Several years ago, I was awakened one Saturday morning by a phone call from my father, telling me that my mother had died some time that night. She had suffered from multiple sclerosis the last half of her life, causing her to lose the ability to animate the lower half of her body, yet the nerves down there continued to bring her pain. She ultimately became almost completely bed-ridden in her latter years, but for some reason, her death, too soon in our reckoning, was a shock. We all took it very hard, especially our father, who had been devoted to her. He ended up dying about six months later.
Our parents had not wanted to waste money on fancy funerals and be buried in expensive coffins in a graveyard. Decades before, they had pre-paid for the simplest arrangements with the Neptune Society, just give them a call and they will come and get the body, cremate it, and then dump the ashes in San Francisco Bay. But now faced with this with our mother having died without expectation, one of our sisters, who lived the farthest way, in Idaho, had seen our mother the least over the past few years. She said out loud what the rest of us had been thinking, see wanted an open casket ceremony for our extended family. We all readily agreed, and our father accepted that, as well.
The Neptune Society happened to have a small chapel and graveyard in Santa Rosa, not far from where my parents lived at that time, in Petaluma. Somebody, I don't know who, called the Neptune Society to told them of the change of plans, we wanted to have the open casket ceremony in their chapel and then after the later cremation, to give us the ashes. That required an additional payment, of course, but we paid for that gladly.
I completely needed this open casket ceremony as much as the others did. But on the day I was to drive up to Petaluma from Hollywood where I lived at that time, a ten-hour drive or more, up I-5 and then a drive over the San Francisco Bay and then another long drive up the 101, I couldn't see how I could do it. With all the countless times I had taken that drive before, there had been a magnet that drew me up there. It was always the same...I would arrive very late, but the second my car could be heard coming up the driveway, my father would come out and greet me for a huge hug as I got out of the car. And then he would say, "Hurry up, I'll get your suitcase, you go inside to your mother, she can't wait to see you!" And I would go down the hall to their bedroom and there she would be in her bed with her smile spread wider than her whole face and her arms open wide where I was to collapse halfway onto to her for an eternally long hug and kisses.
There was not going to be that magnet this time.
Fortunately, I came up with a solution I reasoned that music could get me up there. That was the only way. But what music? What songs had the wings that would carry me on that long painful drive up north? Suddenly my memory gave me a suggestion--try "Wild As The Wind", sung by Barbra Streisand. I must confess, that song threw me flat down on the floor and it felt like God was squeezing all the tears out of me like it was toothpaste out of tube. Okay, CD number one song for the car. Then I picked myself up off the floor and my feelings let me to another one, "I Remember", also sung by Barbra Streisand. That one threw me back down onto the floor and more tears were squeezed out. CD number two for the car.
I got back up and thought of another song, "I Can't Take It In", by Imogen Heap, which is the outro song for the movie, Narnia. This time I was crumpled down on my knees, but I listened to the lyrics and could hardly believe what I was hearing, it was exactly like my mother was tell me what she was seeing as she ascended into heaven. It wasn't that she was dead, but that she had merged into infinity.
I dried away my tears and stood up, the "toothpaste tube of sorrow" completely squeezed out of my body, and I was able to put together a whole collection of CDs that would carry me up north. It wasn't that I didn't care any more, that I now fully accepted the death of my mother. No, with the loss of her, the Universe had changed. All my life my mother had existed in the world, and now she wasn't there, it was like the moon had been taken out of the sky. But I didn't need to cry, now; now I seemed to have a wider vision, as if everything in the world was sharper, clearer, more beautiful, and I could notice sights that I had never appreciated that much before.
When I got to Petaluma, I saw that my brother was especially hit. His wife said to me, "He can't stop crying. The only time he stops crying is when he is near you, so please stay close to him." There had been a magic that had come onto me thanks to the music that I had found. This doesn't mean it was easy...it definitely wasn't. We all had our ways of finding our healing over many months and I had needed other tools as well, such as Kathy and Amy Eldon's guided journal of Loss and Remembrance, Angel Catcher, that helped me so much. Journaling, writing, for me helps immensely.
But the bedrock of my healing was the music I was guided to.
And I wondered about that. What was it that some particular songs had what I needed, whereas others hadn't been suitable for that particular need. I felt that there had been something in common in several of them. I would listen to them and they had a certain something that carried a power. I sat down and looked them over and suddenly I saw something that kept coming up--many of the songs that had the magic had been arranged by Jorge Calandrelli! Wow, the answer was the arranger! Not every healing song had been arranged by him, but many of them had been. With my three "toothpaste tube" songs that had thrown me onto the floor, the first two, "Wild As The Wind" and "I Remember", had been arranged by Calandrelli, whereas "I Can't Take It In" had not, but it had other healing qualities. Once I knew that, I began to search to get everything Calandrelli had arranged. I would say that a good collection of is music belongs "in your medicine chest"!
One of the ones I found was the Brazilian singer, Rosa Passos, and her album, Amorosa ("female Amorous"), whereas yesterday's song was on Joao Glberto's album, Amoroso ("male Amorous"). So here we've got in these two days songs that are "back to back" male and female amorousness. Or the dreams and hopes thereof!
One of my all-time favorite composers is the Brazilian, Antonia Carlos Jobin, and he is the one who wrote today's song. It was music only, and Jobin entitled it Zingaro, which is Portuguese for "gypsy". However, over time, Jobin wanted to have lyrics added to the song, so after a while, Chico Buarque formulated the final version, which seemed to necessitate a new title for the song (I guess the "gypsy" theme went by the wayside). Here's an interesting example of something I had never seen before. From a songwriting class I had recently taken, I learned how hard it is to write lyrics, because your words have to not only have meaning, but also have to fit a strictly controlled rhythm and rhyme scheme. When Buarque's lyrics had in it the phrase "portrait in white in black", which was also the song's title, Jobin was disturbed, and asked him why he reversed the words in the idiom (which I guess is also an idiom in Portuguese), which should correctly be portrait in "black and white". Barque explained that there was no Portuguese word that rhymed with "white" ("branco" in Portuguese) that could possibly work in this song. So there is an example of the constraints of putting words into a song.
Jobin had to accept the twisted idiom for the song in Portuguese "Blanco e Preto" (white and black), but when the song was introduced into the United States, he made the title be the correct English idiom, "Portrait in Black and White", because even if the song was sung in Portuguese, the English speaking listener wouldn't "catch that" since they didn't understand the words anyway. You will see here that I have used the idiom "Black and White" in the title, and in the English translation, by necessity, none of it rhymes anyway. However, the recorded version here is sung in Portuguese, and I have titled the song like is titled in Brazil, "Portrait in White and Black". Confusing enough?
Regardless of what the song is called, I hope that the precious singing by Rosa Passos carries your heart to heaven. For many months, this beautiful and loving song accompanied me throughout there no longer being a moon in the sky, until I finally could perceive that it had actually been there the whole time, shining bright. I just had to learn how to perceive it.
English translation of the song:
PORTRAIT IN BLACK AND WHITE:
I already know the steps of this road, I know that it won't get anywhere,
I know your secrets from memory, I already recognize the rocks along the road,
I also know that standing there alone, I'll stay, much worse,
What can I do against the enchantment of this love that I deny so much,
Avoid so much, and meanwhile,
Always returns to enchant, with the same sad old facts.
That in a photo album I persist to collect.
There I go again like a fool, In searching of desolation,
From which I'm tired of knowing, New sad days, bright nights,
Verses, letters, my dear, I shall return to write for you.
To say that this is sin, and I have a thousand hearts,
With memories from the past, and you know the reason.
I'll collect one more sonnet, and another portrait in black and white,
Mistreating my heart.
26: Song name: Retrato Em Branco E. Preto (Portrait In White and Black)
Artist: Rosa Passos
Music by Antonio Carlos Jobin, Lyrics by Chico Buarque
Arranged by Jorge Calandrelli
