Morning Time, One Day
I like to look out windows in the morning. This was what I was doing the first time I heard the music. It was quiet, and sweet. At first I wasn’t sure if I really was hearing it, or if my ears were tricking me, but slowly it got just loud enough for me to barely hear it, and also not doubt its presence. It started with faint twinkling, like wind chimes, almost without structure, but as I was lying there watching the leaves turn from foggy green to golden I began to hear humming along with the chimes. It reverberated with simplicity, the sound of being pleasantly alone.
December 15th, The Day I Met Her
This event is the reason I wanted to start this log. Obviously it’s not the first time the world has “sang to me” as I’ve started to call it, but it definitely has been the most prominent. This was the day I met the most beautiful woman. She was wearing a red scarf. It was nighttime. Maybe it was the way the street lights shone on her, but I swear her eyes could bring summer to the arctic. They were the colour of honey and cinnamon. I couldn’t help myself, I invited her inside for tea. “Since it’s so cold outside” I told her. “My house is right over there”. I don’t claim to know what love feels like. Frankly, I’m not really even sure love exists. What I do know is, when we were sitting at my shabby little table I got for ten dollars at a yard sale, the cup of chamomile tea held in her sweater covered hands because it was still a bit too warm, talking about the snow outside and Christmas lights, the world was singing symphonies. Not even the best composer could match the melodies my world sang for her. I let her sleep on my couch because while we were inside it started snowing pretty hard again, and she thought it wouldn’t be very safe to leave. I’ve never thanked the snow as many times as I have tonight. God, I just hope she hasn’t left by the time I wake up.
June 4th, You
A couple years after I met her, we had you. Thank god I wake up early and was able to make her breakfast. I think your life may have depended on it. She says that’s not true, and she would have stayed anyways, but you can never be sure. Now we are in the hospital room and you are asleep in her arms. When I first saw you is when the music began. They put you in my arms screaming and pink and new and suddenly I could hear my mother’s humming, as clear as the bright blue summer sky you were born under. Now we can’t stop smiling. The music feels how flowers smell. You’re so small in her arms. I always said nobody could be more beautiful than your mother, but I was wrong. You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
September 5th
Life is full of tragedies. Some are big, some small, most of the time they are manageable though. They punch you down for a while, but you have to grit your teeth and get back up. At least that’s what I’ve always said. I’ve always believed that I could get through anything. I guess I never experienced any real tragedies until now. She was fine during the pregnancy, doctors aren’t sure what really happened, but in the next three months she sort of just withered away. I told her to keep hope, if we could come this far we could get through anything ---- it! Sometimes hope isn’t enough. Sometimes what you need is a miracle in a world where magic doesn’t exist. I wish I could say she went peacefully, but one night one of her coughing attacks just kept going. She just kept coughing and coughing and crying and then we were in the car and she was coughing up blood onto my band shirt we got on our third date at a Muse concert. She liked to wear it to sleep. The world didn’t sing as much as scream that day. With every cough came the sound of symbols crashing and me choking back tears. Please hold on please hold on please hold on. When we got to the hospital they immediately whisked her into the operating room and left me alone. The music was the rhythm of tears falling and my heart beating way too fast, and then as the doctor came out way too soon it changed to the sound of glass shattering and sobbing. I don’t remember getting up, I just remember the doctor holding me as I screamed into his chest, and the thud of my knees hitting the floor. Please no please no please no. That’s all I could say, all I could think. With every word it felt as if my lungs were in my throat. The music was the sound of my heart breaking.
October, November, December
The world did not sing for a long time after that. It was eerily silent, too silent. I began to forget what the music even sounded like. I even started to doubt it ever existed. Everything was just so dark, so numb. I couldn’t even listen to actual music anymore, it just made me think of her.
Some day in January, The Rain
After her death everything felt like I was asleep when I was seeing it. It was quiet and muffled, like the snow on the day we met. I’m not sure what changed, but one day I woke up to the sound of rain. I hadn’t heard any music in almost four months, imaginary or otherwise, but the rain that day had a rhythm. I’m not sure if this counts as an actual moment I heard the world singing to me, but the pitter patter of the rain against the window that day was the most music I’d heard in a while. It sounded sad. I remember holding the tattered remains of her shirt they cut off of her at the hospital. I kept it under my bed in a box. This was the first time I’d looked at it since I brought it home, washed it and stuck it in that box. I held it and I cried. I cried hard and I cried loud and I cried with all of my heart so that maybe the entire world would echo my pain. I don’t remember how long I cried, but when I was done the rain had stopped and I felt dry. I don’t know why, but I began talking to her. I told her how much I loved her and missed her. I told her how scary life was without her, how I didn’t know what the ---- I was gonna do. I’d be lying if I said I only cried once that day, but it was never as much as the first time. I would tear up between sentences, but I kept talking. I told her about our son and how he had started eating baby food and crawling; I told her how I had ruined at least three white shirts because she was the one who always did laundry. I told her about how I would tell our son the story of how we met every night. I felt guilty when I told her how long I’ve been numb. I apologized to her for being so grief stricken I didn’t save enough room to still be there for our son enough. I did this for hours, telling her everything that had happened since she was gone, and I’d be ------ if I didn’t hear a quiet solemn symphony somewhere in the distance.
February 19th, You Again
Today, I was holding you in my arms. We were watching a Disney movie I wasn’t paying much attention to and you were almost asleep. You know, sometimes it’s funny how quickly one thing can change everything, but there you were, looking at me with your mother’s honey cinnamon eyes, and you smiled. You smiled so wide it was borderline ridiculous and you started laughing at nothing and ---- it I couldn’t help it I started laughing too. Then I was crying and laughing and you were standing on my lap and touching my face and laughing at me laughing and may I be struck with lightning if I didn’t hear the most beautiful music that day. I heard violins and guitar chords and piano and chimes all going at once. The music was the sound of perseverance, of healing, of it’s going to get better. As long as I have you, I know she’s still around. She exists in your eyes, your nose, your voice, the freckles you’d get later across your nose, your fondness for chamomile tea… you. She will always exist in you.