Mourning Has Broken

Jumping between my three favored radio stations a few mornings ago, I landed on some DJs discussing poker. One of the DJs said, “You’ve gotta know when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em.” Discussion was abruptly replaced by a clip of Kenny Rogers’s “The Gambler,” which propelled me back in time seventeen months.

My siblings and I stood over my mom’s freshly filled grave in silence, having whispered our farewells. I suggested we should sing something in farewell since Mom had always loved music. What better way to convey her music would always fill our hearts?

What do you sing in farewell to the person who physically housed you for your first nine months, then made it her purpose to shelter you as best she could once she could no long provide total protection? How do you choose such a song? In our case, my siblings and I murmured and cast aside suggestions until I proposed “The Gambler,” one of Mom’s favorites. The beauty of that song, to me, is that it’s also woven through many memories not involving my mom. It thus served as a perfect reminder of (a) happy moments singing the song with her, (b) times where I was mocked by the friends who’d later come to sing along to Kenny Rogers with me and (c) the fact that all these experiences, memories and hopes are both bound together and bound to continue in different forms as long as we keep singing old songs together with the new ones.

Together, my siblings, Nathan and I sang “The Gambler.” When we’d finished, we kissed our hands, touched our fingers to Mom’s grave, and walked against the cold wind back to our cars.

“The Gambler” is also one of the songs my sisters and I put onto two discs that comprised Mom’s memorial soundtrack. No matter how rough Mom’s life got, she found a few minutes of getaway in her favorite songs.

On our shared birthday, I got to hear one of my mom's favorite singers. Photo by Dana S.

Sure, sometimes she drove us batty listening to the same song over and over for days, but most the time she’d listen to the radio and turn it up for her favorites. Simon & Garfunkel, Tracy Chapman, Cat Stevens (pictured to the right, for reasons recounted here) and Harry Chapin all played a part in bringing back happy memories with Mom as we recalled her at her memorial, where we tried to remember her with primarily love instead of sorrow in our hearts.

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