But I never. Never. Ever put on music to ease
my pain. It doesn’t work for me. So why am I tormenting myself
watching American Idol? For three years I turned away from this favorite show
of ours. In 2020 when they made people perform in isolation on their own back patios. In
2021 when I recovered from covid and watched my husband die. In 2022 as I
packed up my meager belongings in the garage apartment I’d called home since
Rob’s death and prepared to move into a home of my own. In each of those years
it was easy to say no to watching the dreams of young people come true. There
were more important things on my mind.
Like surviving.
2023. There’s a silent rhythm now in my life. The
sound of my own voice is all the company I have most days. It’s not enough. I
long for him. I ache for him. My soulmate. My darling. My best friend. My love.
Gone in a heartbeat, Solomon’s ageless words come to mind. Life is a vapor,
vanishing quickly, leaving nothing behind. Except Rob left everything
behind, including me.
Maybe there should be college courses on sorrow. Something
to give people like me at least an outline of what grief looks like. Because
when you fall into this deep, dark place, devoid of light and without even a
map, everything is upside down. The echo of my weeping bouncing off the walls
of this captivity make it that much harder to get my bearings.
How long, Lord? How long? Will it take forty-six years
of sorrow, equal to the time we had one another, before I can breathe again?
This roller coaster ride traveling between relief and desperation is confusing.
Just when I think I’m on level ground again, it gives way and I’m catapulted
into a freefall once more. My expectations do a nosedive right along with my
heart in those moments. “It’s been more than two years,” I hear myself say. “Snap
out of it. Trust in Jesus. Look on the bright side. Rob’s really happy where he
is. You know he’d never want to come back even if he could.”
Sometimes I hate the sound of my own voice.
So, last night I turned on the TV so I could listen to
someone else for a while, and landed on American Idol. I’m rooting for every
single musician on the show. Their stories of heartache, survival, broken
dreams, terrible experiences, all of it winds up in their music, drawing me in,
making me weep, drawing you in, reminding us we’re not alone.
Music is the voice of the heart.
Maybe it doesn’t matter that music makes me cry. I’m
crying anyway, draining off every new day’s pain, looking for some sunshine after
the dark clouds. What I find strange is that I can read song lyrics without
crumbling. The words are always the most important thing to me, but they rarely
affect me like music does. So, when a friend with good intentions sends me a
YouTube link to a song that makes them think of me, instead of listening to it
I look up the lyrics. Give me the black and white text. I can handle that. But
let an orchestra touch the shattered places of my heart? I won’t make it
through to the first chorus.
The world is divided by cultures, religion,
appearance, politics, and language, among many other things. But when it comes
to music, there are no borders. A pianist from Japan can read the same sheet
music as a musician in Milwaukee, both will perform it as written, and never
need an interpreter. They say it’s the universal language. That it’s more
powerful than words.
I’ve tried to write songs. It’s really hard to
condense my thoughts into three verses, one bridge, and a chorus. It takes
poetic license and often leaves the curious listener wondering why clouds’
illusions mean you really don’t know clouds at all. It’s because you need more
words.
Words, as painful as they are to read sometimes, feel
safer to me than music. It’s the personal stories behind the songs the Idol
contestants sing that capture my attention. I’m just putting up with the
orchestra. Maybe music makes me cry because it doesn’t speak clearly enough. It
makes me wonder what the composer meant. It makes me work too hard to find
hope.
I still love music even if I rarely listen to it
anymore. I love drives at sunset and long talks with friends, hugs from
grandbabies and Dairy Queen ice cream. But when my heart is scrambled with pain
and longing, upside down in another whirlwind of sorrow and I’m lost in the
darkness, I gather up these shards of glass and piece the fragments together. Making
sense of my pain is one way back to solid ground. For me, words are everything.
The mosaic reveals the story.
Thank you for your willingness to listen to my story.
With gratitude to Leeds Harold for permission to share the beautiful mosaic seen above. The original photo can be viewed by following this link::
DSC00416 | A mosaic created from broken pottery and glass. T… | Flickr
