Speaking Through the Soundtrack

Dealing with a broken heart after your soul mate dies is devastatingly isolating. I’ve had to endure emotions so heavy and exhausting that it’s as if I’m walking through a wall of Jell-O. But along the way, I’ve had a soundtrack that has put an exclamation point on every feeling and reminded me that I’m not alone.

On October 10, 2022, my beautiful wife, Wendy, lost her battle with colon cancer. It was never a fair fight. She was diagnosed only 251 days earlier, and it caught us both off guard because we did everything they told us to do to avoid the disease. We ate a healthy, primarily vegetarian diet, took vitamins, and exercised; she rode her bike more than 50 miles a week. Cancer didn’t care.

The DJ was born

While she was alive, Wendy never passed by an independent record store without spending at least a ten spot. She left behind an incredibly eclectic music collection that contained equal amounts of every genre: bluegrass, classical, experimental, jazz, pop, rap, and rock. As much as she loved John Coltrane’s sax, she also adored the banjo of Earl Scruggs. She’d crank up the stereo for Bach or Kendrick Lamar. Seven months after her passing, I’m still going through 24 boxes filled with CDs.

While her physical existence may have ended on that horrible day in October, DJ Wendy has come to life, often delivering meaningful songs via any platform available: the car radio, coffee shop overhead speakers, online streaming services, and even a friend’s home sound system.

It all began the morning after her passing. Who could imagine these five songs playing back-to-back on the local radio? While she may not have been physically in the passenger seat, she was still in the car with me.

“Say a Little Prayer for You” – Aretha Franklin

My favorite Aretha tune brought me to tears because, of course, I was saying all kinds of prayers for my best girl that morning.

“Loneliness Loneliness” – Ralfi Pagan

Did my heart need to be reminded how alone I was without her?

“Into the Mystic” – Van Morrison

My favorite Van Morrison song was the absolute right mix of mournfulness and hope.

“Sabor a Mi” – El Chicano

Living in Southern California, why wouldn’t a Spanish tune make it into the mix? And this one reminded me of how tied together we were, in both body and soul.

“So much time we’ve enjoyed this love /

Our souls got so close like this /

That I keep your taste, as you carry too /

The taste of me /

As if you denied my presence in your life /

It would be enough to hug you and talk with you /

So much life I gave you /

What strength do you already have? /

Taste of me”

Then came “Angel Baby” – Rosie and the Originals

By the time this song made it into the rotation, I knew she was speaking to me. I looked at the dashboard speakers and said aloud, “Really? You have to point this out?” Clearly, Wendy wanted to let me know that even though she was in another realm, she was also still with me.

California farewell

Growing up near Chicago, I wanted to live in Southern California long before Wendy got offered her position as an art history professor, which initiated our move to Long Beach from Illinois. We drove across the country during our relocation and it was a long three-day trek. The very first time we saw the sign on the 405, Wendy exclaimed, “We live in a beach city!”

She said living in SoCal was like being on vacation every day. We loved so much about being there: biking along the beach, hiking in the mountains and Joshua Tree, seeing such diverse art in galleries throughout Los Angeles, and the parrots, pelicans, peacocks, and other wildlife we’d encounter in our neighborhood. We were always grateful and wanted to end our careers there. Sadly, only she accomplished that, and in the worst way.

Without Wendy’s salary, our debt became too much for me to bear alone. Plus, the medical bills were stacked high, and it became impossible to continue to live in our home.

It broke my heart to head “back East” on my own with only an urn of her ashes seat belted into the passenger seat. It seemed only appropriate to hear the Ides of March as I departed. That Chicago band was well-played on WLS radio when I was growing up. My wave length was sorrowfully long that last day in California.

“L.A. Goodbye” - Ides of March

Settling into a new normal

Once I relocated to Wendy’s hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, I walked into a favorite coffee shop we frequented during many of our trips to visit her mother. The grief of so many losses (my wife, our home, and our life) so quickly added up and put me in a particularly sorrowful mood that rainy February morning. Over the coffee shop speakers, one of my favorite Jackson Browne songs started up. I had to believe Wendy understood my weariness as well as the regret many widows carry for everything unsaid and undone for their departed spouse:

Well, I’ve been out walking /

I don’t do that much talking these days /

These days /

These days I seem to think a lot /

About the things that I forgot to do /

For you /

And all the times I had the chance to /

“These Days” – Jackson Browne

But Neil Diamond will forever be correct, “And I love her, God knows I love her.”

“Kentucky Woman” – Neil Diamond

Before I was able to unpack Wendy’s beloved stereo, I listened to music on the computer. A true audiophile, Wendy hated playing music on the computer due to the horrible tinny sound. But one of her favorite Father John Misty tunes came into the rotation, and the lyrics struck a chord that morning as I settled into the new apartment:

“Oh, and no one every really knows you and life is brief /

So I’ve heard, but what’s that gotta do with this black hole in me?”

“Holy Shit” – Father John Misty

Also, juggling the sale of our beloved “forever home” from long distance and dealing with a plethora of bills and paperwork that constantly required me to produce her death certificate was taking a toll. I sat working one morning and decided to randomly pull a CD from the more than 1500 CDs in my wife’s collection. How appropriate that Andrew Bird’s words would encapsulate my heartbreak and the feeling that I was, in fact, in a modern circle of Dante’s hell.

“Sisyphus peered into the mist /

A stone’s throw from the precipice, paused /

Did he jump or did he fall as he gazed into the maw of the morning mist? /

Did he raise both fists and say, “To hell with this,” and just let the rock roll? /

Let it roll, let it crash down low /

There’s a house down there but I lost it long ago /

Let it roll, let it crash down low /

See my house down there but I lost it long ago”

“Sisyphus” - Andrew Bird

I know you’re sorry

Wendy loved her job. She loved it so much that even with Stage 4 cancer, she worked until the very day the hospice nurse walked in the door and just two days before falling into a coma. I knew she was compelled to do it, but it did not make it any easier when I met with HR representatives at her school and discovered she’d left 102 sick days on the table. That equated to three months that we might have otherwise shared together and three months I could not magically get back with her on this earth.

For weeks, that valuable lost time bothered me to the core. As I sat one day and worked on the computer with music streaming in the background, a song I’d never heard before by a band I’d never heard before popped into the rotation. The lyrics came forward:

“Put my work in front of my girl /

There’s something wrong with that /

Put my work in front of my girl /

There’s something wrong with that /

Something really, really wrong with that /

I know this to be true”

“All the Time” – Bahamas

My head spun around. What? I hit repeat and played the song again. “Interesting,” I spoke out loud to the air, directing it to Wendy, hoping she’d hear me wherever she now lingers, “I accept your apology.” And I do.

Ask anyone grieving the loss of their loved one, and they’ll tell you that you never know when the wave of grief will hit you and knock you off your feet. I felt that immense sorrow one afternoon and decided to take a drive to clear my head. I always pay attention to whatever song comes on the radio because I have to believe it’s how my wife communicates. She did not disappoint as I turned the key and heard a tune to remind me that our very short 11 years together were the best of her life and that she’d found “love in the nick of time,” just as I had.

“Nick of Time ” - Bonnie Raitt

And as I continued to question her untimely death, the very next song was Joy Oladokun explaining,

“We’re over our heads, so I’ll say it out loud/

We’re all gonna die tryna figure it out /

We’re all gonna die.”

“We're All Gonna Die” - Joy Oladokun

Yet I still had to wonder, about what The Beatles sang next,

“Whatever happened to /

The life that we once knew? /

Can we really live without each other? /

Where did we lose the touch /

That seemed to mean so much? /

It always made me feel so...” /

“Free as a Bird ” - The Beatles

Can this be real?

As the months have passed, I’ve wondered whether all this music is a coincidence, something I’m making up, or an actual phenomenon. One instance truly made me believe it is the way my music-loving wife tries to get through.

I had a private session with a medium shortly after Wendy’s death. She’d been so incredibly accurate during that first meeting that I tapped her again for additional insight.

During the Zoom meeting, she stopped, apologized, and said something was happening with her home’s sound system.

“I don’t know what’s happening; there’s music playing.”

I stopped cold and inquired, “What’s the song?”

She told me, but I didn’t recognize the title.

“Who is the artist?” I quickly asked.

When she said, “Bahamas,” I begged her to let it play. “You have no idea,” I explained, thinking back to the apology only two months before.

“Lost in the Light” - Bahamas

“It was my greatest thrill /

When we just stood still /

You let me hold your hand ’til I had my fill”

And through this song, Wendy let me know that not only the medium, but many of my friends were there to help me through this horrific loss journey.

“So if someone could see me now /

Let them see you /

Let them see you /

See you through /

All the hard things we’ve all gotta do /

’Cause this life is long /

So you wouldn’t be wrong /

Bein’ free, leaving me on my own”

The song played as the medium and I both burst into tears.

The lyrics came through as if Wendy was speaking directly to me and trying to ease my sorrow. Wherever she is, she is “lost in the light,” and is reminding me about one of the things I miss most and know she took delight in as well: simply holding hands.

Just hours before she died, as she lay in a coma, I leaned in close and whispered to her, “If you figure out a way to talk to me, I will figure out a way to listen.” I have to believe that each song she keeps popping into the soundtrack not only reminds me of our life together but also how we’ll continue forward.