Music, Beethoven & Grief

Music is the wind that fills the sails of emotion.

Profound, huh? I thunked that up all by myself. Really. I did.

Think about it... When you're happy, and you listen to happy music, it lifts your spirits even higher. Same when you're down, and you listen to something somber, it helps you wallow in it. When you're up and the music is down (or vise versa), you can choose not to hoist the sails up the mast, and let the wind pass by you. I really like this metaphor. It works for me.

Tonight I had one of those moments at CAS. We're working on Mozart's Requiem, and we've really got it nailed down pretty well. Too well for the directors to leave us alone. They more recently added Mozart's Ave Verum Corpus, and a Beethoven's "Elegischer Gesang," as well.

The Beethoven piece was written to commemorate the anniversary of the passing of a dear friend's wife. Beethoven had stayed with this couple on and off for several years, and they must have been dear friends. The woman died in childbirth. The text is in German, so it's not so touching as we work on it. The first night we read through this piece, the director told us what it was about to help us sing it with expression from the start. Tonight, a few weeks later, he told us a personal story of grief that he has applied to this piece which has made it very touching to him. As he was speaking, telling us about his grandmother, it struck me so strongly that I had to leave the room.

This song so aptly could be sung in memory of my unborn child who died in April of 2004. The text translated to English is, "Life gently touched thee, and passed as softly, thy spirit too holy to know pain! No eye could weep for this spirit, so heavenly, when homeward turning."

I don't often think of my miscarriage, or my baby in heaven. I cry over her even less often. I haven't been struck by the grief of losing that child so poignantly as I was tonight in a very long time. And it came on in an instant.

We never fully recover from grief. Even after God has healed the hurt, a scar remains. Time heals nothing. Time just gives us other thing to think about... I didn't know I could still hurt over that as much as I did tonight. I'm OK. I'm just surprised at how quickly that wound could reopen.

For me, that song will from now on be linked with my precious child waiting for me in heaven.