Music is therapeutic for me. I can't carry a tune to save my life and I never perfected or even came close to perfecting any musical instrument, but music speaks to me. I used to tell Brad he could gauge my daily mood by the music that was generally blaring out the car window when I pulled in after work. My playlists are numerous and span a wide variety of genres and styles of music. While most days it's country, he would always make sure to tease me when the list called up for the day included what he would call my "gangster rap" from the good old college days. But they really do range from Classic Country, 80's Country, Pop, Rap (not so much current rap), Hip-Hop, Grunge, Classic Rock, Christian, you name it, I probably have it on a playlist somewhere.
Since we started this "C" journey, I've started to realize Life is one big compilation of Playlists and for a while, my playlist went silent. What was always my go to for feeling better emotionally was suddenly freaking me out. Every song that came on the radio or came up on my phone seemed to remind me of the dark cloud that was gradually starting to take over our lives. People have commented on how strong I've been this whole time. I would just smile and say thank you and think "if they only knew". Inside I was a mess. I was living in a constant state of trying to find strength not only for myself but for Brad and the boys, but for so many others. I mean if the closest person to Brad, his partner in life for the past 23+ years, the mother of his children, the one who drove him absolutely crazy while he loved me with all he had, couldn't be strong and positive and able to attack this beast head on, how could I expect him to or anyone else? How could anyone else be positive? Remain full of faith? We knew with his diagnosis, that if he stood any chance of becoming a survivor, we were going to need all the prayers and positive thoughts we could get. I had so many moments of screaming, sobbing, throwing things, begging it to be me and grieving my husband who was still alive that no one knew about. Anticipatory Grief is a real thing and it's something I'm planning on diving into on here in a future post. I didn't know how to cope, how to handle it, how I was going to make it so I kind of panicked when my go to therapy (i.e. my therapy in between my sessions WITH my therapist) failed me.
It took some time but what I eventually discovered was my playlist needed changed. My favorites from the past and present focused on love, hope, growing old with the one you love, what Brad called my "crybaby country bullshit". His words, not mine there. While those songs were still songs and melodies I loved, they were only dragging out the sorrow and pain that deep down I knew was coming. Yes I prayed for God to heal Brad. I prayed for more days with Brad. I prayed for God to help us understand all of this and to give us answers. We did see small answers to those prayers but what I didn't notice for awhile was that he was providing answers by shifting my Playlist.
TikTok is something I enjoy scrolling though and laughing along with in my spare time. My feed is generally full of clips where people are falling down on slippery ice (yes I know I'm a klutz that sometimes has issues walking on slipper surfaces), cattle, adorable puppies, kids saying inappropriate words and more cows. Every now and then something musical pops up and it just so happened that the duo Caleb & Kelsey started making an appearance. Caleb & Kelsey are a Christian pop husband-wife duo who live in Nashville and started out posting their renditions of popular songs online. After success by doing those, they started also doing medleys of worship songs. Both are former members of Christian groups. (Check them out HERE if you haven't heard of them). Of course the name Caleb grabbed my attention but the way these two sing is so stunningly beautiful that I quickly found myself searching for more of their content on TikTok. It wasn't long before I was hooked and began making my Apple Music Playlist for their songs. I listened to their melodies on repeat for hours. Through my earbuds while working. Blue toothed to the bathroom radio while in the shower. Late at night when I couldn't fall asleep. And if I wasn't actually listening you can bet I was humming a tune of theirs in my head. Slowly the panic I was feeling started to subside and I felt like I could breathe a little easier. My crying bouts were fewer and less frequent. I was feeling more at peace with where we were at in our battle. God didn't specifically give me answers to the questions and prayers I was sending up. But he did help ease my heart and mind to better prepare me and keep me in the present. He did this by changing my playlist. Eventually, I was able to add a few of my favorites from before back in and I was no longer finding myself in mind numbing silence.
Brad's decline came on fast and honestly out of nowhere. Four days before I took him to Pratt to the hospital, we were working calves. He was right in the thick of things the whole time. Barking out orders, sorting off cows, moving bulls down the alley, holding calf tails, giving shots. He was tired that night but we all were. It was windy and we did a lot! I woke up early the next Sunday and decided to mow the "lawn". You can always bet if I'm mowing, I've got my ear buds in listening to music and for some reason I felt the urge to pull up a playlist my sister Ashlee had shared with me. It's called "Hymns & Peacefulness" and is full of soul soothing hymns and mind easing peaceful songs. The weeks leading up to this I had shifted back to my old playlist for the most part and was handling it all well so for me to select this particular playlist on that day was a little odd. Looking back now, there isn't anything odd about it. My soul needed my Playlist to evolve to help me through what was about to become the hardest, heartbreaking, most difficult week of my life.
That playlist was playing when I drove Brad to the ER on Wednesday morning. It was playing when I ran home to get our bags Wednesday evening. And it was playing when Ashlee drove behind the ambulance that was transporting Brad to Wichita where he would take his last breath.
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