So those of you who follow me here or have read my book or have kept up with my grief and life “tsunami”, as I call it, know that my dead husband Don loved music. (you probably also know that I use terms like “grief tsunami” and “dead husband” because I hate the terms “grief journey” and “late husband.”) We met in a music trivia chat room on AOL in the 1990s, where we would talk/type for hours about Lionel Richie, Spandau Ballet, and other hilarious 1980s songs and artists. Don owned a lot of guitars. When he moved in with me, he had maybe 5 or so. When he died, he had 9. Some were acoustic, others were electric, some were used, others were new, one was a Christmas gift from me that caused him to say out loud: “My wife is the bestest wife in the world.”
He never played guitar professionally, but he played guitar well, he was self-taught, and music was his passion. After a long day on the ambulance, especially when something traumatic would happen, he would come home, and sit down in the living room and just strum that guitar. The living room floor would be scattered with the sheet music of The Who, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Steely Dan, Led Zeppelin, Heart, Fleetwood Mac, Aerosmith, and many others of his favorites. I always knew his day was especially hard when he would go into that living room, follow his sheet music or a video on YouTube, play for hours, and never utter a word. The idea of not having to talk combined with playing music was healing for him. I would leave him alone to play, but often he would call me out to the living room. “Boo, can you come out here? Ive been working on a chord progression, how does this sound?” Id sit next to him on the couch and he would use my leg or arm to “tap” on and work out rhythms in his head. If it was a song or melody he was writing, he just liked having me sit next to him and our kitties while he played. (Autumn would sit nearby on the floor, but her sister Ginger was a true Don groupie and would sit on his leg while he played guitar, and wag her tail and purr like mad). If he was trying to learn a song he loved for us to do together, then I would sing while he played. I’ll always remember how we were working on “Carnival” by Natalie Merchant , right before his death. I think we had been playing around with it maybe a few weeks or so before his sudden death. “I love your voice”, he would say to me. “This is gonna sound awesome when it’s all done.”
That Natalie Merchant song became one of many in a list of endless things that would now be forever unfinished, because he died. And while its normal to have these series of unfinished things when someone’s life ends; for me, the ones having to do with music sting the most. Don was always trying to teach me how to play guitar. I was always telling him how Id love to play so I could back myself up while singing, so he would try and teach me. He was so incredibly patient with me. He would show me chords over and over and over again, and then I would forget them immediately or my fingers would hurt or i would get too frustrated with myself to keep at it. I kept giving up, and he kept saying calmly and supportively: “it’s okay, Boo. Try it one more time.” Eventually, I would grow tired of trying to learn because trying to learn just made me feel stupid for not being able to grasp a simple chord or remember fingering or what a fret was or how to hold the guitar correctly so I didnt look and feel so awkward. I constantly gave up on myself, and Don never gave up on me. He ALWAYS just would say with a smile: “You’ll get it. Next time. It’s okay.”
After Don’s sudden death, music was extremely difficult for me to hear, play, or sing with. All of it reminded me instantly of our connection through music, playing and singing together, and his incredible patience with me. The silence in our apartment those first couple years post-death , without him strumming that guitar, was beyond deafening. Singing no longer felt healing or pleasurable – it felt like a lonely betrayal. My music partner was gone, and I hated singing without him. I hated not having the soundtrack of his beautiful playing by my side. Songs on the radio felt like a cruel mockery of my grief. I started listening to only talk radio in the car, and it took me a few good years to be able to allow music back into my life again. I donated a handful of his guitars to my cousin Nicky, who ran a music program much like “School of Rock”, where kids and their parents jam together and play rock music in local shows for the public. I donated one of his guitars to a guitar instructor in Texas who had lost everything, including his guitar, in the Texas wildfires. And I held onto two of his acoustics, and one electric, with the hopes of one day using them to pick up where we left off, and maybe learn how to play the guitar, on Don’s guitars.
This has not been easy. Life has taken over, Im super busy, and I dont really have the funds to support regular guitar lessons. And on an emotional level, its been really hard to look at those guitars and WANT to play them, without immediately feeling sad. The sadness is no longer all-encompassing like it was years ago, but its still very much there. I still would rather play music with Don than not with Don. I still want to learn duets together and record songs together in our friend Ron’s studio just for kicks, and jam together because we feel like it. Still, when I sit down with one of his guitars, its emotional, its layered, its not easy. It’s just of those things that is forever affected by his death.
Fast-forward to today. My husband Nick, although he does not play any instruments or sing, also has a huge passion for music. He connected me with a fellow Veteran he knows that was offering free ukulele lessons to veterans and their kids. This veteran told me that if I learned the ukulele first, it would be an easier and less heavy instrument to learn, and very easy to eventually transfer over to guitar, and then I could finally play Don’s guitars and maybe even learn a song. I bought a ukulele from him for $55, and then started attending his classes every other Wednesday evening. The funny thing is, the class is 95% children, their parents, and me. As far as my talent in playing and my limitations, not much has changed. I still feel like I will never get the hang of this, it still takes me forever to understand basic music concepts and reading music, and I still feel like maybe this just isnt meant to be and I should keep on singing without anyone playing by my side. Most weeks, I dont feel like going out to class (its a 30 min drive in the dark and cold, after a full work day), and I end up feeling stupid and silly while Im there because these 6 and 7 year old kids are running circles around me and Im just forever frozen in place and confused.
But then I hear Don’s voice. His patience. His supportive nature. “Let’s just keep trying. You’ll get it eventually. Don’t worry.” And then I think about how incredibly sweet it was of my husband Nick to connect me with this man who teaches for free, because he knows how much I’d like to one day learn to play. In my Christmas stocking, Nick gave me some new guitar strings so that I could give them to the guitar instructor, who offered to clean up Don’s old guitars and re-string them and tune them for me. Last week, I dropped off Don’s guitars with the instructor, and they are being cared for right now. This would make Don so very happy.
Its going to take a lot of time I think. Clearly, I am not a natural who can just teach myself, like he was. Its incredibly difficult for me. But I want to learn. At the very least, I want to be able to clumsily get through just one song all the way through. Maybe “Carnival”, maybe something much simpler. Maybe “Here Comes the Sun” by the Beatles. We used to casually play and sing that one together, and it seems appropriate enough for what this means to me. To be able to back myself up musically while I sing that song, on Don’s guitar – it would be a beautiful thing.
Until then, I will just have to keep relying on his patience, to help get me through the excruciating process of learning to play.
“It’s okay. We will just try it again tomorrow.”
