1,000 Oceans

The power music has over me never ceases to amaze me. A song can instantly bring sensations and memories of days past flooding back. I can attach a particular song or album to just about every single important experience in my life. It's so strong the attachment, that sometimes I find that I'll avoid listening to that artist for awhile. All throughout my life music has been a constant friend the one that understood everything. I connect to it in such a way that I know that I will never be capable of finding the right words to relay its details to you.

I've written about the closeness I've had with my mothers side of the family. The one thing that is a constant in her family is laughter. We are all a bunch of pranksters. We'll do anything for a laugh. The funniest of them has to be My Uncle Bill, who was one of the most genuine people I've ever known. He was true to himself and true to his family. He had this great laugh and vibrant blue eyes that lit up when he was setting you up for a joke. He worked very hard to give his family the life he never had. He built a successful business from the ground up and he never forgot his roots. He was a good man, a good father, a good husband, and a great uncle. My Uncle Bill and my Aunt Sharon met when she was in her mid-teens and he was a senior in high school driving a school bus (yes they used to let teenagers drive buses back then) I've heard the story a few times in my life and I often wonder what that moment was like. They were together for well over 40 years.

About 5 years ago, I watched this man fight cancer. He fought it with everything he had along with the strength his family sent his way. For a little while, there was hope. Test results showed no change good or bad. But then in September seemingly overnight it completely took over him. My humongous family camped out on the floor of his hospital. My aunt lay beside him in bed the entire time, whispering to him, caressing his hand, crying out in physical pain when he couldn't. I remember standing there thinking not of what I was losing but what she was losing. That boy who's blue eyes sparkled the first time he saw her step on the bus. That boy that took her from a life of poverty and made her a queen. That boy who from day one made sure that he made her laugh every single day of her life.

Soon after his death I went to a Tori Amos show. She played her song "1,000 Oceans" It's such a beautiful song for so many reasons. And today It found me again after all these years. Looking back it's a wonder anyone actually heard the song around me through my sobs. I remember that cool night surrounded by stars in the amphitheatre, the blue lights that swept Tori, the stage, & audience. That song will forever be intertwined with my uncle's passing. Watching a woman tell the love of her life that it was okay to go. I pray that I will never have to utter those words. I pray that I will never have to cry 1,000 Oceans. And now those feelings are mixed with something new. A reminder that I do have a great love worth crying 1,000 Oceans whether or not we share 10, 40, or 60 years. Though there may be some dark times. He makes me laugh every single day of my life. And I love finding any and every way to make him smile because that means I get a glimpse of those deliciously cute dimples. It doesn't make me sad. It makes me feel so unbelievably lucky.

If you care to hear the song grab a tissue and take a listen.