It came from a song. I have the hardest time singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” It is not because I don’t know the words or that I can’t carry a tune. This is a song about longing, wanting something, or someone or an event that for some reason you can not have. Or maybe you once had it and now it is gone. Or say as in my case I believe it is where I will someday see the face of my kid sister, long since passed away, waiting for me on the other side of this life. Every time I start this song, I stop myself. I feel my emotion catch in my throat. I feel small, alone, and abandoned. A friend asked me today why I never finish this song. For the first time in a long time I told someone why.

I am a broken soul. Most days with a little flair and a jingle or two most people don’t see through the cloud of smoke I lay out. Loss of a loved one is the toughest things that we as survivors have to live with. Tears spill because love cannot be kept. Sometimes all of that love that I am trying so desperately to contain breaks free from my heart and rolls down my cheek. Love

I never realized until today how often I don’t finish this song. This song reminds me of what once was but is no longer. It is a wish, a dream, a fear, a hope, a wanting. It is beautiful. It is haunting. It makes me happy on a good day and crushes me on a bad day. I have a habit of singing in public without invitation. My quirk, my passion, my link to sanity. I promise you that I can sing. I sometimes embarrass the people I am with but singing makes my soul feel alive. If I can make one other person’s life better even for just a span of a moment I feel like maybe I am seen, that what I do matters, that I have a reason to be. For a very long time after my sister died, I felt empty. Singing changes my aura and fixes my broken.

I try to go somewhere every Saturday. I must start this song every adventure and leave it mid verse. Somewhere in the presence of my own grief I forgot that this song means other things to different people. It is not my song and if I am going to start out on this journey I need to get to the end of the yellow brick road. So live like no one is watching, love with everything you have, make those memories and finish your song.