Acceptance, Love, Meaning Making, Surrender

The Way of Everything

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A while back I introduced you to Mark Pearson, a fraternity brother of mine. In his sixty years as a singer and songwriter he does in music what I’ve attempted to do in words.

As a member of the folk group The Brothers Four, he’s entertained audiences all over the world.

 

Mark, in my opinion, is a master at providing life — a song track.

Today he shares a beautiful thought, and music, about The Way of All Things.

***

In March of 1994 The Brothers Four were on tour.

We had just gone from Oklahoma to Texas. When we got to the hotel I had a message to call the office. (This was clearly before cell phones.)

There was a message from my cousin Jane to call her. It turned out that day the doctors told her that she had two weeks to live.

We had only a couple of dates left in the tour. I told Jane that I would check with the guys about ending the tour early. 

“To begin with,” she said, “I am planning on outliving the doctors’ predictions.”
 
She went on to explain that…well…she was quite busy. And it would be fine to come visit right after the tour ended. I asked, “Is there anything I can do before I see you?” “Well, you will be singing ‘A Lap For Emily’ at my memorial.
What you can do is write a song for Kristoffer to sing at the memorial.”
 
Kristoffer was their 5-year-old son.
 
Jane went on to tell me that she had talked with Kristoffer the night before and when they looked up at the stars together she shared that she would be the brightest star up in the sky and she would always be there watching over him.
 
“So please write a song that tells that story.”
 
I began the process of writing as soon as I got off the phone. A whole different kind of pressure.
 
By the end of that week The Brothers Four were home. The next day I was driving from Seattle to Coeur D’Alene with a song to share.
 
About a year into her illness she began to write to me. She called her writing Streams of Cancer. Here is one of those streams.
 
“It is Sunday. The sun sets early and coldness wraps itself around the nooks & crannies of my life. I am cold often these days. Cold as a stone, buried under moss ‘n’ earth, begging for some light.
 
I rake. Leaf by leaf a pile emerges. Each leaf is a piece of my life. The pile an accumulation of the years.
 

As I rake, I begin to see patterns to the years as I see patterns in the leaves. We are intricately connected, yet we fall into the earth so alone.

Piles of the years, piles of aloneness.

Yet in the falling, there is also the piling, the resting against those other fallen leaves. The smell of another, the rough & broken edges, the fragile stem which held the life until it was time to be severed from its source.

And soon comes the snow to cover & crystallize that which has been–to change the color of things. To quiet the broken crackling leaves. To prepare for renewal by blanketing the earth w/ crystal quiet.

We planted bulbs, my daughter & I. She arranged them w/ deliberate and delicate surprise, saying I must wait till Spring to see what she did.

I told her I would hope to wait, & hope to see. ….She understood.

And should I not be there to eagerly peer at the gifts she gave, she will know me to be in the raking, the digging, the planting, the burying, the blanketing, & the final burst of beautiful bloom.

~ That is the way of all things. ~ 

It has been something these last few days to see the “burst of bloom” in the trees as they give up their greenness and reveal the color that was always there.

– for some yellow – for others red – yet others orange – together creating hillsides so alive with (dying) colors…

The last paragraph of Jane’s letter inspired me to write a song a few months after she died…she is given a co-writing credit on this song…

 Just a thought…

Mark 

I encourage you to visit Mark Pearson Music: To a lifetime of stories and songs.

https://markpearsonmusic.com/