Music and Rituals

 Fair warning! I'm gonna talk about a death in the family so if this is triggering to anyone, please be aware!

 My family is a fairly musical one. My mom and dad both noodle on a couple different instruments, my cousins are pretty good guitarists, and I consider myself to be a somewhat decent flautist. Hopefully. This gene, however, must have skipped right over my grandmother. God bless her, she could not carry a tune in a bucket. This never stopped her, though. As a matter of fact, I can’t think about my childhood memories with her without hearing her singing voice. She was always singing or humming or an odd combination of the two that was meant to mask the fact that she didn’t know the lyrics. Anything from old hymns to commercial jingles to Elvis (I know everyone’s grandmother was an Elvis fan but mine was an Elvis STAN!!!), she always had a melody in her mouth. When I think back to my childhood with my grandma, one song in particular comes to mind.

 

 

She used to sing me “I See the Moon” as part of my bedtime ritual when I was a young kid. I’d finish dinner, get all washed up, and, after I protested a bit, I’d get into bed and she would sing me this lullaby. It became routine.

 

Time went by, of course. My grandma never had the best health. I grew up and she was pulled in and out of the hospital. It became sort of second nature. I even got to where I started to miss the hospital cafeteria, which I’m realizing is sort of macabre as I type this out. As I got older, her health took a turn for the worse and she was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. That was the last time she’d live on her own. (I’m probably a sophomore in high school, at this point.) She stayed in the hospital for a much longer time than I could ever remember and suddenly I never wanted to eat from the cafeteria again. We fully expected her not to make it, but she pulled through. She was put into assisted living, which she made her hatred of very known. She was removed from the home she’d known for years and her one and only grandbaby wasn’t really a baby anymore. I know it had to be hard. To soften it, my mom and I visited either daily or very close to it. She used to love listening to me play the flute, so I’d bring it over and play her favorite classic Disney songs and a couple Elvis songs I could find music for. (I definitely remember playing “Love Me Tender” a lot.)

 

Her health slowly started to improve. She was getting used to her surroundings and making some nice friends. I had started my junior year of high school at the Governor’s School and she was over the moon excited for me. For a few months, life was really good. That made her death a lot more shocking. Seemingly out of nowhere, we got the call. The funeral happened just as quick. I felt like I didn’t even really have time to process. The morning of, my mom asked me if I would play something at her funeral on my flute. Playing for her had become such a big part of both of our lives. I very reluctantly agreed, terrified of the sheer emotional toll I knew it’d take. I brought my flute and sight-read a basic arrangement of “Amazing Grace” on the ride over to the funeral.

 

 I was looking for a flute cover but we just covered pan flutes in class so this seemed fitting, haha.

 

It objectively couldn’t have sounded good. It was a cold November day (which makes the instrument go crazy flat), I hadn’t warmed up, and I was fighting back tears. But I’m so glad that I did it. One more time, we got to share music together.

 

On the ride home, I asked my mom if she could remember the words to “I See the Moon” because I had forgotten them in all the years. She did, thank goodness, and I haven't stopped singing it to myself since.