I have tried each at obnoxiously high levels. I have tried Puccini, Stravinsky and chanting monks to no avail. Nothing disconnects the endless haunting melody that plays in my head nearly every waking moment since Justin’s funeral. I wake up hearing it, it weaves in my head all day and when I try to sleep it is there, and with it that moment of Justin’s funeral that has become so indelibly stamped in my memory, just moments before we would follow behind his casket and leave the church to walk up the hill to the cemetery. I remember his funeral so vividly, that dread mixed with disbelief of what you are doing and what you are about to do, those last moments with his body so close, yet untouchable…the sun streaming through the window touching the casket….Doug to my right, Ryan to his father’s right. Then the both of them standing beside the casket as pall bearers, grateful for the small hand of a dear soul that clasped mine on the walk up the hill. Still brilliant sunshine…the last minutes with him. Reaching over to remove roses from his casket spray, watching the funeral directors take a step at the same time, then sensing that they were not needed nor wanted, they stepped back. One last moment, one last touch of his casket. Then the service was over and we left him on the top of the hill, near where the forest meets the edge of the cemetery. Numb, my only thought was to get the church tidied for the 5:30 PM Mass that evening. God bless Justin’s friends who moved, carried, packed and lent a hand where ever they could to put the church back to rights after the viewing and funeral. Numb, but with that thread of melody already playing in my head.
And the melody still plays in my head over and over…the melody from the Largo movement of Antonin Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9, “From the New World”, a song we had chosen and was sung most exquisitely by two extraordinarily talented and generous friends of ours who had known Justin for many years. Lori True wrote the lyrics to the particular version that was sung for Justin, but there are other, older lyrics that are sung at many funerals.
Every child has their own melody in a mother’s heart that combines and harmonizes and creates a symphony that is the soundtrack to her life, each with their own theme that rises and falls… always there. I cannot hear Justin’s song anymore, it is simply gone, now just this haunting melody that never stops. I find no comfort in its lyrics, yet find myself singing the opening line all through the day.
I cannot remember the sound of my father’s voice, nor my mother’s….and I know that time will erase the memory of Justin’s voice…..you recall it in your mind, but recoil from the pain when you hit on it…repetition is what keeps that timbre of his voice in active memory. Without that repetition, his voice will fade…just an essence of his voice will be there…ghosts. This active letting go of Justin is excruciating, he no longer lives in my present or my future. This is the reality of the second year, so hard, so sad.
I miss the song that was uniquely yours my son, it was lilting, complex, brilliant….unfinished.
