singing down the storm.......

Singing Down the Storm by Vicki Woodyard

There is a way we can sing down the storm, but perhaps it is the unlikeliest way you can imagine. The only way I have found to do this is to be authentic in the moment. Being real is being courageous. I have had reason to study storms, believe you me. The first one hit me when I was thirty-two years old. My daughter was diagnosed with a fatal childhood cancer right before she turned four. Right after she turned seven, we buried her in the dress she wore on her birthday. How did I sing down that storm? I’m not sure I did. Maybe I managed to keep breathing, but that was about it. I took to the spiritual path with a vengeance after her death. We owed money, our son was angry about losing a sister, and my husband’s job demanded all that he had and more. I was smack dab in the middle of a very long storm. I have always been honest to my core and I do believe that is a kind of singing. I wrote oneliners the whole time my child was undergoing treatment. We would be with her as she got chemo and then in the middle of the night, while my husband slept, I would hold the emesis basin as she vomited for several hours. Daylight would come and I would submerge myself in getting my son off to school, keeping house and paying bills. We spent the minimum and paid the minimum on our credit card bills. My daughter’s treatments at St. Jude’s were free, but not the incredible nursing expenses that we incurred during her last days. I sang down the storm with my children as my daughter taught us the true meaning of love. She sat and colored and watched The Brady Bunch and wondered why she was so often sick. On the last trip to the hospital, she asked to look out the window at the sky and the trees. No doubt that is what sang to her in that moment. The spiritual path was singing to me about the great mysteries of life and love. The Book of Mirdad says, You live that you may learn to love. You love that you may learn to live. No other lesson is required of man. I spent many hours reading books about the inner journey. I was going on it, ready or not. Years passed and in 2000, I had another storm to sing down. My husband was diagnosed with a fatal cancer as well. Multiple myeloma is an incurable cancer of the bone marrow. I was devastated. He had been given less than three years to live. A familiar figure - exactly how long our daughter lived. At first I didn’t sing; I was too busy crying and cursing. It was honest, though. As always, I tried to be myself in the midst of the mayhem. Finally, I took hold. I became a caregiver for the second time. I knew the tide would eventually sweep him out to sea, but until it did, I would cling to the shore with him. He wanted to live, not only for himself, but for my son and I. In Christmas of 2004, he left this world. I had sung myself through two storms of my life. As I said, being myself is what has brought me through. I still have anxiety attacks and feelings of loneliness, but I also have the strength of who I really am to carry me through. The notes I write and record are all I have to offer. Two angels would be awfully proud that I still have some harmony left to share.