and his ways as a man, a human being, not only as my dad. I learned so much from him on a friend-to-friend basis the last couple years of his life. I treasure those times, those memories, his words that cut to the chase, offering concise and wise observations about my life and my family.
When Dad was unexpectedly admitted to the hospital and on life support, a song that he liked came to my mind. I softly sang to him, "You'll never know just how much I love you. You'll never know just how much I care...." I realized the real reason after he died that my dad had kept people shut out and away from him because he didn't want to be too close to anyone, even his own family. It had hurt too much in earlier years. So, my singing those words to him were really a "ministry" or something he needed to hear before leaving this life. When he came off life support and managed to hang on for about another two weeks we had a few conversations, although mostly he had no voice left, and the words he said were brief. When I asked him if he remembered being on the breathing tube and being in the emergency room, he said no. He then said he heard music. I asked him what kind of music. He said, "singing." I asked him if it was good singing(we both laughed a little at that because we were both selective about what good music is). He said, "yeah, it was nice." Was it the love, was it the music, was it the familiar sound of a loved one's voice intending to be comforting? What if I had not listened to that prompting to sing that particular song? It reached right through and touched my dad, so that he heard something "nice" while in such a not nice state.
Well, as I started out saying, the song for this moment is We May Never Meet Again. Don't take for granted that any one of us has another full day of life. For all we know, we may never meet again. And like the final sentence my dad managed to whisper to me, "Honey, if there is anything you want to do, don't wait because you never know what life is going to throw at you." Indeed, Dad. After we have done all we can do in any given situation, we cannot force people to change, to see things differently, to let go of their unforgiveness or their need to hold onto anger or their need to punish others for just being human. We can love them, simply love them and hold fast to the hope that some day perhaps the Spirit will use a certain song to speak to them, get through to them where my spoken words have not been able to do so. And, if We May Never Meet Again, You'll Never Know Just How Much I Love You. I love you enough to let you go.
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