Play song “I sure Remember Coming Home”

When my son died age 20, some people asked after a year or so, “Have you gotten over it yet?” Well, no, I have not, even though eight years have passed.

Losing a child or any special loved one is not something you “get over”. I like the analogy of losing an arm. Yes the stub may heal, and the pain lessen, but the arm is still missing.lach2

So it came as a shock to find lyrics to a song I had written prior to his death, which was about the experience of the day of a funeral. These lyrics were predictive of how I truly did feel on the day my son was buried, and so I composed and arranged the music, and this song, “I Sure Remember Coming Home”  is the result.

I sure remember coming homeI can’t remember leaving, there was no sense of grieving,
 but I sure remember coming home:
the family were there to greet us, they’d seemed so far away,
they’d called by telephone
to let us know,
a funeral can change our lives, forever, in a day.
I can’t remember leaving, but I sure remember coming home
The tears, the hugs, the heart-string tugs,
of faces strained and noses blown,
birth marriage death,
the trilogy
of start bonding and end
 
Leunig says, “This world’s a holiday adventure place,
we are just visitors, never settled or at peace
but we’ll return to we came from, when its time for us to leave.”
I can’t remember leaving, but I sure remember coming home
Up till this time, it was leaving that had seemed the saddest time.
It takes death to focus us, on the different paths we’d take, if only we had known.
I can’t remember leaving, but I sure remember coming home
Up till this time, it was leaving that had seemed the saddest time.
It takes death to focus us, on the meaning of ‘alone’
I can’t remember leaving, but I sure remember coming home….

I also wrote a lot of poems at the time of Lachlan’s death. The poetry album, “Edgy”, contains quite a few of these poems of grief. If you have suffered similar loss of a child, “Cantankerous Behaviour” may relate.  But mixed with the grief is the knowledge that my son is at peace, too.

I refer to the great Australian thinker, Michael Leunig, in my song above. If you don’t know Michael Leunig’s work, please consider this example cartoon from his website.Falling fool

 

____________________________________________________________________