How to celebrate a life: The Musical

I've told you the story of how I grew up in a home where each day was welcomed with a song, where a mother who was so full of love and light, would wake me with a smile on her face and a song quite literally in her heart as she warbled out some little song so delightfully sweet she could have been mistaken for a Disney princess... on happy pills!

Days were filled with old black and white films starring the beautiful Marilyn Monroe singing her little heart out about diamonds, or the colourful and tropical South Pacific, or her favourite The Sound of Music! This love of a world where stories were told with a song was shared and encouraged in me and as I grew up during the great Disney renaissance where they once again returned to their roots and started making and releasing new films based on the old traditions and styles of the classics like Snow White and Cinderella, I was thrown into a world where musicals were once again relevant to the younger generations like myself.

I didn't grow up in a wealthy family so I wasn't one of those kids who had every single Disney movie on VHS, in part because back then they did that annoying retail trick of "buy it now before it goes back in the Disney vault" all so they could re-release it every now and then at full price instead of ever having to sell it for a low price! So being from a lower income family my Mum never fell for their annoying marketing ploy, but she did always buy me a plentiful supply of blank VHS tapes as part of birthdays or christmas so that I could record my own from the television, and as the early stage geek that I was... I actually preferred that, it was fun to record them and label them myself!

So being actively encouraged to enjoy all things musical it's little wonder that now as an adult, I never grew out of it, I still watch Disney movies and sing along with the songs, at least a third if not more of my iTunes music library is made up of original cast recordings from stage musicals, Disney films, movie adaptations of stage musicals and yes... far too many songs by the cast of Glee! and I'm not even remotely ashamed of that.

I was given a gift growing up, the ability to see the world as she did, a world where heartache and despair often drowns out the important things in life, a world where people don't always share their feelings with each other, a world where people don't always have the words to share how they feel even if they want to. What's the gift in that? I know that sounds like a strange thing to say, but these are all things that musicals excel at sharing or explaining with the world! If everyone lived life like a musical, things would be a lot simpler, a lot more honest and things would probably get done faster and more happy endings might even happen!

This is why I start the day with music, or use music to share my feelings when I need help doing so, this is why I celebrate my Mum's memory and life with music on every day that was a part of her life, the day she died, the day she gave birth to me, the day she was married, and most importantly today, the day she was born.

11th November, a day where I could easily be heartbroken and mourn, but I choose to smile through my sadness and let music bring us closer together just like it would in a musical.

So today, I ask of you one little favour, live, dance, sing and share your favourite songs from any and all musicals with the world, with strangers and with people that you love. Maybe even leave little post it notes with lines from your favourite songs in strange places for people to find. Use your imagination and let the world be just that little bit brighter today, because that's what she would do!

I love you Mum, thank you for letting me be a part of your world.

How a VHS Tape made the world a better place today!

Before my Mum died I happened to buy my first digital camera and I happened to record a short 13 second video of her sitting on the couch and waving her arms around as she did a little dance for the camera. She doesn’t say anything and she doesn’t look very well either as she’s just started a second round of chemotherapy to try to fight of the cancer which had come back, but I treasure that video with all of my heart as it was the only thing I had to remember her by that showed her alive and moving. Photographs are wonderful, but you get so much more of a person from even a tiny little short 13 second video clip.

As I’ve spoken about before, my Dad died a little more than a year later and in that time I had gotten a much better camera because I realised how important it was to take photos of things you wanted to remember. Unfortunately my Dad was the kind of person who would just make a silly face or hide behind a newspaper the minute you pointed a camera at him, so I never got a video of him before he died and that upset me.  But I figured there was nothing I could do about it, just like I couldn’t change the fact that Mum never said a word in the one I was so very lucky to have of her, so I spent the last 7 years only ever seeing them move about or talk to me in my dreams, and getting upset by the fact that the sound of their voices had started to fade from my waking memory.

That all changed today.

I have been working on clearing out the attic for a while now, getting rid of all sorts of clutter that has been saved for one overly sentimental reason or another. Mum was always the one who could take a Zen like frame of mind and periodically decluttered the whole house when I was out at school or university. She took charge of the problem that was my Dad’s hoarding tendencies, the fact he couldn’t throw away anything that might be useful some day, and that problem doubled when I came along and inherited his hoarding gene filling the house up with even more knick knacks and trinkets with sentimental value, assorted geekery collectables or craft supplies. Things squirreled away from holidays over the years, things that whilst dreadful or tacky I just couldn’t bring myself to part with. Especially true after their deaths and I was left as the heir and protector of all that remained of the lives of these two people who were no longer here to protect it themselves.

For seven years so many boxes have lain unopened, their contents a mystery and now that I am at a place in my life where I am less dependent on the past and able to begin to move forwards, letting go of many of these boxes and their once precious contents.

Today I got to a box which contained a few stray VHS tapes, one an old cartoon compilation tape I got for Christmas when I was probably only 6 or 7 and a video we bought on holiday in Gran Canaria when I was about 13 or 14 years old.  I took one look at the tapes and very nearly just threw them both into the bin, there was nothing of value there, just some childish cartoons and a video which triggered one thought “oh god not that awful video".

You see, that second video was part of a tour my parents and I did, where we went out to a banana plantation, followed by a local alcohol distillery of some sort out on a ranch in the islands sand dunes where the tour ended with a trek through the sand dunes on camels. The tour promoters filmed the whole camel trek and then charged us extra money for their poorly shot and incredibly poorly edited video of the whole thing. Both my parents and I thought this video was dreadful and watched it only the once and yet it ended up being protected all this time thanks to my Dad and I hoarding away things with even the slightest bit of sentimental value.

I have never been so grateful for this shared trait and that dreadful video until today, because seconds before I put the tape into the bin I realised that this awful thing had been hiding a wonderful gift all these years.

Video footage of both my parents

I jumped down from the attic faster than I have ever moved in my life, and for the next 30 minutes I sat in front of my television crying catching little fleeting glimpses of my parents here and there.  5 seconds here, 10 seconds there, another 5 here but this time they were smiling, 5 more and I was watching them laughing… all the while listening to the cheesiest music playing over the footage with no other sounds.

I hadn’t been so happy or grateful for such a long time, I had cried so many tears of joy I didn’t know how I still had any tears left to come out.

Then as the video was nearing the end, the most unexpected thing happened. The cameraman walked right up to my Mum as she was getting off the camel and she was suddenly right there in the middle of the frame, practically looking right into the camera and started to talk.

Just three little words, that’s all, nothing spectacular, but way more than I could have ever dreamed of hearing again in my lifetime.

It has been 7 years and 25 days since I lost my Mum, probably another week or more on top of that since I last heard her beautiful voice and today, when I had long since given up hope of ever hearing her voice again she spoke to me and told me…

“That was brilliant”

and it was.

Poppies for a different kind of remembrance day

I wrote and posted the following article elsewhere last year and I decided to repost it again here with a small introduction. 

Today would have been my Mum's 69th birthday and I'm just about to go out and remember her by doing some of her favourite things, not quite sure where i'm going to go yet but i'm going to go out for an adventure in my wee silver car which she used to share with my sister and wherever I end up i'm going to have a cappuccino and a disgustingly large and very naughty cake... probably a big freshly made merangue like we used to get and share whilst giggling like naughty school kids and on my way there i'm going to listen to a combination of my favourite songs that remind me of her and her favourite Abba album. 

But most importantly of all, i'll be wearing my Poppy and remembering her on this 11th day of the 11th month of the 11th year of this millenium.

Love you Mum x

Poppies for a different kind of remembrance day

by Ross Paterson on Thursday, 11 November 2010 at 01:04

Today is the 11th day of the 11th month and whilst many people remember those lost in battles fighting for our country i remember someone else, someone much more important - to me anyway.

Today would have been my Mum's 68th birthday, and poppies will forever be hers in my eyes. She might not have fought in fields with weapons, but she was the strongest woman i ever had the privilage of knowing and she didn't win her last fight.

Cancer is a cruel and heartless bitch, a scourge on the world and i have lost several family members to it now, none more painful than the loss of my Mum. Taken from me long before her time, just like all those poor young men forced into war to defend our country. I thank them for what they did for our country and I do not mean any dishonour to them when i say this but i shall not be wearing my poppy for them, i wear it for her.

My Mum was a kind, caring woman - not an ounce of selfishness in her body. and the number of people that came to pay their respects at the funeral certainly proved that, there wasn't an empty seat in the church as far as i remember and there were still others that sent cards from over seas who couldn't make it. Hundreds of people were that touched by her life and thought so highly of her. We had a collection for Macmillan Cancer Support that day and we raised more than £800 in her honour! To this very day i am still in awe of how loved she was and i can only hope that when its my time i'll have made even half as much of an impact on the people i encounter along the way as she did.

She did so much for me and for that i will always be eternally grateful, but its some of the smallest simplest things that i miss most of all and i would like to share some of those with you now, like the way she would wake me up singing one of her songs always in the most cheerful of moods. Most parents probably spent many a day yelling at their teenage/student kids to get out of bed and stop being lazy, mine always started my day by making me smile.

The way she repeatedly inflicted  her Abba tapes on me in the car on near constant repeat when i was little to the point where i knew the words and exact running order to each one off by heart... and probably still do! when we got a new car with a cd player instead of a tape player she missed her tapes that much that i bought her an Abba greatest hits cd to cheer her up and resigned myself to the fact that i would never be free of the damn songs but at least she would be happy! LOL

The way she bribed me to go swimming with the promise of a blue slush puppie and then how i stopped caring about the slush puppie cause i just loved going swimming with her - and also the discovery of how much fun jacuzzis were - eventually not a lot of time was spent swimming, Mum trained me well at an early age in the arts of relaxation LOL

My Mum was my best friend, not everyone is that lucky in life thats why i take great pride in remembering her life today and why I will always remember her on this day. Remembrance day may have been designed for a completely different purpose, but i don't think any of those soldiers would have minded sharing their day with such a remarkably spectacular woman.

Isabel Paterson I remember you now and forever, Happy Birthday Mum x

P.S. I Love you

I watched a film tonight for the first time since I saw it at the cinema, P.S. I Love you. For those who haven’t seen it or read the novel that it is based upon, it’s about a woman who loses her husband when he develops a brain tumour. Before he dies he writes her a series of letters and plans for them to be delivered to her one at a time after his death. He knew she would really struggle and wanted to help her through the loss himself and help her rebuild her life so she could move on. Some letters had memories he wanted her to think about, some had tasks he wanted her to complete but they all had one thing in common they all ended with the words “P.S. I Love you.”

This doesn’t usually happen in life, people often are far too scared to face their own mortality even when they are close to death themselves. I lost my Mum to cancer, she had tumours in her lung and as happens with a lot of lung cancer cases apparently it spread to her brain. She fought hard and was so ill with her chemotherapy and radiotherapy but she made it through and started to recover, it took a long time but she started to get back to normal. Unfortunately it didn’t last and her cancer came back with a vengeance as it often does when it reoccurs. She went downhill so quickly after that and so many things went unsaid, and I wish she had thought to write things down just a little note for us for when she was gone but as it was a brain tumour she started to fade before the end and that made it hard for her to write. She kept a diary – not a journal as such, just a normal daily diary for keeping track of things and she wrote in it every day what she had done or who she had seen. I read it after she died. May and Sheila visited today – brought flowers, they were lovely. Ross passed his exams, went out with friends to celebrate will be home late. Alex back in hospital but will be out on Friday. Got a letter from Ann today. Her handwriting was always so beautiful, but reading that diary you could see her fading away day by day just by watching the way that pen moved across the paper. It stopped a week or two before she died.

Dad had died as well by the time this film made it to the cinema and his death was very sudden too, it wasn’t any of his conditions that killed him – it was a bacterial infection. All those years fighting one problem after the other, open heart surgery, heart bypass, heart valve replacement, failing kidneys, dialysis and it was a simple little single celled organism that killed him and practically overnight too. I never even got to say goodbye because of interfering psychotic family members.

So watching this film with all those emotions still fresh and raw I’m not ashamed to say I cried my eyes out. It was a beautiful film and a beautiful story and I was left feeling stronger at the same time as I felt more broken than I had ever been. I cried myself to sleep that night wishing that I had gotten just one letter from them, it didn’t matter what they had said on them I just missed them so much and wanted some contact again. I felt silly for letting it get to me so much and put it down to the fact that I was depressed and dealing with what was essentially being orphaned. It doesn’t matter what age you are when you lose your parents or anyone you love for that matter its always going to feel like a part of you died as well.

My parents never wrote me letters but that doesn’t mean they didn’t love me or that they aren’t still watching over me somehow. I get little signs now and then that I take as messages from them, a song on the radio, a quote from a favourite poem or author, a shape or symbol in the most unlikely of places that caught my eye whilst I was thinking about them. This may be them showing me they are still here with me or it may be wishful thinking of a person desperately clinging to a world where things aren’t quite as hopeless as they feel sometimes, but I know one thing for sure…

A few days after I watched that film for the very first time and cried myself to sleep wishing for just one letter from my Mum I opened a box in the loft that was full of old junk looking for something which was so insignificant I don’t even remember now and in that box I found a single little piece of paper tucked away at the bottom having been there for who knows how long and on it were the following words.

To Ross, I Love you, Mum. xx

Thank you for the music

There’s a reason why music was used to calm the storm and the sky fish in the Doctor Who christmas special and its clearly not just because they wanted an excuse to use welsh mezzo-soprano Katherine Jenkins. Music really is a powerful and magical thing, it can evoke long forgotten memories, feelings of sadness or joy and all in a few simple notes or bars of a song. As with many people I have always had a very special place in my heart for a lot of songs, if asked to pick a single favourite I honestly don’t think I could. I have a favourite for every purpose, every important stage in my life, every heartache and every moment of joy and I wouldn’t change them for anything no matter how sad the association.

I recently discovered that a song I found at a particularly dark place in my life and brought me a little hope and light at the end of the tunnel may have been written about the exact same thing that the song meant to me – the death of my mother and coping or not coping with the depression caused by loss. It’s a very beautiful song that speaks of the pain of loss and also the realisation that you are not coping or enjoying life any more and wanting to start rebuilding your life again. I found it odd but also particularly significant that I should stumble upon a song like this and connect so deeply to the lyrics and such clear and powerful emotion being conveyed at this time in my life, but given my history of falling in love with songs instantly I just accepted it and moved on knowing that I had added yet another song to my ever growing list. Here I am three years later and I finally discover that it was written by someone who was probably feeling the exact same things I was feeling, thinking the exact same things that I was thinking and you can really feel it in the words and the way every ounce of the song feels like it comes straight from the heart of a broken man.

I could take this moment to tell you what the song is, who the artist is or even link to a video to let you hear it, but that isn’t important because it won’t make any difference because its my song and no matter what I hear or feel when I put it on – it won’t be the same for you. This isn’t a personal attack to anyone reading this, its simply the truth and the reason it is true is a point I’ve already raised – we all have songs that make us laugh, smile, cry or spark that last little piece of hope we have for a happy ending. This song is mine, others may also share it and I truly love the thought that others may also have found hope or solace in this song.

Go stick on a song that means something to you and smile or cry, it doesn’t matter which – just enjoy it and appreciate it for everything it represents to you and maybe even take a moment to say thank you to the person or people who wrote it and made it possible for you to feel this way.