Long years ago, short on the heels of a recent hospital stay (courtesy spinal meningitis) in a land far from anything that looked like home, I determined to make something for the people I loved, just in case I didn’t pull through or something else happened just that fast and with no warning. I had no tools or talents honed for the task nor any time to haul any in, but I did it anyway, inspired by a gift I had received while in hospital. My two dearest friends in Oklahoma had called to say they were making a cassette recording of guitar picking and singing and would be shipping it, “so you have to stay alive till it gets there,” the guitar picker said, equal parts fear and friendship lining his voice. His wife, the only adult woman I’d ever met that didn’t scare the dickens out of me, chimed in, “Oh! Don’t say that to her now! But yes, we are mailing it!” From that I don’t remember a lot else, only that knowing it was on the way was enough for me to realize I needed to do something for them and my parents and my children that might outlast me.
Piano out of tune, a lowly cassette recorder the sole device at hand, no practice time available for a mere single mom needing to get back to work right away to pay for a frightfully large new hospital bill and more of the money I still needed to find and bring my children home once more, I recorded one track of piano, then played it back and recorded the soprano, then another round of alto, a final one of tenor, and then ran the whole thing into one mix without a soundboard or sound-man in sight. It was startlingly unlike perfectionist-where-music-was-concerned-then me, but for a handful of my mother’s favorite hymns, I did this. Then I recorded harmony vocals onto the song tracks my friend had created, copied the cassette three times, mailed one to my parents and one to those caring Oklahomans, socked the other one away, and fell into the bed with my faithful companion, a search dog named Samson just because everybody needs reminding that strength comes in outsized measures when you need it and sometimes even when you don’t. The little tape became a meme, a marker of connection and joy in a life not marked by much of that at the time. I listened to it many times when I was feeling bereft of family and friends, and it never failed to bring happy smiles and the balm of true friendship.
A flood got my copy a few years ago, some years after Samson left here for whatever heaven dogs get, and, when Mama died, we never could find her copy, and even if we could’ve the cassette players in our house died a long time ago, too. Today, though, seven days into one of the more beleaguering weeks of my adult life, the mail brought me a small package from those dear Oklahoma friends: a CD of the second version cassette. They don’t know I’m beleaguered, for we haven’t spoken in a while: this is something I asked them about months ago, and they promised to burn a copy to Cd if they ever ran across the old tape. Nothing but serendipity and plain grace could’ve put it in my hand today. The tracks have been spun up one more time, which means the richer timbres of then are well reduced and thin, plus all the errors and mistakes I made in the making come front and center, take a bow, grin and dare me to either be or not to be, for this is all my life is, now or ever, beleaguering or not.
I choose to be. And share. Mistakes and all. Here’s my favorite track of the ones I recorded especially for my parents. My mother loved this song. As do I. Her heaven and mine took different footpaths many years ago, and we’ve both already arrived at our destinations: hers far beyond this earth; me still here and hoping for nothing but safe harbor with Samson and all the dogs and cats and raccoons and horses and chickens and ducks and turkeys and human beings I’ve loved who have gone on before me to wherever they go. Dust to dust: a creature fully of earth, that alone is enough anymore. I am grateful for plain grace. Serendipity. Music, thinner and reedier than ever, no matter. And friends.
