Music soothes the savage beast...most of the time.

"Oooh, oooh child things are gonna get easier; things are gonna get brighter..." This oldie song from the Five Stairsteps began playing as I was typing the e-mail to reserve the church for my mother's memorial. I drank in the lightness of that thought and could feel myself hang onto the hope of that simple lyric. I especially needed this musical balm because just moments before that, I was reading an e-mail from a practitioner friend in North Hollywood who was writing to tell me that the rescue cat I had found for her, Winkie, had made his transition this week. As I was reading the full story of his death, the Sarah MacLachlan song, " I Will Remember You" came on the radio and I burst into tears. I heard the lyrics as if for the first time because it had dimensional meaning this time. Not only for Winkie, but of course, in regards to my mother. Instantly, I knew that I would download that song from iTunes and definitely play it at her memorial.

After pulling myself together that blasted radio station had the gall to play, "After All" (sung by Peter Cetera and Cher) which happens to be the song that Don and I chose as "our song" in our getting back together. My grandmother was right--I should have bought stock in Kleenex and Scotch Tape because of my life-long propensity to use so much of both products in my life.

Music is such an important and significant part of my life (as I know it to be for others as well). I am so grateful for music and for those people who can write, play and perform it for us. I feel that musicians have been given the secret passcode to our souls--they can uplift and heal us; music can make us sing, dance or cry.

Even though this last round of tears were mushy and romantic, I had wanted to dry out a little bit more. If only crying burned significant calories . . .