Chase Your Joy: A Lesson From My Mom
For me, Mother’s Day is a bittersweet holiday, as I’m sure it is for many others. It usually begins with the sweetness of a snuggle from my daughter and the happiness that comes so easily when I look into her eyes. Then comes breakfast in bed, often some laughter, and my heart is full. Inevitably though, in recent years as the morning light shifts, the joy becomes tinged with a hint of longing for my own mother. I recall her smile and her infectious laugh and it gets just a little bit harder to breath. This year will be the fourth Mother’s Day that I celebrate without her. I wouldn’t say that it has gotten any easier but over time I’ve found ways to carry her memory with me that bring me more purpose and repose than pain.
My mother passed away in the fall of 2016 after undergoing neurosurgery to remove several brain tumors. In the months following her surgery I spent countless nights in the hospital at her bedside keeping her company so that she could sleep. During this period of time I found myself drawn to music as a way to escape the noisy, sterile, and stressful environment of the hospital. I had completed an undergraduate degree in music composition years prior and hadn’t composed anything in a long time, but somehow sitting solitary for hours on end and being overcome with emotion seemed to be the combination of factors that drew me back to this creative outlet.
During the days I was working as a teaching assistant for a music theory class while working on my PhD at the University of Alberta. We were covering counterpoint at the time and as a simple exercise I had begun to sketch ideas for a setting of the Kyrie text from the mass ordinary. The sketch quickly evolved into a choral composition and within a few weeks of working through the nights I had developed ideas for each movement of the mass. The process of creating this music became a coping mechanism of sorts, helping me to both stay awake through the nights and distract myself from my circumstances. Sometimes when my mother would wake from her sleep I would play snippets of my work for her. She had lost her ability to speak so she was never able to fully articulate her thoughts, but the music seemed to calm her, and occasionally, although it brought tears to her eyes, I believe that the music was able to offer her some sort of catharsis.
Phoenix Rising
About six weeks after my mother’s surgery I had completed the first draft of my mother’s mass which I titled, Mass for Recovery: Phoenix Rising. My mother was still recovering in the hospital at the time and I very much hoped that the final “Agnus Dei” movement (which I had subtitled “Going Home”) would come to reflect her literal return home to her family. Thankfully, several months later, we did get the joy of bringing my mother home where both my daughter and myself got to spend six more precious months with her. It was one of my biggest hopes that she would get to hear her mass performed live but unfortunately she passed away three months before it was premiered by Pro Coro Canada in January of 2017.
When I listen to this music now I am immediately transported back to her bedside; I remember the constant beeping of machines and the sense of stasis that those months held for me. I was simultaneously in a state of crisis and stillness as both my days and nights became full with the activities of caring for her while all other aspects of my life seemed temporarily suspended in time. I still perceive this duality in the music, and many of my original ideas still speak to me: the opening lines of the “Kyrie” continue to remind me of her attempts to regain her speech and the “Gloria” immediately brings back the hope that I felt when she made various breakthroughs early on in her recovery. Perhaps the movement that has evolved the most in it’s meaning for me though is the “Credo.” Originally this movement depicted a period of turbulence in my mother’s recovery, one dominated by painful procedures, complications, and countless needles (which she hated dearly). The movements opening pointillistic texture represented the disruptive and fragmented nature of her days while the continuous layering of parts mirrored the incessant accumulation of complications, both medical and emotional. The ending of the movement, which culminates in a collection of musical memories woven together consisting predominantly of melodies that I would sing to her in the hospital, reflected our vehicle for communication and escape.
But over time this meaning has shifted. My vivid memory of her pain throughout this period in particular has now turned into a strange source of comfort. I realize that this likely sounds morbid but I have come to find solace in knowing for certain, in my heart, that she fought as hard as she could, and also, that I’m sure she was ready for her suffering to come to an end. When I listen now to the “Credo” I hear the beginning of the end, a build towards release, and beauty in the memory of the joy and reprieve that music was able to bring her at a time when nothing else could. The musical memories at the movement’s end remind me of the way Pro Coro’s performance of “Deep River” had moved her not long before she got sick, and of the pride in her eyes when she saw me perform the role of Carmen. I remember her roommate in the hospital who late one night asked me not to stop singing, and the way my mother wept when the music therapist performed “The River” for her. I remember the look on her face when she woke from a coma to the sound of Pro Coro women singing David Lang’s Love Fail at her bedside. And I feel grateful: grateful for the time that I got to share with her and grateful for the music.
This Mother’s Day I’m sure the morning light will still come tinged with a hint of sorrow but I will take some time for music and recall with my daughter some of the lighter times we all shared. We’ll look through old photos and reminisce about Nanny’s strength, her passion, and her mischievous side. And in the evening, perhaps I will sit and listen again to her mass, or jot down a new melody for her, or maybe I’ll simply sit and be still and recall her face with rosy cheeks and a twinkle in her eye. However the day unfolds, I will find ways to treasure her memory as I endeavour to pass along her wisdom to my own daughter, and I will continue to be grateful that she taught me to chase my joy at full speed.
***
Remember, someone once gave
your frail infant body a name,
mended it together with expectations and hopes,
filled its shadow with gentle mythology –
and all of this you've kept or relinquished
to lantern a singular path through the countless mazes
of human breath.
Who could have guessed your footsteps,
your resilience turning the rubik's cube of happenstance to poems?
Who could tell the story of it
without tasting a sacred alphabet in their mouths,
or list your quiet triumphs
without abandoning calendars?
Nobody. Nobody. Nobody but you
in the brilliant fact of your being here
Still.
- Brandon Wint
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