Day 31: The dance...

Do you ever hear a song on the radio and you just stop what you're doing and your mind drifts off into a memory.  Sometimes it's a good memory, sometimes bad.

You hear about it all the time.  Couples are in a heated argument and their wedding song comes on the radio and they stop arguing immediately or you hear your dead grandmother's favourite song and it brings back good memories of homemade fudge at her kitchen table.

Today I heard a song.

It wasn't *the* song, but it was a song.  The song does have some good memories, like the time R. got up and sang karaoke with his *crazy* friend.  R. sang the woman's part.  Something he normally would never do, but he did and it was hilarious.

and then he died and his mother suggested we play that song at his funeral.

but I couldn't have that song playing.  It just didn't seem like the right one, although it reminded us of a happy time, the lyrics were just awful, and I had one in mind that just wouldn't rest.

I mean there we were sitting in the exact room that he died in, the following morning.  I was making frantic phone calls to get the hospital bed out of my house.  I wanted it gone that day.  Immediately.  That never happened, in fact it took a couple days.  Which I never understood.  I remember leaning against the wall watching them disassemble the thing and take it out piece by piece.  I don't even know why that is significant but it's one of those things I can never forget.

In case you were wondering what the offending song was, it was Picture by Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow. In case you are not familiar with that song, I will post the lyrics below:"

Lyrics | Kid Rock lyrics - Picture lyrics

I mostly thought about what my grandmother would think listening to a song like that at a funeral.  She probably would have fallen off of her little wheely car thingy holding her chest (she's very dramatic). 

I didn't care about flowers, I didn't care about the casket, I didn't care about what clothes he wore, but I just couldn't let this one go.  I had to pick the song.

and I chose this song:

Watch The Dance - Garth Brooks in Music  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

and you're probably thinking how perfect the song is and how fitting the lyrics are.   Truth is, this was just picked from one of my favourite memories.  R. loved this song, me not so much, until now of course.  Back then it was just another one of those country songs like "my dog stole my Chevy truck and took off with my wife" kinds of songs.  Even though the song was not my cup of tea, when I was feeling down about something or angry about something, R. would put this song on and sing it to me in my face.  Literally two inches from my nose.  Close enough that I could probably count each hair in his goatee.  

He used to sing it with his fake country voice and sometimes even threw air guitar in.  Eventually I would end up laughing, and sometimes I hit him in the face because he was bugging me.  


I never realized at the time that those moments would affect me so much, or that the song would become one song that I wish to avoid for the rest of my life.  

yet I can't bring myself to delete it from my iPod. 


So that was the song I chose.  Him singing that song, waving his air guitar around my kitchen is a memory that will always make me smile and I really thought I could use that kind of thing at the funeral.  

The funeral that I don't remember other than sitting there emotionless while my 15 month old ran up and down the aisle (is that what they're called in a funeral home?).  Someone speaking, another person speaking, people crying, why wasn't I crying? Someone taking my baby.  Someone grabbing my hand, someone who sat beside me that I don't remember who it was.  


I do remember this song being played on the crackly old speakers though. 

It didn't make me smile, not that time. 

Then playing it over and over again, hoping to get that memory back.  Instead I just cried.  I tortured myself with that song for a long time.  Until I decided to take it out of my playlist (but keep it on the iPod in case I ever needed it).  

and I haven't.  


*Happy 35th Birthday.  Today you would have been really old and I would have made fun of you.  We would have had cake which you probably would have shoved in my face so hard it would go all the way up my nostrils and I would be smelling cake for a week and then you would laugh at me, the same laugh your son has only older.  Hard to believe...you would have been old.