Last night I was nostalgically listening to MJ on my iPod and the song You Are Not Alone came up. It used to be that when I would hear "love songs" the love was always romantic love. but lately when I hear this song, it reminds me of my dad: me mourning him, even eight years later, and him reminding me that he's never gone away. So there I was driving along, stereo blasting, singing at the top of my lungs, and bawling my eyes out (very reminiscent of the Carpenters scene in Tommy Boy):
...You never said goodbye. Someone tell me why did you have to go...You are not alone. I am here with you...I can hear your prayers. Your burdens I will bear...
And then I remembered when I was pregnant with Walker and the same thing happened with I Don't Want to Miss a Thing by Aerosmith. I only ever thought of that song in reference to a couple never wanting to be apart. But when I was pregnant, all I could think of was watching my baby sleep and never wanting to stop watching:
...I could spend my life in this sweet surrender...And then I kiss your eyes and thank God we're together...I don't want to miss one smile. I don't want to miss one kiss...
Tommy Boy again. And to this day, any time that song comes on, I think of my son and there go the water works again.
One last one: Heaven by Los Lonely Boys. When my Gram died at 93 years old, my uncle, her youngest, really wanted this song played at the service, which I thought was strange. Really? An upbeat kinda party song at a funeral? And then I downloaded it and listened to the lyrics:
...Save me from this prison, Lord...'cause only you can save me now from this misery...I've been lost in my own place and I'm getting weary...I've been locked up way too long in this crazy world...
Needless to say, we played this at her graveside as we released 93 balloons to celebrate her life.
Funny how growing up and changing circumstances makes you reevaluate even the smallest of things.
2 comments:
That was a really beautiful post. I haven't lost one of my parents (thankfully), so I don't know about that aspect of it yet, but I know that being a mom has done the same thing for me with songs. The main one that changed for me was Alanis Morissette's "You Owe Me Nothing In Return."
Ok, so I wanted to comment, but the song that reminds me of my son is nowhere near as touching as you or Kjersti's... When Isaac used to wake up in the middle of the night to nurse, Gary would go and get him and bring him to me. That was the deal, he got him out of the crib, waited for me to feed him, then he'd burp him and put him back down. Half the time I was SO tired that Gary would stand there with the baby and he's have to poke and prod me more than once to 'WAKE UP!!' Anyway, I used to turn on MTV Music Videos, which thankfully ARE playing at 2:00. 3:00 and 4:00 in the morning, and somehow, I always seemed to turn it on right as they were playing JT's 'My Love.'
The Aerosmith song, Kelly, is totally one of mine and Gary's songs, too. Love it!
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