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The Power of Music

The Power of Music

Monday morning, fresh from the shower, I opened the vintage music box I’d gotten for Christmas and took out my earrings, then turned the little dial so the music would play. Miss A, my almost four-year-old, watched from her perch on the bench in front of the window.

I walked over in my bathrobe and held her as the music tinkled in the background. We swayed–my hair teetering in the towel–as the winter sun poured, warm, through the window, a contrast to the snow piebald with animal tracks outside.

Later that evening, making supper, my Pandora station played the soundtrack to Little Women. I recalled the night my best friend, Misty, and I watched this classic movie while the fire crackled in the gas fireplace and the ancient orange, red, and brown afghan my great-grandmother had knitted draped us, the same as it had draped me as a child, in both sickness and in health.

My best friend was sick, then, battling Hodgkin’s Lymphoma at twenty-two years old, and the climactic scene with Beth just gutted me, so that I had no other choice but to drape myself over Misty’s lap, weeping and praying that she would be with me for the rest of my life. She stroked my hair, comforting me when it should have been the other way around.

On Wednesday of this week, my Pandora station played the soundtrack to Titanic, and I was taken back to the tipping point of my relationship with my husband. Before then, I was so scared of commitment I wasn’t sure I could remain his girlfriend, say nothing of one day becoming his wife.

But then, while Misty was still sick, my dear friend from college, Madison, passed away. Three weeks after her death, our brave mutual friend got married in the church where the funeral had been held and where Madison’s wedding had taken place a few weeks before hers. That night, I slept at the house belonging to Madison’s parents, and the next morning, as I was packing to leave, her mom was kind enough to give me some articles her daughter had worn.

My backpack filled with those clothes, I drove straight south and met my boyfriend in Gatlinburg. My parents were on their way but were running late. They told me to pick up the keys, and they would meet us at the cabin.

In the cabin, I put on those clothes that had once belonged to my beautiful friend. They still smelled like her, which brought such comfort and yet—like a hand pressed over a wound—brought such unbearable ache. I ran my finger over the CD collection in the living room, and the Titanic soundtrack was the only one more instrumental than words. I put it on, pulled the blinds, and lay down on the couch—draping myself in the blanket Madison’s mom had also given to me.

I didn’t know my boyfriend had come into the room until I felt him lift my bare feet, sit down on the end of the couch, and hold them in his lap. He didn’t say anything. The summer sun splintered through the blinds; the music swelled, and I cried. I stayed there on a stranger’s couch, wearing my deceased friend’s clothes, and cried and cried. It was one of the most course-shifting moments of my life, and I imagined—even in my grief—how different my life would be if I had such a steadfast man beside me.

Yesterday, in the kitchen, Pandora played a song I hadn’t listened to since college. As the music swelled, I remembered spinning in my Gillespie dorm room—my red silk shawl from Colombia hanging in front of the tall window, casting a hopscotch pattern of shadows across the floor—and imagined dancing to this same song while in Africa, where I wanted to end up after graduation, through the Peace Corps.

I did not go to Africa. Instead, I found myself weeping on a couch while bagpipes played from dusty speakers and my boyfriend cradled my bare feet without saying a word. Instead, I married that man in the fall after graduation, and nearly ten years after that, I found myself extending my hands to our watchful daughter. I coaxed her from her tiny red rocking chair in the kitchen, and smiling shyly, she stood and clasped my legs.

Together, we spun to that music while the red shawl draped the china cupboard and outside, the Wisconsin wind howled and the hills were one glittering plain of white. And I thought:

This is the power of art: to awaken a memory and suddenly you are there.

What song–or piece of art–recently moved you?

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“Finally, an apocalyptic novel ablaze with hope. Just the kind of story I champion. A must-read.” ~Sarah McCoy, New York Times and international bestselling author of The Mapmaker’s Children and The Baker’s Daughter

The Alliance, releasing June 1, is now available for pre-order.