MUSIC | MEMORIES | GRIEF

A Song I Now Associate With Death is Also a Trigger of Great Happiness

Grieving made easier by happy memories

As I worked away at my laptop, I had random songs playing in the background. YouTube was choosing my day’s playlist for me.

And then a song came on that made me start.

As it began, it triggered a flood of memories and emotions. Without any conscious input, thoughts appeared of the people in my life who had passed away in recent years — people for whom I have grieved greatly, for whom I have wept many tears. But although their passing, at the time, felt desperately sad, as I listened to this song, all I could see before me were the happy memories.

Ironically, the last time I heard this song amongst a crowd, I was practically standing in a puddle of my own tears.

That time was in a chapel in West London. The occasion was my Uncle Mike’s funeral.

We were all still in total disbelief that he had gone. For eighty-three, he had been extremely fit and healthy, and with a strong and astute mind.

He’d suffered a major heart attack and survived, had stabilised and, after around ten days, was moved out of the critical care ward because he was doing so well. He was communicative, smiling, and peaceful.

And then, one morning, while doing something on his iPad, he just passed. Quietly. Peacefully.

The truth is that you will never know when things will turn in someone’s life. For Mike, his mental health had meant that he had taken medication for much his life. Medication that enabled him to live normally and, for the most part, happily.

Because happy was what he was. He wanted for little — a happy home, healthy and well-adjusted children, and to be available for his grandchildren.

And, pretty much, he had achieved them all.

Oh, and then there was football.

He loved his weekend trips to the football with two of his kids, his son-in-law, and sometimes his brother — my dad.

His wife, my aunt, was — and is still — the most incredible cook. And together they always loved to entertain. Always generous with their time, space, family meals, and money, the home and the feeling around them was always one of great happiness.

But perhaps it was a lifetime of taking medication that put his heart in such danger, despite his exceedingly good health and fitness for his age. Perhaps it was the underlying stress of a mental health condition.

And while we can spend our lives tormenting ourselves over why, we can never really know.

With the beautiful eulogies that were shared during that occasion in the chapel came outpourings of love and admiration; memories of many, many meals shared, of skiing holidays, and of working holidays in France renovating a friend’s house. And of course, those weekly football matches, year after year, decade after decade.

There were stories he had told of his childhood.

The time he was delivering a black pudding to a friend at university. He had to hide it in his room because it was non-kosher and his family home was a devout Jewish one. But he accidentally left it on top of his wardrobe when he left again for the term, only to be discovered weeks later by his mother, given away by the bad smell.

And how, as a younger boy, he had helped out in his mother and father’s shop. Following the war, people had less money for the gold jewellery they sold, so they diversified to target the large community of Catholics that lived locally, selling Catholic religious relics. In addition, they sold ‘holy’ water.

I remember him telling us this story at lunch once at their apartment overlooking the sea — a story even my dad had never heard before. My dad asked who blessed the water to make it holy, to which Mike responded, “Well, I guess it was me.”

“You?” enquired my dad, disbelievingly.

“Well, I was the one who decanted it from the urn into small bottles, so I guess I was responsible for blessing it,” he said, his cheeky Jewish smile revealing the likely truth of the holy Catholic water sold by his father, decades earlier.

And many more memories came forth. Though my aunt couldn’t say a word at the funeral, she had written something that her granddaughter volunteered to read on her behalf. The sixteen-year-old choked over her words as she read the story about their first meeting — the daringly short skirt her grandmother had worn at the time, the coming together of two rebellious minds, and the many years of love and marriage that followed.

My tears had flowed ceaselessly throughout the service and they weren’t stopping anytime soon. As the ceremony came to an end, it was time to observe the one request Mike had for his funeral.

The lyrics were printed on the back of the ‘order of service’ sheets we had each been given, and the original song began being played through the speakers.

From that full-to-busting chapel with the crowd that spilled out of the doors, of the many who had shown up to pay their respects to my Uncle Mike, a song was belted out in memory of him.

You once thought of me As a white knight on his steed Now, you know how happy I can be Oh, and our good times start and end Without dollar one to spend But how much, baby, do we really need

Cheer up, sleepy Jean Oh, what can it mean To a daydream believer And a homecoming queen?

The relevance? All football, of course.

The homecoming song of his one and only lifetime love — other than his wife — his team, Queen’s Park Rangers.

And now, it seems, every time I hear that song, I think of Mike’s smiling face, memories of him inconspicuously facilitating family gatherings at his London family home, and of him quietly reading his Guardian on the sofa of his seaside getaway.

That moment of deep sorrow and grief was transformed by a single song.

And with it, all the happiest memories of those who we have lost in recent years. Sad yet happy memories.

All triggered by one single song.

Music can do magic things like that.

Thanks for reading! Here’s another of my music memoirs:

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