The Instrument of his Passion

Sometimes the lessons we need are fed to us in drip-form. With a little more of the message being revealed when we are no longer sure we need it. Today I learnt what I had been jealous of throughout my marriage.

This morning I woke early. Too early on a Saturday morning to get out of bed, so I tossed and turned until my eyes were eventually ready to take in light. After a late night, it always takes me several minutes for the salty bonds that glue my eyes shut in sleep, to finally break apart to allow my eyes to open. Not moving from my bed, I picked up my book and as I read along, I finally realised what music meant to him and how I fitted in.

I've been reading Anna Goldsworthy’s autobiography where she describes how she transformed herself into a performing pianist. As a teenager it was the music, more than just notes and technique, that became enmeshed into the essence of her being as her life-force. The piano was the vehicle that allowed her to journey through musical flight and her life's highs. The piano created and supported her passion, both spiritually and physically. In developing mastery of the music and the piano keys her obsession allowed her to travel through mundane life activities and sometimes allowed her to avoid them altogether. Practice wasn't drudgery, it was an indulgence that allowed her spirit to soar on a different plain. Some may say higher.

More than twenty years ago I fell in love with a kind, clever, funny and warm fella. These were the attributes I loved about him. He came packaged to me as a generous soul with kind eyes and as a bloke who loved to play guitar and could do so with a level of skill unmatched by most. Later I realised he was more than a guy who could play guitar - he was a musician. The guitar was the instrument of his passion.

During the last year of Simon’s life, when his days were filled with hospital visits and his veins were filled with chemotherapy, he was usually left feeling completely listless and destroyed. There were times he was so unwell, he couldn’t pull himself up to leave his bed, let alone to pick up an instrument. All the same, he continued to yearn to play the tunes that he had playing in his mind. He needed it for his soul and every important thread of his existence.

When he first got sick, we found a silent guitar for him to play in hospital, so he wouldn’t disturb other patients. With all else going so wrong, we knew that he could lose his will to survive if he couldn’t play music. The silent guitar was too heavy when he was very sick but a shiny red, flat-bottomed ukelele, or fluke, satisfied these needs. Sometimes, when it took all his energy to overcome the intense waves of nausea and he was unable to lift his head he would pick or tap the fluke to find his tunes of solace.

During these tough days our daughter and I wandered through the house, pretending we were getting on with our lives, while continually checking on him hoping to ease his pain and burden. None of us really had a life during this time yet Simon, always the optimist, knew he could find joy in the strings.

On one such day, as I wandered around the house leaving him to rest, I noticed something beautiful, that somehow had lifted my spirits and lightened the weighty bar that I carried in my shoulders. Somehow Simon had created a set of complimentary harmonics by gently tapping the fluke’s bridge. The bedroom was full of this positive cloud of sounds mingling within and around each other, complimenting and supporting the notes that diminished to finality, readying the space for fresh new notes that arrived just when they should, in a space that seemed to be perfectly designed for their entry.

My aural image was of pure beauty and a warm-spirit. What I saw was a thin, grey-skinned, bald man laying on his side on top of our bed. The fluke was resting against his back. His too-heavy bottom arm leant against his chest, while his thumb secured the bridge and his long fingers knew exactly where to tap to create this magic. Quietly I entered his zone and found his eyes shut. His face displayed a relaxed bliss I wish I knew. He had taken himself to his place of comfort. He was inside his head with his cherished music. The instrument was an extension of him. His musicality had not been dulled by the poison that flowed into every cell, searching to kill any seed of residual cancer.



May 2011