Releasing the Songbird

I’ve noticed the first of many things that this cancer has robbed me of…

I noticed it today when I turned on the CD player in my car, and realize that it had sat dormant for a week (which feels like an eternity). My favorite song “Send Me a Song” was on and I just sat listening almost as if for the first time to the voice from the radio whisper into my heart.

This was the first time since Monday that I have listened to music. Being a creature of music, a lover of the soul’s song, and a partner in the choir of expression, I am accustomed to music being part of my day. I realized this morning on the way to work that this “cancer” tried to rob me of my music, my voice. The once loud choir hosting concerts every single morning now, thanks to this diagnosis, sat quiet with no music in front of them to sing.

So this morning, I listened.

And quietly as this woman sang of reaching new shores, and one day she would follow, my heart began to hear the music resonating inside it instead of just “in my car”. Soon, a strange sensation, daresay almost foreign sensation, began to evidence itself in my throat…. Before I knew it, with the strength of a dam breaching its walls, my voice burst forth escaping from the prison of this cancer, proclaiming that it was free… And the first notes sung by me in a week came out so strong in defiance at what life was doing to me that I felt it deeply in my chest. The notes were beautiful, the music was perfect, and when the song continued with determination, soon the tears came too. But I kept going. And while my voice cracked and the tears flowed freely I kept going until I knew with certainty that my songbird, my spirit’s voice had been set free.



You learn in times of stress to appreciate the small moments like these. I appreciated this morning’s journey as a brief respite from cancer. A brief moment when even I, who’s life has been tremendously altered (just as so many others before me), was once again, human.

More to come later…