Music was a necessity

an anchor to her life

Early childhood memories are filled with silly songs, nursery rhymes, Sunday school sing alongs and Girl Scout campfire songs. Mom loved music and music was always on in our home. Major holidays all had special albums that were played over and over. But what I remember most is the sound of weekends and summer breaks.

As a teenager, sleeping in was my goal, but Mom worked two jobs, the second job was done at home, she was a medical transcriptionist. She’d wake up with the sun, turn on a soft rock radio station, insert an eight track or a queue up a stack of 45’s. The soundtrack of my teens is 70’s tunes accompanied by the clacking keys of her IBM Selectric typewriter.

I can’t hear Glen Campbell, Charlie Rich or Anne Murray without a flood of memories overtaking my entire being. If Mom wasn’t typing away to the music, she would sing along. The lyrics to thousands of songs from the 50’s to the 80’s and even beyond were stored in her brain. How is that even possible? When Alzheimer’s started its evil consumption of her memories she held tight to the music. Well into the advanced stages of the disease, the music remained. Unable to hold or follow a conversation, without the bandwidth to respond to a simple question, she still sang. As her caregiver, I continued to play the music, as her daughter I knew the songs that would bring a smile to her face.

One of the saddest days of my life was when she stopped responding to the music. I tried all her favorites, I even tried the early childhood Sunday School songs she loved, but I could no longer see a connection. Was the sound fading? I still played the music for her, hoping that deep inside she was still singing along, I know the music didn’t die.

Music gave me memories. I enjoy listening to it, I have favorite artists, but I know I don’t get nearly the joy out of it that Mom did. I still have her playlist on my phone. I should be so done listening to anything on this playlist, I’ve heard it all literally thousands of times. Apple iTunes gives me a play count for every song in my library, as I played her songs for her over and over, that play count over the seventeen years I cared for her is astounding. Do I know all the lyrics? Not nearly as well as she did, but I can hold my own.

I’m not one to turn on music as soon as I wake up or even randomly during the day like Mom did. I prefer quiet. Except when I’m in the car, in my opinion, music is made for driving to. My Mom isn’t the only one to influence my musical choices. My Dad was a long haul truck driver. He was gone a lot, but his albums were at home. When I was especially missing him, I’d listen to C.W. McCall sing about Wolf Creek Pass, and Red Simpson’s I’m a Truck, taught me about climbing the ol’ Grapevine, but it was the Willis Brothers that filled my imagination with needing Forty Acres to Turn This Truck Around. Dad’s music taught me geography, at least the geography of truck routes. Music gave me my Dad when he couldn’t be there. Music brings my Mom home to me everyday.

What is your relationship to music? I can’t sing, I haven’t played an instrument since I learned to play Mary Had a Little Lamb on the clarinet in elementary school. Yet, I would say that music holds a vital and essential place in my life. Music takes me back to high school and college, the first three seconds of What Difference Does it Make? by The Smiths transports me to a treasured place and time. Crowded House, The Cult, Culture Club, The Cure, The Fixx, Howard Jones, Midnight Oil, Oingo Boingo….I could go on, but please, imagine your own high school playlists for a moment. Where does it take you? Dances, friends, beach parties, road trips? Music takes us home, that place in our hearts where all the best memories live. What’s your song, the one that fills your heart and makes the memories spill out?

Is it even possible to go on a roadtrip without music? My childhood is filled with sing-alongs in the car. Passing the miles, singing terribly out of tune at the top of our lungs and not caring. I have a “best’es’est friend” that I know if I mention a few words of a song, a memory or a place, she will respond with singing the song of the time. It never fails and I absolutely love her for it. (ok S, we’re on the chairlift, my sister is on the chair ahead of us, what’s the song?) It’s a piece of our shared memories, it’s the stories of my Mom and the love that lived in the music of our home.

Music is art, musicians are artists, and all art has the power to take us places, to transport us, give us an escape, give us the words we couldn’t find, give us validation or the sense that we aren’t alone. Music gave my Mom something, I wish I knew more specifically what it was, how she would describe it. I wish I had that conversation with her before Alzheimer’s stole her from me. I can guess it took her to places she wanted and needed to go. I am grateful she found the vital, essential and meaningful tunes that would do that for her. I know without a doubt that she sung her way home.