Thank you everyone for sharing Erik's memorial with us, either in person or through your cards, flowers, thoughts, prayers, prayer-equivalents, and so many kindnesses! There are no words to express our gratitude for your support and love throughout this entire process - thank you so very much!
For this last post, I wanted to share two things from the memorial:
During Erik's last couple days, his cousin texted him about writing a song, and asked him what he'd like. The last text Cypress got from Erik contained only the words "Irish Punk" (!) So Cypress researched what Irish Punk sounded like, and wrote this amazing Irish Punk song for Erik!
And finally -
I really wanted to honor Erik's request for us to not be sad, but to be happy, get together, "eat and reminisce!" But I felt like I needed to grieve and find comfort first, so here's part of the Welcome I asked our celebrant to read from me at the service.
... he said he wanted us to just get together and eat and reminisce. And that’s what we’re doing.
But I think before we can truly celebrate, we need to be able to express our grief, and to somehow find consolation for the inconsolable. For me music has always been both expression and consolation, so I want to play two very short pieces. For the first, I adapted some verses by Frances W Wile, and set them to one of my favorite tunes, the old Scottish/English folk song “The Water is Wide.” Playing this little piece over the last week or so has given me a lot of comfort.
For the second, I used to play lullabies to the boys at bedtime, and one of my favorites was “By’m Bye,” an adaptation of an old spiritual. It’s designed to go on and on until the children fall asleep, but I’ll just do the one verse. It’ll be both a reminiscence, and a hope that maybe we’ll meet up again someday.
So much love to you all!
