I’ve just returned from playing at a local venue. I had a good time.
My estranged daughter, in some small way, could have been with me tonight as I played. I must admit that I’m still trying to figure out what to think of that. I’ll explain in a moment.
I’ve been writing songs for many years, but as often happens, I think I only started writing good songs in the last 7-8 years. And I say that because that’s when people started requesting my songs, singing them with me, and talking about them by name. That was an attention-getting change for sure.
One song that gets requested and goes over well is called “Walking Home.” It’s a lyrical collage about the excitement and comfort of love both young and mature, with the recurring theme of home being where love is.
At times, songs have poured out of my mind and hands like water from a fountain, and a few years ago I recorded a CD of them in my home studio.
My now-estranged daughter sang on the recording of “Walking Home.” I’m a good singer/songwriter and guitarist, but she is a gifted singer. Her soaring voice was perfect to lend to my hopeful, waltzing singalong.
I’m grateful that having done this song with her didn’t ruin it, as it could certainly have turned into a trigger. But her place in that song remains within the recorded version. With a guitar in my hands, microphones on and the lights up, I must admit that she doesn’t haunt that song. The connection to her only occurred to me after the fact tonight.
Irvin Yalom writes beautifully about how deceased people remain present in the lives of others in his book Staring At the Sun. The book is primarily about coping with the fear of death, though much of what he posits does apply to estranged parents in our ambiguous grief. Some of us ache to be with our children, in which case, Yalom’s writing is altogether worthwhile and recommended.
Others need to handle those memories intentionally and thoughtfully, even going so far as to delineate what that child is allowed to permeate in our ongoing lives. I know it’s easier said than done. Given the suffering that has occurred as a result of her departure, I’m grateful that musically speaking, she remains compartmentalized. Tragic, but it’s what I need to cope.
