Music has saved me on many occasions throughout my life. If you read my post from December 2023, you’ll know that I lost my best friend and music partner without any warning. No, I haven’t felt like writing any blog posts. You wouldn’t want to read them anyway; what can I say? Everything sucks. Having Bubba for a friend and creating music with him enriched my life in ways I’ll never be able to describe. Losing him so suddenly – it’s indescribable.

I could barely make it through the Christmas Eve service at church. In fact, I didn’t. I couldn’t. I got through the Eucharist, but couldn’t face another minute, and certainly couldn’t face the candlelight singing of Silent Night. My wonderful fellow choristers totally understood. I left, cried all the way home, walked to my brother’s house next door, and wept and drank with another bereaved friend.

I didn’t sing, or play, or anything for quite a while. I felt (and still do feel) like an empty shell. I couldn’t even face choir for over a month. I knew I wanted (and needed) to go back, but just couldn’t – and the choir loft is a safe harbor for me.

Then, one day, a text from Leon (our director). Our choir members were invited to sing The Seven Last Words of Christ with our friends across the street, the First Methodist Church choir.

Yes. Yes, I need that. My first venture back into singing anything since Bubba died was in the First Methodist choir room, not even my own loft – perhaps because that loft and pipe organ has Bubba’s influence everywhere. (I did return to my own loft and church the following Sunday.) I went to practice, and escaped from my own thoughts by diving into sight-reading something I’d never seen or heard before, and joining voices with others who love to sing.

I found myself smiling for the first time in nearly two months. I had something to wrap my brain around, a bit of a challenge, and a fairly new musical environment. I had a musical distraction, and that’s just what I needed. I’d been writing a lot since Bubba’s death, but writing is a solitary activity. I love making music with others, even if I can’t make music with Bubba any more.

We sang the Seven Last Words on Palm Sunday at the First Methodist Church, and will present it at Epiphany Church on Good Friday. I love being a part of creating such beautiful music, and Theodore Dubois’ rich work is moving and very healing. Being partially deaf makes it matter even more that I’m in the middle of it. Being invited to join in this was a gift at the perfect time; it helps, and it gives me hope. And God is so efficient. Just as this was a blessing for me in my own circumstances, I know that God uses this musicial event to bless others in many other ways. Wouldn’t it be amazing to know them all?

After Good Friday, I’ll sing I Know that My Redeemer Liveth on Easter. And then, I’ll have to find another musical challenge because it helps to keep the pain to a dull roar when I’m focused on music. I’m committed to playing for a couple of events in the summer, and ordinarily it would be Bubba and me, but I no longer have that option. Part of me wanted to back out, but I hear Bubba giving me THE LOOK and telling me “don’t even think about it!”

So I take out the 12 string and just play and sing and listen. It hurts, but it is well with my soul. Once again, God saves me through music.