Hope Day, 2022

 

Mom and her four goofball kids, circa 1993

One of the first songs my sister taught me to play on guitar when we were teenagers was a raucous, hillbilly, Jesus tune called "He Rose from the Dead" because it only had three chords. The first verse goes thusly:

He rose from the dead

He done just what he said

He rose from the grave

And to us new life he gave.

And because we ourselves were rowdy young lovers of Jesus, we played and sang this tune often, as much for the message as for the practice in switching chords from D to A to G.

Mom apparently listened to us on occasion, although she herself was not a churchy person. "I was raised without religion," she told me once (and good for you, I would later come to conclude, since "religion" has been the bane of my spiritual existence). But she did love music. As I've mentioned on the blog before, I grew up in a house that was constantly filled with music--not with the TV going, as was the case with many homes in the 1950's. The squawk box went off after morning cartoons and didn't come on again until evening. In the meantime, we heard either my mom's favorite show tunes (I'm betting my sister still knows all the words to all the songs in Oklahoma!) or my oldest brother's folk tunes (think Dylan, the Kingston Trio and Peter, Paul & Mary). These were supplanted for a time in 1961 when the soundtrack of West Side Story came out on vinyl and that's all we heard for weeks. (And yeah, I still know all the words to all the songs on that one, and I'll bet my brother Kevin does, too.)

Anyway, there came a day when Peg and I sat down to play and Mom said, "Sing that one song about the heroes."

"Heroes? What heroes?" We were puzzled--and probably asked Mom whether she was finally becoming senile--such brats that we were. "We don't sing a song about heroes."

"Yes, you do," she insisted. "That one... oh, what is it? Heroes from the dead."

I don't know which one of us burst into laughter first, but we had a fine time guffawing at my mother's expense. Sorry, Mom. Love you!

Anyway, today is Easter, a day of profound hope around the world, and I think back on this memory at this time every year. I've already pulled my guitar out of the case to sing the song, just for Mom, and I hope you know that if you have loved ones who have passed, it is only their physical body that has returned its carbon to the Universe. Their spirit lives on, and they hear you when you sing.

He rose from the dead....

Lavender Daze

I tend to wear purple or lavender often in March.  Not so much for the coming-of-spring awareness, but because it was Mom’s favorite color in the last years of her life, and she left us in March.  Hard to believe it’s been three years.  I talk to her every day, and nowadays I remember less the traumatic confrontations we once had, and I recall more the amusing stories…

When we were teens and I was learning to play guitar, my sister and I would sit around and play and sing for hours, working on harmonies or chord patterns.  She was a patient teacher—thank heavens, because we would often go over the same song again and again until my fingers moved automatically to form the chords.

One bright summer morning when we were trying to think of something to play, Mom interjected, “Play the one about the heroes.”

“What?” we answered.

“You know, the one about the heroes.”

We were perplexed.  We’d never done a song about heroes together.

“We don’t know….”

Mom looked at us like we were idiots—not an uncommon occurrence—and started to sing the beginning of the song.  We burst out laughing.  And then we started singing, “He rose from the dead….”

It was never about the lyrics for Mom.  She was happy when her children were getting along, and she loved to hear Peg and I sing.  At her memorial service, we sang “The Rose” together.  Maybe we should have done that “heroes” song as well.