I started this chapter thinking I might write a musical guide to my grief as a list of songs. It could be ‘The Ministry of Grief Bereavement Anthems’ or maybe ‘Now that’s what I call Grieving’. Along the way there has certainly been particular songs that have helped, maybe I will make a compilation another time. Music is one of the main things I attribute my sanity to throughout all of this. Music is really the only universal language, it tells us how to feel, it gives rhythm to chaos and ultimately provides a theme tune to life. Music was a big part of our lives together. A few months before he died I asked him what music he’d have played at this funeral, because I’d had a dream about it. Resolutely, he answered Redemption Song.
The music was a healer, a pain killer, sometimes I couldn’t leave it alone though. At times I was so desperate to just sit and rock on the sofa to quieten the mind, to breathe, that I’d be straight there as soon as I got in the house, it was like an obsession, like I had Zoochosis.
“…..thousands of zoo animals held in artificial environments with little stimulation, enrichment or opportunity to hide from the public gaze, display unnatural behaviour patterns. Even in the better¹ zoos, abnormal behaviour can be widespread, and include repeated pacing, rocking, vomiting and even self mutilation.”
I was living in captivity, I didn’t do the self mutilation I mostly did rocking and swaying:
Rocking
Sitting, sometimes hugging the legs, rocking forwards and back. A recognised symptom of mental illness in humans.
Can be displayed by chimpanzees
Swaying
Standing in one place and swaying the head and shoulders, even the whole body, from side to side. A behaviour exhibited by mentally ill humans.
Can be displayed by elephants & bears
Grief is akin with mental illness in terms of behaviours, depression mirrors grief, I was I kind of depressed bear I guess or maybe a disturbed chimp, I certainly wouldn’t have made it to the PG Tips ad.
When I was a child I did the same, after school, when I was on my own, I used to play my brother’s records on the strereogram, piling up 7s on 7s, listening to the same records over and over and rocking in the chair. I used to rock so hard in the chair I made a hole in the black vinyl of our sofa, my hair would be matted at the back from doing it. It was a running joke. I often attribute this rocking to the fact I’ve never had a proper breakdown, because it’s true that there in that moment I felt safe and soothed and in a meditative state.
Music to grieve by. I looked at the laptop, daydreaming, watching time pass on the clock, watching the lava lamp, the mornings I sat there and had my morning cup of tea, I did the same after work, and so many evenings. Holly did her stuff while I listened, sometimes we’d talk, sometimes she’d watch telly or me (but after a while she just got used to it, so paid it no mind), sometimes she’d play on the Wii, sometimes she’d be upstairs with her own music playing loud. I apologised to her, and said I must look demented (or at least like a depressed bear) she just said “it’s ok mum, I understand, it solves your mind”.
At times I got stuck there, particularly on stressful days, or anxious days or if I needed to contemplate or stop the anxiety escalating, sometimes the same song over and over, or the same album over and over , sometimes I did manage to get off the sofa and make up silly dances with Holly, or we’d sing our own lyrics to the tunes once she dressed as a caterpillar (not a depressed one) But mostly I sat rocking. Once I sat there for 4 days during a cry-athon, I just listened and cried. At times it was like a trap, a cage, it was an addictive drug, and a mixture of therapy and just obsessive behaviour, I felt like it was a soother and a safe place.
I couldn’t sit and listen to when he died because I had so much noise in my head, but I had to make the music choices for his funeral service. So I knew the first song. The next ones came to me over the next couple of days, like they were whispered to me somehow. Arranging the funeral was a kind of auto-pilot affair, the music, my tribute to him. I chose ‘Natty Dreadlock’, Rich told me this was the first Bob Marley tune he ever bought. ‘Superbad’ by James Brown, Rich loved to funk. Make it Reggae, Shark Wilson and The Basement Heaters we used to sing it all together when we were travelling on holiday which was bittersweet since Rich had his stroke as we were setting off to Dorset for the week. I remember thinking I should have seen the signs, but he managed to help pack the car and he made the lunch, that night I checked the sandwiches to see if there were any clues, as if I’d find the answer there, ah yes well he did forget the tomatoes, but he always forgot tomatoes.
I couldn’t find the chosen tunes at home, that would be like finding a needle in a haystack, there was no order that I could understand to the record collection, Rich’s filing systems had no logic, he knew where everything was but I didn’t. I passed on the choices to the funeral directors, they used a company to source them. I imagined a couple of guys in a backroom somewhere plugged into You Tube. I had to listen to them over the phone. Lucky I was so fastidious because they’d chosen the wrong version of Make it Reggae. It was quite bizarre, a solemn occasion and quite matter of fact. Then I had to decide the order of things. ‘Natty Dread’ on entering, I asked Madu if he would sing ‘Redemption song’ during the readings. ‘Superbad’ when the curtains closed on Rich, and ‘Make it Reggae’ on exiting. There were so many people at the funeral that Natty Dread had finished well before everyone got into the crematorium. Madu faltered in his beautiful singing for his dear friend, and I joined in with him, as did the congregation. I thought Superbad would be ‘tongue in cheek’ when the curtains closed, but it felt more ‘heart in mouth’.
I remember after the wake, being at Christine’s and coming home to try to find some records to play, I just walked in and pulled out two at random, they were “The Funkiest Chicken in Town” and The Beat (The Beat) Rich had bought me the The Beat album in Brighton a long time ago, we saw The Beat LIVE together on the night he proposed to me and we had ‘Hands off She’s Mine’ as our first dance at our wedding. So it felt fateful that I found that, just like that.
His record collection just looked like an insurmountable mountain of vinyl to me, over whelming. Covering a wall in the living room, and there were boxes of records tucked here, there and everywhere around the house. When I was first on my own, when the dust was settling I started to look at the records tentatively, pulling a few out here and there, and then just crumbling to the floor breathless, I was desperately pulling out records, and panicking at the enormity of it all, how would I ever listen to all of these, what was I supposed to do. I wondered, if it had been the other way around, what Rich would have done with my shoe collection, at least they were easier to pair up. You can easily identify a pair of shoes or boots, but records only offer a wafer thin edge to be perused, rather like a box of after eights, except they’re all different.
The volume of records represented the long journey I had just embarked upon and it was sick inducing terror. Trying to find some order, some answer some sort of resolution, but where to start? I just started from the top and worked down. I found the Bob Marley and the Wailers collection on the top shelf to the left (of course seems obvious now), I’d never seen them before in all the fifteen years we had together. Rich kept them well hidden, all in plastic sleeves on a high shelf. (like keeping the sweet treats hidden away from the kids or the after eights) I didn’t play them I just put them together so I knew where they were.
I found a case of ‘mix’ CDs with Jazz and Funk music in, these are what I played first, the “Superbad mix” over and over, I was just sobbing and shaking still in shock, trying to feel the music, trying to feel something other than sickness. I was almost scared to listen to more, like the sheer volume of music at home represented the sheer volume of grief to walk through, a journey if a thousand steps, a journey of a thousand tunes, but you have to start with one.
For a while, I don’t know how long, I couldn’t play the vinyl, it seemed too precious, was I even allowed to? I had to come to terms with the fact they were now mine, well really they were Holly’s. I just pulled out the “Burning” album by the Wailers and I put needle to vinyl ever so gently, and listened, it was powerful, Rich would have said “just record them, don’t play them”. It was a glimpse of acceptance, a new start, and so I played all the Marley albums one after the other, until I had heard them all and it felt good and rebellious. Then I let Holly play records too, and even Eleanor’s son Henry had a go (during the weekend when panic at the panto began).
This was the start of the reorganisation of the records. I have listened to music a lot every day since, I did before his death, I have all my life, but these have been redemption songs. Over time they have freed me from the heavy burden of loss, they have rescued me. I got a radio for the kitchen, I found jazz fm, and that was on every morning, every mealtime, sometimes all day in the background for company. Jazz fm is always good, funky and soulful in the morning, ‘dancey’ on a Saturday evening, bluesy and soft at other times, Jazz just seems to take the edge off. It was lighthearted and just provided the rhythm, I needed a rhythm, not an orchestra tuning. Jazz fm has disappeared now, it’s on line I think if you want to check it out, it was just there when I needed it.
I moved a sofa to the ‘music end’ of the living room, in front of the vinyl collection and the decks, the system, so I could meditate on it while I was listening and learning. (and rocking) I played records everyday. At first just Marley and the Wailers, then the Funk, Soul, Hiphop, Drum and Bass, Jungle, Latin, Disco, Dance and Jazz, everytime I played a record, I’d put it back in some sort of discernable order, I was beginning to own the collection and climb the mountain, I’m still climbing it……. Then I started to buy records, as if I didn’t have enough, and CDs which seemed ridiculous, but if I was to own the collection I had to buy more of it. I’d buy up compilations by bands such as Blondie, The Jam, The Kinks, Faithless to mention a few, and upload them into Itunes. I found Jake Bugg, I loved that album, I played that a lot because it made me cry, it was like an emotional laxative when there was a blockage. I bought American Pie in a charity shop for 50p and played it over and over trying to remember all the lyrics, it’s a long tune, but I loved the narrative within it. I also played a lot of 90s stuff and 70s reggae, sing along tunes Mr Shabba Man.
I stored the 10 inch collection at Deb and Rob’s. The sevens were boxed and in the loft, some were on the landing on top of a cupboard. I used to feel an irresistible urge to sell huge chunks of the collection, so they didn’t dominate my space so much. My friends talked me out of it in the early days, so I kept it, reorganised it and I just slowly began to get to know it, and now I am guardian of it, I’ve recently started to sell some of it, UK Dub, Steve Vibronics helped me by identifying what was collectable, and shared the list with collectors, now I recognise the labels and the artists. I’m learning who’s who and what’s what and his records are spread all over Europe and the UK. The money is going into Holly’s savings. I consulted her before I did it, and although I’ve sold loads, you wouldn’t know from looking, there’s still so many. That’s just the vinyl, there’s also the CDs and the 5000 tracks in the ITunes library.
The music was the most important ‘thing’ that rich left us with in terms of objects. I found it easier to liberate myself from material stuff because of it, and as time went by more and more ‘material things’ had less significance, because of the music, and because of the memories. Music has helped to heal me, it allowed me to meditate in my Zoochotic state, and there is a life time’s worth of it, it’s a wonderful gift. Organising the music and the music paraphernalia was a great part of the grand reorganisation.
Instead of the decks, mixer, sampler, amp, CD player, Graphic Equaliser and some other unplugged black metal boxes there was now the laptop, the computer, the mixer, the turntable and the amp and then later just one deck, the amp and the computer. I had to unplug it all and untangle the cables, I had to label each one so I knew how to put it all back together, Rich loved cables, it was spaghetti madness! I copied across to my new computer, all the music and the playlists and I’ve plenty of playlists of my own now, and I even started trawling through the dub, looking for tracks I liked or remembered, and I made playlists for them, I’ve deleted hundreds of tracks too, but I checked them first, and anyway everything is backed up on an external harddrive, this is my collection emerging and for now it’s a break from the vinyl.
I actually learnt more from Itunes because it was quicker, speed sorting, which wasn’t zen, but more realistic given that I’m not immortal. I did my first two reggae lists, one 70s style, one a mixture of dub reggae and bashment, and I was quite proud of myself for that and I really enjoy those lists. I smiled when I did them because I know what he would have said.
Live music has been just as important as that which I listen to at home or in the car. We held the Richi Rootz Dance in honour of him, where his fellow musicians paid tribute to him, and so did the audience and we raised £1,500 for the Laura Centre. It will be in it’s 4th year this year. We’ve raised about the same for a family room at the stroke unit at the Leicester Royal Infirmary and raised £1000 for a music studio at Soft Touch Arts. So he lives on and does good through the music. I’ve taken Holly to festivals so she can experience music live, and she’s loved it, I’ve been to more gigs and performances that I have before, and sometimes I’ve been to sound system nights, where I’ve closed my eyes and seen him there within the bassline, with my nostrils vibrating.
Now that’s what I call Grieving.
panic at the panto blog 