There are many moments defined by songs in my life. I'm 57 years old and been married for 25 of those. Music to a large degree has shaped who I am.
There's a song that I really needed to hear, from way back in 1982. But I needed to hear it twice in one lifetime of living.
The song is, "I Can Let Go Now", sung by Michael McDonald.
The first time I needed this song was while sweeping up the remnants of a failed relationship, back in 1992. The relationship failed, as many do, but it wasn't for lack of love. In this lyric, he sings,
"I was tossed high by love
Where love's no longer found
Where I'm no longer bound
The second time I needed to hear this song came several years after I did fall in love with the woman I would share most of my life with. But this time around, the meaning was much deeper than I ever imagined.
I was at this time, disabled and in constant pain. After four back surgeries, I was trying to cope with the physical and emotional suffering from living in this body that would barely allow me to sleep. All the love in the world didn't seem nearly enough to help me to see for living. Then, out of the blue, this song came back to me. This time, in 2015, the song of love was about loving myself enough to keep on going, no matter what. I remember hearing it from out of nowhere, the words caught me right in the heart...
"It was so right, it was so wrong
The pain and ache a heart can take
- Just then, in that moment, my eyes welled up with tears. They still do to this day. Because that is right where I was living, or dying rather... in that as perfect as my life had been, a loving wife, two beautiful perfect children, that it was sooo right, yet still so wrong, at the same time. I didn't deserve this pain. I was sitting at a red light, waiting for the light to change, when I was rear-ended by a bus. My life was forever changed.
Then he sings, "the pain and ache a heart can take, no one really knows..."
In that moment, I was being tested. I knew that no one could know how much pain I was in, pain with every breath. How much could my heart take?
This song helped prepare me for letting go of that pain. I can let go now... as my mother spoke in her last words to me. I was ready to let go. This song helped me to see that I was okay, and that I can let go and begin living again! Today I'm pain free and living in knowing that I can stand for others who are surviving in pain, that music can speak to us with more than just words, that we can heal through loving ourselves enough to say, "I Can Let Go Now..."