The week of Kyle's accident is pretty fuzzy. I remember the call, but not what day it was. I remember the flight, but not the airports. I remember the high school science lab smell of my brother, how it got stronger when I leaned in to kiss him, but I don't remember the doctors or nurses or psychiatrists that shuttled in and out. I remember some of the drive down to LA for the funeral - Big Sur's big cliffs and the violet ocean, the small arc of Cayucos and how it hasn't changed at all since Kyle and I walked out to the end of the endless pier. I remember some of LA - staying in a Santa Monica hotel instead of my mother's house, driving a rental instead of her car, everything both familiar and absolutely strange. I remember the funeral. I remember the coffin. It looked so much more beautiful than I thought it would look. I remember wanting to stay and watch them fill the dirt in on top of my brother, but knowing that I was expected to leave, that these things are usually done without the swollen, judgemental eyes of family around.
I also remember a song. I left New York with a strange collection of things - five sweaters for an LA summer but only three pairs of underwear, a bathing suit but no socks, a whole stack of novels I of course didn't read. I also forgot my iPod, so the only music we had for the car was J's Shuffle, and on it a random sampling of songs from his ridiculously large and obscure music collection, most of which seemed to lack a melody or identifiable lyrics. One song, though, stood out. It was by Bright Eyes (a shocker, I know), I'd never heard it before, but once I did I played it over and over.
You know how songs can become linked to events? How you hear a verse for the first time when you're falling in love, or moving to a new city, or driving around your hometown with a dead brother on your back, and it fuses to the memory of your experience. It makes you cry. Well, that's what this song did for me. It's called Cleanse Song, and I think that for the rest of my life it will be the soundtrack of my brother's week-long journey from train platform to hospital to grave.
I was looking for the Cleanse Song video on YouTube to show you, but apparently there isn't one. Instead, I found this - a teenager being painfully and publicly emotive. Just like me.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Teenagers are Funny
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4 comments:
Wow Miranda,
What a powerful piece of music. Thank you for sharing.
It is amazing how music can make you recall events with such clarity and detail. When I brought my nieces in to see their mom the first time we saw her lying in a coma a few years ago, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas was the lovely musical selection being canned into Cheshire Medical Center's ICU. It evokes such painful memories that I am often reduced to tears while grocery shopping or buying tampons at the drugstore during this season.
As to your desire to stay longer at Kyle's graveside service and participate more fully, did you know that in Judaism it is a mitzvah, showing true lovingkindness to shovel earth into the grave? It serves as an important action of finality and closure. I have to admit that the first time I watched this tradition I was somewhat horrified. I now find it comforting.
My belief as to how one should behave in life is to do what feels right in your heart.
...i concur....wow...
Oooh that is a nice song. I had the classic rock station going on the radio as I usually do on the day my mom called to tell me about Kyle. JeffersonStarship "Miracles" was playing. I know, of all songs. But it is strange how every time I hear it now I think of that week when he and my friend Allison so suprisingly left us. Music reall is such a unique and powerful human experience.
Wanda, we are really on the same page. Read my blog of today (Xmas Blues) and you'll see.
And Miranda yes, I too wanted to stay and watch Kyle's beautiful casket descend and I too wanted to shovel in the dirt (also aware of this from Jewish friends and liking the thought of it). In fact, I spoke to Gear about doing both, but recall that he found it too painful or morose. In the end, I stayed to watch Kyle lowered, as did you and your Dad. And though I wanted to stay longer (as did you it seems), we three walked down the hill.
And now, as for Bright Eyes, I'm liking two out of three of their songs you've posted. I just wish I could get the cloying, "Do you realize?" out of my head. And I so want to comfort that beautiful boy . . .
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