Soul’s Song

One year ago today my Daddy took his last breath in and exhaled for his final time on this planet. I recently heard a song and was transported on a journey across a lifetime that didn’t belong to me. These words were an attempt to capture what I felt, and saw, and the impact it had on me… If you feel moved, share with me my loves. Here’s to you Dad. May your soul’s song ring out through the generations of my family.

Have you ever heard a song and it transported you to another time and space…

Have you ever heard a single note, on the right instrument, and it does the same…

With one breath, one note, the energy of another life is called into consciousness.

In one note, I’m transferred back to a life I never lived, in a place I’ve never been.

One note, to awaken and capture the essence of what one life is made of.

One note. 

On the harmonica.

And I’m transported…

TO a wild, rugged, northern town…

I see a boy, with white blonde hair, and knowing eyes…
White t-shirt, and brown shorts…
He’s alone, and he’s absently walking down an empty street, 
Lost in thought, or a memory,
Of who he just might be.
Of a feeling that goes infinitely beyond the smallness of meager words. 

He blows into his harmonica and a single note is sung. 

The tender little soul that lives within him, translated onto the scale of the musical spectrum, ringing out for all to hear,
his gentle soul’s song..

The roads are dirt, the mountains rise, and he is immersed in a life surrounded by and connected to NATURE.

He wanders down this street, breathing his song into his harmonica…

And as the years pass, that dirt morphs to concrete, 
His shoes grow bigger, and he walks still, 
Blowing his spirit through the instrument of his expression, 
Letting the trees know, he’s singing with them.
Letting the grass and the dirt, and the flowers around, hear his own sweet melody. 

His layer of sound added to the cacaphony of it All…

I see him growing into a man, and dancing around with his kids, 
Still breathing his life through the notes of his harmonica. 

I see him sitting quietly on the organ bench, trying to find the right notes, to translate the symphony that lives within.

I see him with light and mischief in his eyes, dancing around with joy, exuberant notes of playfulness dancing through his harmonica…chasing us with glee.

I see him waking me early in the morning with joyful notes of “It’s morning. Get up. It’s time to greet the day.”

I see him growing older…

I see him sitting confused at the kitchen table. 
Where is he going? 
Where has he been?
Where is he at?
What was that…..

Absentmindedly, his hand reaches for his instrument, 
His thumb rubs the side of it, back and forth, back and forth, 
What was he thinking? 

He places it to his lips…an endless effort to have his soul’s song sung…

I see him slowly forgetting who I am. 

I see him searching for the meaning of my name, or the recognition of who I might be. 
Absently smiling as if in remembrance of something fond. 
A recognition that his brain cannot understand, and yet a recognition nonetheless. 
A recognition that doesn’t understand names, or titles,
A recognition that goes beyond the invention of words,
A recognition of an energy, despite not recognizing his place in this world. 
His place in his body.
His place in his mind. 

And his hand still reaches for his harmonica.
Transcending all the confusion, and all the expressions of who he has now become,
As he is robbed of presence, understanding, communication, identity…
Transcending all of this, he blows his spirit through his harmonica…
His soul’s song, still singing to the seasons.

One note.

And I’m transported back to that little boy in the dirt road.

“Warren….”

“Warren….”

“Warren….”

One note. And a ripple of a life I’ve never lived, moves through my entire body. 

From small child, to old man.
Still blowing the song of his soul. 
Through his harmonica.

A single note…
A single note to remember an entire life. 
A single note, to show that spirit transcends all that we know.
All that we can be aware of. 

And as that note rings out, and travels beyond where we can hear, it still rings out.
Somewhere far. Somewhere near.
And I feel that note awaken the memory of a man who watched over me in the physical, and now in the spiritual.

I feel an entire lifetime in a single note.
I re-member an entire lifetime.

In a single note.