Name That Tune

“All of her days have gone soft and cloudy, all of her dreams have gone dry.
All of her nights have gone sad and shady. She’s getting ready to fly.
Fly away, fly away, fly away, fly away. Where are my days, where are my nights? Where is the Spring? I wanna fly, I wanna fly…” (1975) “Fly Away” – Recorded By: John Denver & Olivia Newton-John Composer: John Denver

Photo: Singing in Buffalo, NY (2005)

Music has been my life. It’s been my joy, my friend, my tool of praise, my vocation. I fell in love with music before I could speak, so I’ve been told. And it’s no wonder.

Music is an incredible creation. You will not find it listed among the created items in the beginning of Genesis, during the six day event we know as creation. Do you know why? Because music belongs to eternity past, prior to the universe display. Simply, it’s a Divine attribute. It belongs to God Himself.

Music has immense, long-lasting power. The human, and animal minds are its slave. The music staff, when filled, literally navigates the brain. Indeed, music has the strength to change a life, a wavelength, a thought. Even its soundwaves can destroy a glass, a wall, a notion. It is even a giant in the realm of therapy, to build up.

You might have bought a hamburger due to, “You deserve a great today, so get up and get away to McDonalds.” You might have purchased insurance due to hearing, “Wherever you’re driving, and wherever you’re bound, like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.” Do you still smell chicken in the air if I reminded you of, “… Goodbye ho-hum. Say hello to your family. Come on everyone. At Kentucky Fried Chicken, have a barrel of fun.” All written by, Barry Manilow during his hungry years.

Who could forget the TV theme song as Dick Van Dyke trips over the ottoman? If I wrote the lyrics, “Now come listen to a story about a man named Jed…”, would you suddenly see Buddy Ebsen shootin’ at some food? And if I mentioned, Andy Griffith and Ron Howard walking toward a pond with fishing poles, could you immediately hear the whistle of the theme song? I bet you’re hearing it right now. Am I right? If not, you are now.

That’s the long arm of a couple of bars of carefully crafted music notes within a time signature. Tones and arithmetic together can be called, magical.

Recently, it became an urgency to move my mom into our home. Her dementia cognitive levels are causing her personal leaves to fall. Over the past year, it became very clear she could no longer live by herself. She officially moved in with my wife and I the week of Thanksgiving of 2021. Although I watched her be a 24/7 caregiver to her mom, for about 13 years, it is so vastly different to actually BE the caregiver. There is a great learning curve to it all. We also have learned a lot about ourselves. We even learned how we must guard our marriage very carefully during the turmoil of caring for a dementia patient.

I am grateful my mom still has much of her mind still intact with some precious memories which have yet to let go of their branches. Still, names, places, and simple words go missing in the fog of cognitive struggles. However, there remains one large leaf clutching its branch with a strong grip, much like a boat’s anchor on a rope.

When my mom feels the time is right to take her walker to her bedroom for preparations on laying her head on the pillow for the night, I can always count on one thing. My wife follows her there each night as she faithfully assists in bed prep. As I began to do the same on the other side of the house, soon two lovely voices are adrift in the air, reaching my awaiting ears.

My mom looks forward each night to singing a selected hymn from her days gone by. She was, and still is, a terrific soprano. In fact, as I was growing up, she was a much sought after vocalist wherever we lived, singing mainly for churches, weddings and funerals. When I was about 9 years of age, we began doing duo work.

Photo: My mom & I. April 1963.

Nightly, the two of them agree on a hymn, and ring out a duo as my wife tucks her in. (A footnote here. My wife was raised Nazarene, and my mom was raised Baptist. Often, the two denominations did not share hymnals. The two of them decide which hymns to sing, Therefore, many are found to be unknown to my wife, as well as my mom, but they both can read music and have great ears.) At times, I will hear a hymn coming from her room I haven’t heard in five decades, or longer. But each time, I can still recall the melody, harmonies, and most of the lyrics. Music does that. I hate to “spiritualize” everything, but I will say, especially sacred music. Yes, there’s a God-thing going on.

My talents come from my mom, and her mom’s side of the family. They were an artsy clan. My mom has invited me to come make a trio out of the late night serenades, and maybe soon I will. But for now, I enjoy the smile it brings to my face whenever the familiar vocal, which once calmed this child, comes dancing through the air in search of my ear.

I know what you are thinking, and it’s okay. Just know that I know, these bittersweet days are precious. There is a song in her heart because she is simply preparing to fly away.

Your song of the heart can be found in fuel for the race.

“The LORD your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.” Zephaniah 3:17 (NIV)

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Crevices

“…You can’t always get what you want.
But if you try sometimes well you might find,
You get what you need.” (1969) “You Can’t Always get What You Want” – Recorded By: The Rolling Stones Composers: Mick Jagger & Keith Richard.

I will preface the below by stating, I have no idea if this has anything to do with the new year ahead.

Watching her, in her mountain climbing gear, scaling up the side of this incredibly steep, rocky red cliffside, I wondered why this stranger felt she had to climb it. The mountain’s top half to the peak was narrow, without sand or soil, just a shear rock, three-sided pinnacle in what you might find in the Arizona desert. I was hot, thirsty, and my mouth felt full of the desert sands. It was uncomfortable. I wasn’t where I wanted to be, or needed to be. Or was I? No doubt, she felt the same.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Her struggle against the giant rock was fierce, steaming, and without signs of submission. The athletic abilities were impressive, but what may have been more impressive was her inner strength to conquer. A moment of jealousy kicked in. One would believe the cliff would be impossible to negotiate, yet there she was, fully dependent upon her spikes, rope, and footholds.

Frankly, while I gazed at the climber’s grit, as she scaled the flat mountainside in her cleats and gloves, I must admit to fearing the moment ahead when I would transition from a casual observer, to a witness of the death of a stranger.

As she approached the last fifty feet to the pencil-like summit, she intentionally unloaded her backpack, allowing it to fall to the base of her rocky challenge. It was clear, all of her tools for survival were bundled in her backpack, spilling out on impact splattered on the desert floor below. Curiosity took over even more as concern for her welfare grew deep inside of me. How would she survive the ongoing battle against this natural skyscraper? Exhaustion or gravity, or both, would be her enemy.

With half the afternoon gone, the peak became reachable as she scaled her way to the last twenty-five feet. The pitch of the rockface was brutal, with only small crevices along the red stone precipice as a saving grace.

Photo by Roussety Gregory on Pexels.com

Her legs were stretched, reaching the precious footholds to her left and right. Her hands were gripping the various sized crevices above her. Like a wise chess player, with every ounce of strength in her body, she carefully studied her next footholds, her next crevice to gain the the rock’s summit. Then, like a spider on a wall, the athlete pulled herself up to a small ledge just below the peak. There, she rested, sitting on a welcomed stone shelf awaiting her.

With a sigh of relief, I began to turn to go on my own way, when suddenly I captured a satisfying smile on her face. She appeared to be looking inside two crevices just above the surface of the ledge itself. My head cocked a bit as I attempted to guess at what she seemed to be happy to discover. Reaching her hand inside what appeared to be a deep crevice, she pulled out a tin cup in her sweating hand. Reaching into the other crevice, she discovered a metal ruler, a meter in length. Revisiting the crevice, she removed a liter of bottled water, a packed nylon lunchbox, a blanket, several crampons, a chisel, a harness, and a bundle of rope. To my amazement, she suddenly had all she needed for the rest of her challenging journey.

To this very day, I do not know who left the goods in the last crevices of the summit. Part of me wondered if she had climbed this rockface before and left herself a survival kit for future climbs. Another part of me came to another conclusion. Could it be, other climbers deposited the goods in the crevices, as an act of goodwill for the next adventurer? Either way, she got what she so desperately needed.

After I was awakened by this dream, I immediately heard an old hymn running through my mind.

” He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock,
That shadows a dry, thirsty land;
He hideth my life in the depths of His love,
And covers me there with His hand,
And covers me there with His hand.” (1890) “He Hideth My Soul” – Composer: Fanny Crosby

Sometimes, and I truly mean the word, a dream can be a message to the dreamer. If I were a wiseman, surely I could roll out its interpretation to you here and now. But, alas, I cannot. Maybe, just maybe, the interpretation is relative to the reader.

If there’s one thing I have learned in my life, it’s the fact that when in expectation, God is willing, ready, and able to answer my questions.

When exhausted, thirsty, and struggling, there are crevices awaiting you in fuel for the race.

“Who has cleft a channel for the torrents of rain and a way for the thunderbolt, to bring rain on a land where no man is, on the desert in which there is no man, to satisfy the waste and desolate land, and to make the ground sprout with grass?” – Job 38:25-27 (ESV)