I love this song, I heard it a week ago and it got to the very core of me. I heard it in the car and straight away I heard the words, not just listened but really heard the words and they made me smile. That sort of love, true, deep, honest love only comes around once in a lifetime and shouldn't be wasted. I'm sorry if this is a spoiler but then I heard the last verse, I heard the line "Then the nurses came, they said it's come back again" and I knew right away what the end of this song was, I actually slumped in the driving seat as I was driving. It's come back again, a horrible line in it's meaning no matter when it's said but made worse because I knew what it meant. I had to watch the video and when I did it hit me even harder. We all live our younger lives waiting for that kind of love, and then to lose it early must be so difficult. I couldn't even think to imagine what it must be like, although I do appreciate the fact that they had found that one love, that soulmate and they had been together, that's more than some get. Then I found myself thinking about it from the wife's point of view and how she probably felt like we all do, especially those of us who may or will leave our loved ones early. It's guilt, that is my overriding feeling and what I've realised is the emotion that has been battering me again this week. We all want to be here for the ones we love, we want to support them, to help them, to laugh with them, cry with them and sometimes just sit in silence with them! So to be the one that causes them pain, a pain that shouldn't be experienced as a husband or wife until you are old and lived a life together and more importantly as a parent especially a pain that shouldn't be felt by children. Knowing I could do that is what breaks me up, makes me push people away, isolates me and makes me feel I don't deserve to be loved like that because if I'm not I can't cause that pain. But then, that love that I feel in return for them is what defines me as a person, is what makes me who I am and is what will be left as my memory. This led me to start thinking about what would be the memories of me that I would leave behind, yes there would be the memories of time spent with me, things done, places visited but what would be the memories of me, what would be the things people thought of when they thought of me. Hopefully as a confident, laid back man who made people laugh, a man that didn't suffer fools and was always honest if not tactful. A good man, who loved without conditions and was as loyal to his friends as he was a pain in the arse to those he didn't like. Then I realised they would probably remember me for tattoos, red wine, a sarcastic tongue and a love of music. Music, always music, my headphones are my pride and joy and I have songs for every memory, person and place that remain in brain and I class as important. I have loved music since childhood, I never had a voice or the temperament to learn an instrument but music in all of it's forms is part of what makes me me. I then started to think about the songs for my sarcoma journey and there are a few, so for this blog I want to share them and what I attach to them in my mind, some good and some bad but all have been part of this journey. Please, if I've not bored you already, listen to the songs but also try and hear the words, because they all have a meaning to me. You all know about Frank Turner and Long live the queen which has been mentioned more than once in this blog so I won't go through that one again or the ones I planned to use for my funeral because they are already here. This means the first one after that is this.. Josie used to play this album all the time in the radiotherapy room, I don't think she planned that I would get this song but nearly every morning it was on as I came in. It reminds me of the initial awkwardness as the pants came off and the taping up began but then it also felt like an omen, a message, "keep your head up" yeah that's what I'll do, it's radiotherapy and it's here to cure me to help me beat this, keep your head up Daz, you've got this. I've already talked about Macklemore and "Can't hold us" sent to me by Emma in America fighting her own battle with Myxoid Liposarcoma and how I used that to get me through surgery and rehab. So I guess the next one is an old one I came across on my playlists and when I heard it..... I turned it up, I turned it up loud! This song can only be played loud, so loud the speakers wobble. When I hear it I sing it like it's the last song I will ever hear, on my good days this song lifts me from my pit of my stomach until my heart and head feel like they will burst. "I'm still alive" just say it, shout it, scream it if you have to. It's right, we are still alive maybe I should remember that more. Next is a song for my kids, I heard it on a video from Derby County FC academy that featured my eldest son, it was a song that was meant to be uplifting and it is, it speaks of my wishes for my kids, it speaks to me of the things I might say if I had to leave, it would be advice that I would give them for when I wasn't here. I have thought about this a lot, what would I say to them, what would I leave for them if I was faced with no option but to tell them. I swore that they would never know that I had cancer unless there was no choice. I still hold to this, my kids are my life and I hope that I never have to have that conversation with them because I don't know if I could. I don't know if I could sit and tell them that I was leaving and I had to say goodbye. I try not to think of this because it sends me to the dark place, and quickly. So to avoid the dark place I'm not going to dwell too much on what I would say to them, they don't need to know at the minute so I don't need to think too hard about it. That song and again the following one will be ones I leave for them though. That I guess is a bit of a cheesy one, but when I was younger, when I was a soldier, I did live every day, week and month like it was my last. I had a wanderlust that couldn't be controlled, I wanted to see every part of the world, to feel everything, to experience life and I wish that for my kids. I want them to remain curious, to desire life and all it brings. For me a man is not measured in the wealth he accumulates before the grave, more the memories and love he accumulates in those he leaves behind, that is the mark of a man and I hope my mark is a decent one, a mark that doesn't fade with time. The next song I first heard in Kenya in 1999, it can take me back to there but it also now has a sarcoma meaning for me. It makes me think about life and the decisions we make and where they lead us. The decisions we make create our memories and what we leave behind, the path we take creates the photos on our walls, the places we see and the friends we make. I've started to think about love again now, that hoping you have given someone the time of their life. We can only do that with love and I'm thinking about that sort of love that makes you daft, makes you silly, makes you forget all common sense, that sort of love that not everyone will ever feel in there life. The ones of us that are lucky enough to feel it should hold it like we can never let it go, it's a privilege and should be treated as such. To love and be loved completely makes us a complete person, it makes us put someone before ourselves. With that thought though we also go back to losing that person and knowing you will never get them back, well that's something I think is impossible to get over. I don't think this song is about that but is about a hopeless relationship, maybe that is actually a relationship with someone with cancer, it can be hopeless, it can come with the chance that there will be one last time you hold that person, one last chance to speak, to laugh, to say I love you. That's why I guess we should be silly, be daft, tell them we love them whilst we can because at the end we never know. This next one is a tough one, it was played at Graham's funeral and it broke me that day. I had never heard it before, I didn't know what it was called but I've found out and now I have to include it here. The words of this song are beautiful, to me they are the words of someone leaving because of cancer, they talk of love, of regret, of fear, of not wanting to give up but knowing they are beat. This song made me cry the first time I heard it and does again tonight. This last week has been a tough one for me, I'm dealing with my fears and guilt again, I'm struggling with the thoughts of leaving the ones I love but tonight as I listen to this next song I realise that I have not left them yet, I am still here, I am still here for when they need me and when they don't. I do still have my life and I do still have to live it, I owe it to those friends of mine who don't and all of those who have had to leave early to make sure my life is a good one for however long it lasts. I'm going to keep fighting, I'm going to get some help again to deal with these feelings because I know deep down I won't beat them alone not matter what I tell myself.I've put the video with the lyrics for this song, if you ignore all the others please listen to this one, read the words. I can't leave this chapter on this song, I want this to be a look into me through the music I love and there is one last song that has spoken to me recently. It's a Frank Turner song but that's no surprise! Well not to me anyway. It's a song about positivity, a song about the celebration of life. It's about recognizing that shitty things happen but that they can't define us. I know that this chapter has been up and down, positive, negative and somewhere in between but if I'm honest that's because that's how I feel at the moment. I am experiencing massive mood swings, highs and lows and yet I can't seem to find the middle ground. I think that makes this last song even more pertinent and maybe I should listen to it more.
2 Comments
Tricia Moate
11/11/2015 11:31:49 am
Thank you for your wonderful post and all the music. I first heard the "I wasn't expecting that" song a few weeks ago and like you it went straight to my core and I broke down and cried. How can a young man write such beautiful lyrics? I thought about having it at my funeral. Plucked up courage to watch the video and cried again today.
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Darren
12/11/2015 10:23:11 pm
Thank you Tricia, yes it really is a song with the most beautiful words. Every time I hear it I feel the song in my stomach and heart. And those days are in the past yes but hopefully again in my future. Thank you for reading my blog and I'm so glad you can relate to it. It was lovely to meet you too!
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Darren EvansOn Feb 11th 2013 my life changed forever when I was diagnosed with a myxoid liposarcoma of the right thigh. This is my version of my life since then. Archives
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