Love and Loss in the 90s
“I’ve got a good mother. And her voice is what keeps me here. Feet on ground, heart in hand. Facing forward, be yourself.” ~ Jann Arden, Good Mother
This is a story about sudden loss and grief. Please bookmark and come back another time if you happen to be feeling a little fragile today. It’s been an emotional piece for me to write and at first I shied away from doing so. Only in my personal journals have I written about the death of my mother. It would be remiss of me not to include this chapter of my life because it so profoundly shaped the person I am today, and I know she’d be happy that I’m telling stories again.
By the early nineties we’d outgrown our first two-bedroom home, so my husband and I sold it and bought a newer house in the suburbs that was more suitable for a family of four and a dog. I loved that house and it still owns my heart, even though we sold it years ago to buy the acreage we currently live on. When moving day arrived I walked through the house alone one last time to say a tearful goodbye to the empty rooms. I still dream about it sometimes. In those dreams one or both of my parents are often there too.
If those walls could talk they’d say that the background music was Disney movie soundtracks in the beginning with boy/girl pop bands following close behind. My own nineties mixtape featured REM, U2, Celine Dion, Blue Rodeo, Pearl Jam, Jann Arden and Dwight Yoakam. Yes, always and forever an eclectic mix for me. Just recently my daughter said that because of me hearing Celine sing reminds her of housecleaning. For more tedious tasks like oven cleaning, I’ve tended to lean a little more heavily on Aerosmith to keep me dreaming on.
That second house holds some of the best memories of my life. It was there that we watched our two children grow from toddlers to teenagers. It was the place our families and friends gathered for frequent visits and big holiday parties. In the backyard was a large dogwood tree that was truly exquisite when it bloomed during warmer months. The first time my mother saw that tree in bloom she told me it was her favourite because in the language of flowers dogwoods represent strength. I researched that recently and it’s true. Quote “the gentle, whimsical dogwood blooms may look delicate, but they’re connected to durability and the ability to withstand various challenges in life.” I’m not sure who decides these things about flowers, but it seemed important to my mom so I’ve hung onto the memory since then.
When our kids were in their beginning years of school, my retired parents lived about an eight hour drive away in a small town where one of my sisters lived with her grown family. A couple of times a year Mom would hop on a Greyhound bus headed for the coast to come stay with me and my young family for awhile. She’d insist on cooking and cleaning and baking for us, no matter how many times I told her to just relax and enjoy the visit. “Got to earn my keep,” she’d joke. Mom was a caretaker and caring for family was her greatest joy. Meddling in the lives of her six children was by far her favourite pastime. It was irritating at times, but in large families at least one head of state needed to reign in the chaos with steely control. Mom was barely 5’4″, and much like her own mother had been, she was a tiny force of nature when it came to the well-being of her kids and by extension her grandkids.
Despite my nineties playlist, the radio in my car was always tuned to a station that still played eighties hits. My comfort music, I guess. A brief moment when the weight of adult responsibilities could be packed inside the trunk for a little drive time with Billy Joel. One summer day I drove my mom and kids somewhere, probably to and from the mall. I’m still not much of a shopper, but if you gave my mom a buggy to lean on she was off bargain hunting for hours like it was her job. My siblings and I used to practically draw straws to decide who had to take Mom to the mall because she didn’t drive. I guess I’d pulled the shortest one that day. My sweet little ones were happily distracted in the backseat with new toys their grandma had just bought for them. We were all tired and headed home when Mom said to me from the passenger seat something along the lines of this, “When I die promise me you’ll play “Wind Beneath My Wings” at my funeral. It has to be Bette Midler singing and not some knock-off version like the one I heard at a funeral recently. It just wasn’t the same at all.”
I was gobsmacked. Death was a subject we normally swerved to avoid. The loss of her second eldest child at only nineteen had, quite frankly, nearly destroyed our mother. Funerals were a hard fact of life that had to be faced, honoured, and then no longer discussed. The fact that she was suddenly preplanning the music for hers surprised me so much that I didn’t know what to say except to tell her I’d do my best, but she was probably going to outlive us all anyway. She replied that she wasn’t, of course, and that she was okay with it because she wouldn’t want to outlive any of us, ever again. What she wasn’t okay with was anyone but Bette singing at her funeral. I dug a little deeper to figure out if maybe this was her strange way of telling me she was dying. I think I got some melodramatic response about how people her age were all living on borrowed time. She was only in her late sixties, and I thought she was being ridiculous, so I let the matter drop, kept it to myself, and filed it in the back of my mind under “awkward things I wish I hadn’t heard Mom say”. Don’t we all have a thick folder like that?
Just a few years later, her death happened suddenly one rainy autumn Friday. That day started normally. I’d returned home from dropping the kids at school and was rushing around the house, cleaning up breakfast dishes while also getting ready to leave for a dental appointment. The phone rang just as I was heading to my car in the garage. I let the machine answer the call until I heard my mother’s voice pleading for me to pick up. I sensed by her tone that something was very wrong, so I took the call and she told me she was about to have a procedure done at the hospital. She said she had a bad feeling about it and didn’t want to do it. It was a test she’d had done many times before due to a longtime battle with Celiac Disease. She sounded a little panicked about it, so I asked her to put my sister who’d driven her to the hospital on the phone.
My sister explained that it needed to be done because Mom’s symptoms were worsening and there could be some internal bleeding in her stomach. She was going to be given anesthesia and yes, of course the medical team knew about her pacemaker. Not for the first time, I felt the frustration of my parents choosing to live so far away and how very little control or input I had because of it. I made my sister promise to call me the minute our mom was in the recovery room. Mom came back to the phone sounding tired and maybe a little resigned? I’m not sure if that’s the right word. All I know is that I told her not to worry and reassured her everything was going to be fine. The last thing she said to me was I love you, Susan.
Much later that day, I received a call to tell me that my mom had gone into cardiac arrest during the procedure and when nothing could be done to save her, my dad had collapsed and was now admitted to the hospital himself to undergo tests on his heart. His shattered heart, I was certain, because I knew exactly how that felt. It was too much to comprehend. I refused to believe it, at first. Then slowly I sank to my knees, still gripping the phone, as understanding began to dawn. I curled myself into the fetal position on the floor and somehow contained the urge to scream because of my children in the next room. From then on the only thing I heard was me telling myself I should’ve stopped it from happening. Mom knew it was a bad idea and nobody had listened. It wasn’t unusual for her to get strong feelings ahead of something happening, good or bad feelings that were always very real to her. Most people called her superstitious. I think she was more intuitive than most people.
Guilt. It can eat you alive, if you let it. I kept myself too busy to let it. In the horrible days that followed, I told myself I could get through every single thing that needed to be done because my mom had withstood the unimaginable loss of a son. She’d once told me that after his funeral well-meaning people kept reminding her she still had other children to live for, as if us six combined could ever fill the shoes of one. For a long time she lived in fear that one of us could just as easily be taken from her. It never occurred to me that the same could happen to her.
The first days were the hardest, of course. Nothing can prepare you for the reality of death. It quite literally took my legs out from under me and I couldn’t call the one person I knew who was capable of setting me right again, the way she’d done my entire life. The morning after Mom died, I left with two of my brothers and one sister for the eight hour drive to reach our parents’ place. I don’t think any of us had slept the night before. I know I hadn’t. I kept reliving every call I’d made to change someone else’s life that day. The denial. The questions. The silence. The sobs. I was bruised by everyone’s pain. Sometime during that long night I’d made up my mind to leave the kids at home with my husband. I hated leaving them, but I knew I couldn’t bring them with me. It was the first time since they were born that I felt incapable of taking care of them and myself at the same time. More guilt.
We drove all that way because we knew we’d need an extra vehicle once we got there and we didn’t know for how long that was going to be. None of us wanted to travel alone. It was the only time I ever remember being in a car with my siblings and not debating which music we should listen to. Once in my teen years while on a similar road trip with my eldest brother to go visit the same sister, he got so fed up with The Cars cassette I kept replaying that he actually yanked it out of the tape deck and tossed it over his shoulder. Oh, the irony of “Good Times Roll” rolling around the backseat. He soon got fed up with my silent treatment too. At the next town he stopped at one of those General Stores you sometimes find in the middle of nowhere, and then came out with a package of strawberry Twizzlers and a Boston cassette as a kind of peace offering. Even now when I hear “More Than A Feeling” I remember how mad I was at him, and how quickly I got over it to crank up the volume on my new favourite song. On this road trip, however, we travelled mostly in silence, lost in our anguished thoughts and then trying not to think at all. My brothers took turns driving. My sister sat with me in the backseat and I think we huddled together most of the way there. We were all in shock. How could she be here one day and gone the next? We asked that question of each other over and over because there was never an answer that made sense.
My eldest sister who lived by my parents kept us updated about Dad’s condition at every phone stop we made to her along the way. By the time we got there, Dad was out of the hospital and recovering at home, but was clearly in no shape to help us with any of the arrangements for Mom. Another brother had a very long trip ahead of him to reach us, as did some of my mom’s siblings, so we put off the funeral until later the following week. Mom died on the Friday before the Thanksgiving long weekend and it was almost impossible to get anything done because of the holiday. Caring for my dad became my number one priority. I spent most of the time sitting on the edge of his bed while he tried to rest, holding his hand as he stared at the far wall in silence. He was completely broken. I kept worrying that his heart would suddenly stop and we’d lose him too. Sometimes I wanted to tell him in frustration to get up and be the parent we all needed, and then I’d immediately feel guilty about it. There is no right or wrong way to grieve. I didn’t know that then. I just kept trying to put a tight lid on mine to stop it from pouring out. Five years later, on the day before my fortieth birthday, I held his hand in much the same way when he left this world too.
At one point I broke out in an itchy stress rash that covered my face and neck. It got so bad I had to go to the ER about it. Unfortunately, being a small town, the doctor on duty was also my mom’s physician, who wanted to prescribe a sedative for my nerves and advised me to get some rest. I completely lost my mind in that moment. I began yelling at her that I wanted ointment not drugs to numb what I was feeling because didn’t she understand that this kind of pain had to be felt right now, not weeks from now? When I got to the part about it being her fault my mother was dead, both my sisters stepped behind the exam room curtain and tearfully ushered me out of the hospital. I ran away from them in the parking lot and walked up and down the streets of the town until it got dark and I finally ran out of fight. That, of course, was the anger part of grief rearing its thorny head. It was terrible. I felt terrible for saying what I did. But at least I felt alive again.
When I returned on foot to Dad’s place, I avoided everyone and went straight to a guest bedroom to drop down exhausted onto the bed. My sisters soon came in to check on me. Without a word, they each stretched out on either side of me and hugged me between them, like they used to when they were teenagers and I was a child and we shared a bedroom. For some reason one of them began to hum “Summer Nights” from the movie Grease, and then the other one began to sing along. Before long, they were both singing John Travolta’s part in the song and so I naturally became Olivia Newton-John. A brother came barging in to tell us to stop it because we were being disrespectful and one sister flipped him the bird. It was the first time I’d laughed in days. How many times had our mom done just that, poked her head in to tell us to cut it out and go to sleep? Sometimes she would join in on the chorus of a song she liked before telling us lights out. We knew without a doubt that Mom would’ve approved of us singing that silly song, loud and strong, because we were doing it to comfort each other.
I was thirty-five years old and for the first time ever I felt like the entire weight of the family was sitting squarely on my shoulders. I was the youngest, and yet I was making most of the hardest decisions. In the days that followed, while people around me seemed to retreat further into grief, I struggled to organize a funeral I still couldn’t believe was happening. I remember sitting between a couple of my siblings in the back offices of the funeral home. If you’ve ever done that then you know the difficult questions that are asked. All I knew was that Mom wanted Bette Midler to sing. I also chose the very old Jimmy Durante version of “In the Garden” because she used to get a kick out of the whimsical way he sang the hymn. The music part came easy.
I figured she’d want to be cremated to have her ashes laid to rest in our brother’s gravesite. Did she ever tell me that was what she wanted? I don’t know, but my heart knew it was the right thing to do. She’d lived without him for so long that it was only right they be together now. In the large showroom where all the coffins and urns were on display, I spotted a small square box to hold her ashes in with dogwood flowers etched into the solid wood. Another sign, I thought, and a reminder that I had it in me to withstand this challenge because I’d learned by her example how to be strong, when it mattered the most.
This is my truth. Some might disagree, but I know most of the decisions were made by me in that funeral home, while others paced and wrung their hands, wondering how I could be so calm about it. I wasn’t calm. I was silently falling apart piece by piece and nobody seemed to be noticing. Before we left with a list of things to do, I went looking for a restroom and a minute to collect myself. It was then that I heard soft music coming from behind the closed door of one of the admin offices. On the radio was Bonnie Tyler’s “It’s a Heartache”, another song my mom used to play on repeat. While leaning against the doorframe to listen, I realized she was still speaking to me and I was hearing her.
I know it sounds strange to say that it was my mother who got me through the first days following her death. Clearly she was not there. I know she wasn’t because I found myself looking for her everywhere. The woman ahead of me in line at the grocery store, who had the same hairstyle as her. The woman crossing the street with a similar coat and walk. It’s normal after a loved one passes suddenly to imagine seeing them in random places. I think unless you see something so profound happen before your eyes, it can’t possibly be real. Or maybe not having them in this world all of a sudden is just too much to process at once. We learn from an early age that imagination is not reality. We learn reality means facing facts. The fact of the matter was, my best friend wasn’t coming back and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. Her voice hadn’t left me, though. I had only to listen very closely to hear it.
My husband showed up earlier than expected before the day of the funeral. He’d made the difficult decision to leave our kids in the care of his parents and come sooner, even though it almost cost him his job. I remember throwing myself into his arms when he appeared out of the blue because he’s always given me the best, most bracing hugs. He helped me to gather my things and then checked us into a nearby hotel, away from everyone. I was not the family’s new head of state. I was in as much pain as everyone else. I needed time and the space to be sad for myself. All of this he figured out just by looking at me.
He’d brought with him ointment for my rash, prescribed by our family doctor back home, and we sat together in that locked hotel room for an entire day and night. He gave me food and tissues and hugs, while I talked and cried and then slept for hours at a time. That’s love, my friends. We all need someone who won’t hesitate to ruffle feathers to pluck us out of the chaos during the worst moments of our lives.
Honestly, I barely remember the funeral. I do remember Bette singing and feeling glad about it. I sat between my husband and my dad, holding on tight to both of their hands because ready or not it was officially time to say our final goodbyes. The brother who had the longest journey to get there was the one who officiated the entire service. Somehow he found the strength to do it and to do it so remarkably well. I asked him once how he’d gotten through it and he gave me one word Faith. He’d asked each of us to write down favourite memories for him to read aloud because none of us felt strong enough to speak. We were surprised, and yet not surprised, to discover one particular childhood memory was shared by all of us. On stormy nights our mother would often call us outside onto the covered back porch, where we’d sit with her wrapped in bathrobes or blankets she’d crocheted, sleepy and safe, while rain drummed a melody of love on the aluminum roof above our heads.
In 1995, not long before my mother died, a longtime favourite rock band of mine, Pearl Jam, released an EP called Merkin Ball that was a companion to Neil Young’s album Mirror Ball. On it is a song Eddie Vedder wrote following the death of a beloved mentor. For over twenty years “Long Road” has been the song I listen to on the days I miss my mom the most or when I feel like she’s missing something important in my life. It’s heartfelt and melancholy, and also optimistic.
Below is the Youtube link to a best-loved classic performance of Long Road (at a later 9/11 tribute, I believe) featuring Eddie Vedder and Mike McCready of Pearl Jam, along with Neil Young sublimely playing the organ like he’s the Phantom of the Opera. Eddie’s soft hitch of breath at the end of the song speaks volumes.
Long Road “I have wished for so long. How I wish for you today.”
Thank you for taking the time to read this and any of my previous Background Music stories. I have one more music-related story that will be coming soon. It talks about the spark of inspiration that first prompted me to write this blog series after I began researching a novel I’m writing.
Below are the Youtube links to the music and artists in the order mentioned or thought about during the writing of this blog post. If you only have time for a couple, then make them Long Road and Good Mother because they most clearly reflect my feelings about my mom. Best listened to with headphones on to hear the words.
Good Mother – Jann Arden Every word of this song feels written for me.
Everybody Hurts – REM “Hold on.”
With or Without You – U2
Where Does My Heart Beat Now – Celine Dion
Bad Timing – Blue Rodeo Still my favourite Canadian band.
The Heart That You Own – Dwight Yoakam Such a memorable live performer. My husband and I went with friends to see him in 1993 at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver. We had floor seats, but everyone stayed on their feet all night, dancing like we were in a honky tonk.
Dream On – Aerosmith For sure in my all-time top ten. I always need to hear it loud.
Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel) – Billy Joel My big brother took teenage me to see Billy Joel’s concert in Vancouver in 1978 in place of his girlfriend. I can’t remember if it was because they’d just broken up. Regardless, her loss was my gain because I’ve never forgotten that special night with the Piano Man.
Wind Beneath My Wings – Bette Midler Only the real deal for you Mom xo
Good Times Roll – The Cars
More Than A Feeling – Boston
Summer Nights – John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John
In The Garden – Jimmy Durante’s funny little version of the classic hymn.
It’s a Heartache – Bonnie Tyler
A Roaring Good Yarn 
