My Grief Observed - 6: A Memory of a Grand Duo
Sara, yep, me again. Sorry I can’t seem to stop writing. Hopefully I am not annoying everyone too much.
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I feel like I am reverting a little. Right away after you passed, and after the funeral I was clearly very sorrowful and crushed. But I was also deeply reminiscent - as I have said on this blog - viewing all the videos and photos I could and reading all of our text communications. It was painful, but also felt sort of restorative and calming.
Example of such images that are suddenly reeking havoc.
Suddenly now I am finding that I can’t look at a picture of you, or even think too hard about you without spinning out, crying for 15 minutes, and then just becoming numb and end up feeling like a useless person.
An almost-accepted-reality
As I am attempting to analyze this observed grief – I realize just how important to my overall mental wellbeing it has been over the past few weeks for my brain to pretend that you are indeed coming back to me somehow – or put simply, to deny that you are gone. The more real your death is becoming, the more it hurts when I look at you. I will never see you in this form again. It hurts to type that, to think about that, and to repeatedly remind myself of that.
Going back to prior blog posts and your letters – yes, I have already acknowledged the reality of your passing. But that really hasn’t stopped me from subconsciously believing in my core being that this is just some misunderstanding, that you are just right around the corner, or that there is still some way to bend time and space and fix all or some of those what ifs.
I’ve never been apart from you this long, since back in 2004. And every day sets a new record for our longest time apart. So, bit by bit, this new reality – slowly being accepted - appears to be setting in. But that truth, that certainty of this new reality hurts even more than I thought it could – and seemingly more than it has before.
This is truly a tortuous existence – and it is so very physical. When moments of almost-accepted-reality kick in - I am soon down for the count. I have had bouts of frenzied sobbing, periods of catatonic immobility, and subsequent hours of sourly agitated depression where just happening upon the wrong thought, memory or photo can trigger either of the above escalations, an intense anger phase, or something completely wild and new – all depending on how and when the wave hits.
And all the while, I have had to kind of move on with life. I must provide for our family. I must get the kids to school. I must feed them. I must at least try and minimize their screen time. I must be there for them in all aspects of life.
I am thankful that I get to continue to be their father and for us to live as full of a life as we can – but it is a hard existence to walk with right now as I’m constantly reminded how much I relied on our partnership each day to decide together so many little things in addition to the big things. What to eat? Where to go? How and when to step in and resolve a dispute between the kids?
Life moves on… With, or without me
I recently had a long weekend with the kids home from school for five days. We purposefully attempted to keep this a weekend for just the four of us. While these days were filled with a lot of fun activities and time to recoup and relax – it was also very challenging and uniquely isolating. These new almost-accepted-reality-based grief attacks were hitting me frequently over the weekend – but I had to try to push them back, and find the right moments to go hide and let myself experience it. And I didn’t really have anyone around that I felt like I could talk to about it at the right level. So it brought a distinctive kind of loneliness into the picture. It’s possible that repressing those grief moments over the weekend made it worse for me early this week as I reflect on it more now. Lessons learned… but what did I learn?
Is this a grand duo? What’s grand duo? What is this?
It's a hard balance between repressing or embracing the grief in some situations. Do I allow myself to grieve fully in front of the kids? From all of our discussions in the past, I’d guess that you would encourage me to be open in visibly grieving in front of them. Help them to know that it is OK to express your grief, and that even their dad is still openly weeping - not biting his lip, swallowing the pain and just moving on.
Thinking through what our discussion would have been tells me that I shouldn’t hold it back too hard – but I also don’t want to bring the kids down if they are at a point where they are otherwise bouncing back and are actually enjoying a happy moment. They often want to share those happy moments with me when it happens, and I certainly don’t want to discourage that.
What’s great about all of that is that they want to be with their dad. I love that – and I love how much they are trying to lean on me for emotional support, even if the main way we support each other emotionally isn’t through open counseling/psychological discussions but instead maybe through art, card games, board games, or video games.
Composing music that properly honors my love for you
On a positive note - while this isn’t educational nor super grief related - I’m pumped as I’ve finally started to compose music successfully again. For a while there I could only write down words - such as these blog posts, and some silly poems.
It’s been a really long time though – and what surprises me even more is that I’m finding myself successfully composing music in your honor. Why this is so surprising is multi-faceted:
Oh maybe we’re the grand duo!? No, still not it? Haha darn.
1 – I never really found myself capable of writing a piece in your honor while we dated, or when we were married. When I have previously put thought to why I couldn’t do it – I usually concluded that I didn’t feel that my skills as a composer would enable me to write something for you that would be at a high enough caliber, or that properly honors my love for you. I still wish I would have tried harder to do this though. Music is supposed to be my art, my chosen medium.
2 – I just haven’t been able to compose a lot in the last couple of years. If I had the downtime or dedicated the time to compose properly, I’d usually opt instead for focusing on something else. Or we’d have a different project I would be working on, like the arrangements (Thy Will, 10,000 Reasons, etc.) I helped produce with you singing worship songs. I don’t regret the work on those songs at all, and feel very blessed that I and all of your loved ones will forever be able to pull up one of those songs and hear you sing them so beautifully. There just hasn't been time for straight up composing new original work.
3 – When I was grieving my dad’s passing, I found it too difficult to write. I don’t know that it is accurate to say that it was too painful – while pain was certainly an aspect of it. I think sometimes when we’re in the midst of grief, our normal thinking patterns are so out of whack, that things we would normally do to cope, just don’t work. Or things that we would normally do for fulfillment – like composing for me - just don’t work right, or don't work the same.
So, combining some of that with the reality that in the days and weeks and months following his death, you were actively in recovery from surgery, then chemotherapy, I think it just didn’t work for my brain to compose the Weep not for Me piece for dad until over a year later when much of that turmoil had passed.
Know any pieces that start like this?
4 – More recently, early on in my bereavement from your death – I just could not compose music. I could maybe arrange. Or maybe help Callum with some composing he was doing (Looking for Robins). But, to write something new? To put down new notes and combine them with other instruments making other new notes or noises? Nope – I’ve just been fully blocked until probably last Friday.
What changed? The new inspiration came from a piece you performed in Spring of 2005, as part of your senior clarinet recital. I couldn’t remember at first what the name of the piece was – but I knew completely how it sounded. And I had such fond memories of the times where you would practice it – and of course we were already inseparable, so I was just hanging out with you for hours while you practiced and I was doing who knows what. And I remember you rehearsing it with Michael - altogether it was just so damned beautiful. I haven’t been able to get this piece out of my mind.
A couple of weeks ago I found multiple versions of the recordings of your senior recital – though it still didn’t remind me what the title of the piece was since I couldn’t find a program. But yes, I was so grateful to find these recordings. And to listen again to your gorgeous clarinet playing, such a great warm tone, impeccable articulation, and impressive technical skill. It made me ponder why you ever stopped playing clarinet.
Then I found it. It was the virtuosic clarinet and piano duet The Grand Duo Concertant composed by Carl Maria von Weber ~ 1816. The rush in finally recalling the actual name of the piece enabled me to properly get going on what my subconscious brain had already initiated.
The piece that I am composing can probably be best referred to as a derivative work, since in a very literal sense, the source material that I am using is the actual recordings of your performance at your recital, with Michael on piano. And in conjunction with those recordings, I am bringing new material for performance by a virtual clarinetist. It will incorporate variations on the original themes of the piece alongside an exploration of a new sound palette leveraging the beautiful audio from your 2005 performance. So in a way, the Grand Duo here becomes a duet of the remembrance of your original performance, and new storytelling from the new virtual clarinetist accompanying. My working title for this piece is A Memory of a Grand Duo.
Composing it hasn’t been, and won’t be easy. I have been finding myself extremely emotional as I work on it - it is taxing - and I have had to take extended breaks. But no doubt this piece will be a labor of love. I’m very glad to be working on it, and I’m beyond excited for you and others to hear it.
Oh, and guess what - did you hear that Britty is considering playing clarinet? I’m pumped. She'd be continuing a long line of DCamp clarinetists! Four generations, Charles > Doug > Sara > Brittyn. Then maybe someday she can perform A Memory of a Grand Duo instead of the virtual clarinetist!? Yes, I know, I’m getting ahead of myself.