"But the melody sits – the melody is my voice – it's a baritone melody." Ralph Hultgren (In conversation with conductor Matthew George in the week leading up to the premiere – June 2005)
Much of what follows in this concluding section to my case study has vivid resonance with the work of C. S. Lewis in his A Grief Observed (1966) which is based around the journals he wrote at the time of the death of his wife. This reflection on my story has multiple connections with the grief Lewis experienced and his manner of expressing what and how he dealt with emotional and everyday matters – the melody which was his voice.
How does anyone cope with death, let alone the suicide of a sibling, or of anyone close to them? As Lewis did, I turn to writing about my feelings and the impact on those around me. Nearly every day I join myself in conversation by writing a personal journal. Reflections are made on all aspects of life; being father, husband, brother, teacher, friend, colleague – a very personal journal that features many people and some quite significant events. It was the 5th of November 2003, the day Heather took her life, and I was in Singapore when I wrote, "How wonderful to spend time with Beng Wee (my Chinese 'brother') sharing God's blessing in our lives…I've just spoken to the babies and Julie…how I love them…Emma has won an excellence award at school…James has told me he spent ages on his story writing…". I then wrote a prayer.
The time difference meant Heather was still alive as I wrote, yet she had in mind what she was about to do. My life just went on as usual. This everyday practice of journaling has been with me for many years. It is at times a sieve and then a funnel. Matters are strained of excess worry or become a torrent of joy. I reflect on my lack of grace, my professional concerns and I pause often to note prayers that bring all of these things to God.
The everyday was present as I wrote, early on the morning of the 17th, that we were "…having breakfast with the big kids" (Meagan, Rebecca and Luke). I had no idea that I would call them back home that evening to tell them about their aunt's death. In the manner of my daily method, I noted a prayer…"Lord, we are safe in Your hands. We may not physically survive…"
The next day (the 18th of November, 2003) my journal entry was short.
God is gracious! Father, be with my children and Julie and Denise, Ross and Leonie, Heath and Ben
My little sister – my beautiful little Heather Jane – killed herself.
Lord, have mercy on her soul.
"I ache for her ache; I ache for her confusion and her thoughts in those last minutes of consciousness. I ache for her soul." Only a day later I am pondering, wondering and agonising; "Have I not cared enough or tried enough or wrote enough? Have I not prayed enough!!" I am not crying, just pondering. "I have wept few tears but they are coming. My babies and their Mums have wept. What a waste, Lord!" (personal journal, 19th November 2003).
The demands of family and work, the pressures of people, who are alive and 'in your face', all can diminish the ache, if only for a time. The act of living has an impact on coping with death. My ruminating notes attest to that. The travel I engaged in, part of professional life, interrupted my writing for a couple of days but my routine returned quickly. My time in Seattle, as a conductor at the Western International Band Clinic, found me contemplating my sister but "…I still (hadn't) broken apart over Heather" (travel journal, 21st November 2003). Often the everyday intruded, but the guilt of that intrusion for me was that it brought relief from thinking about her. "I can feel it welling up more but something inside me puts it back in place. I ache to cry, to grieve…the thought of her taking her own life…" (travel journal, 21st November, 2003). Yet I am back to 'normal' again; working in my conducting role and presenting an enthusiastic and energetic face to the young people I am working with. My composition, A Joyful Noise (part of this doctoral folio), received its US premiere at the event. I do remember wondering about the young people I worked with and how they were with stress and heartache in their lives; did they think of ending it?
How do people cope with grief - the utter despair that comes with loss such as Heather's suicide? How do people cope with the death of a loved one? Is death managed the same way no matter how the death occurred? One of my journal prayers asked some questions of God and of me as well.
Father, how does it happen? I have despaired of my life and ached to have it over (with); to change things mostly I guess. Only once did I think about it being over. At the river that one time and then you reminded me of Meagan, Rebecca and Luke...what of Heather, Lord? What of her soul's fate? Be merciful my gracious Father, be merciful...How I loved her! How I wished I could take away her pitiful attitude. Lord, bless those who are left...what a tragic matter! (travel journal, 21 Nov 2003)
I have composed and written in this dissertation of the experience of death and how its impact on life might be managed. My desire here is not to tell others of a formula or an antidote as such, but to share what has happened and show that a way through can be discovered, negotiated and a resolution reached.
The journaling, the writing and mulling over has seen me lucid, logical and then swamped with agony beyond description. Yet in the writing, the agony and angst; blame and guilt; the constant "if only" and "what if" that confront me - it all works toward resolution. The finality in fully grieving and some sense of understanding can be taken from the whole experience. The rationality of coping, 'common sense' as Lewis described it as (1966, p. 6), often took over for me. As my musing displays, I wanted to grieve but staunching the tears and calming the waves of emotion provided me with my most powerful coping mechanism.
I did notice I would sit and 'drum' my fingers on things more than usual. I would wander off in my thoughts and not strive to focus and direct energy to matters that needed addressing except the matters of the podium and the conductor's score. Matters to deal with via email and phone from work back in Brisbane were left unattended. There was a lethargy present which isn't part of my manner. It resonated with Lewis' description of "the laziness of grief" (1966, p. 7) gives evidence of a common impact on personal life. Like me, "except at my job - where the machine seems to run on much as usual" he found, in the period of grief, he would "...loathe the slightest effort" (1966, p. 7).
Yet the everyday allowed grieving to commence, though unknown to me as it happened. Time to grieve, and not a timetable, is most important I found. Here, like in many of life's significant areas, time is what must be given to find resolution, substance and clarity. As in other matters, it is not about addressing the components of what troubles or demands attention in a constructed manner and marking them off when completed. It is about time; time to question, to wonder, to smile and weep. Writing down the thoughts and the rumination over life helps me mitigate the adverse impacts of grief.
As the preceding narrative has shown, I was confronted by Heather's death; I could not fathom what had happened and my thoughts ran from knowing what had happened and knowing how to deal with it to being nonplussed by the circumstances and frozen in action, reaction and emotions. Despite my emotional incapacity, and my concerns over making my thoughts manifest in what Lewis describes as a "terrible little notebook", (1966, p. 10) the therapy of journaling acted to sanitise my thoughts and to clarify them. I was not producing a check list as a conscious act, but in rambling narrative and anxious prose, I was finding a manner in which to address the ever–present sadness and to move on from it, to get away and be positioned a little more objectively and with more emotional control.
Again, as reflected upon in the above narrative, life went on as my journey through the USA in November and December of 2003 continued and, though Heather appeared in the journal and my thoughts, she wasn't the focus. I sense from this distance that I may have been denying the pain of losing her. I knew when the service was being held in London (her pauper's funeral) and, at that time, the family stopped and spent some time in prayer and reflection. Yet life must be lived and we cannot just spend time thinking of the one who has gone, though guilt does seem to stalk when you find yourself spending less and less time in their 'presence'.
My Christian faith was immanent in all of this. My life is infused with my faith. It is part of my everyday activity and thought processes. It may be that I was turning back to the comfort of my faith as I would turn back to the known quantities of daily activity. Though I railed against God at times I was mostly at peace with the fact that I could do not one thing to change what had happened. I knew God was the not the instigator of my agony and was, in fact, my refuge. "Do not fret..." says the Psalmist; "be still....and wait patiently..." (Psalm 37: 7). Composing, arguably one of God's gifts to me, became part of God's refuge and I am sure that the seminal ideas for My Sister's Tears took root in this time of grief and despair.
Making music is often considered to be the act of playing an instrument or singing, but I 'make' music for others to make music. I create a good deal of functional music but much is narrative-based as well. Much is the realisation of non-musical concepts and ruminations over topics and events.
I wrote Masada to tell a story about the battle for the fortress between two groups that believed in their right to win. Whirr, Whirr, Whirr!!! portrays the confusion of a mind in conflict over right and wrong. Bright Sunlit Morning was the first work written after my coming to Christian faith and casts a light into my heart about how to respond to substantial trouble and travail in the world. My Sister's Tears follows Bright Sunlit Morning's path for it tells about Heather and me and casts a glance at the act of suicide and its impact on me, my family and those who surround me; our personal trouble and travail.
Loved ones do not move into and out of lives without having an impact, causing ripples on life's pond and a composer's creativity. With music such a dominant part of my everyday, it would be natural to suggest that I chose to write a work as part of my grieving and celebration of a life. I was compelled and driven to get it out of my head and heart, just as the sieve and funnel of my journal can act in the same way.
The musical material of My Sister's Tears has its own validity outside of the story it tells. Some will listen and not be aware of the narrative it endeavours to portray or of the overarching story of a suicide. They may enjoy it, be uplifted or respond in an emotional manner; it is that type of work. The value of the work, in that context, is its capacity to elicit a response. When an understanding of the narrative is provided more of the intimacy and fragility of its message becomes available.
It is not about guilt or about sadness alone. It is about love and hope; about a life and love shared. This does not deny the sadness inherent in a story of loss. Suicide is not a pleasant matter to contemplate let alone to write music about, but it may well be that the music is more about Heather and my memory - a loving big brother's memory - than about her manner of death as such. In Melbourne, I wrote:
It was funny to feel the sense of Heather on Friday night and yesterday (Saturday). To walk through Lygon Street and think of those times Heather and I would share a meal and walk and eat gelati. It was a little upsetting. Seeing women wandering around the markets who could have been her... (15th of February, 2004 - the weekend the work began)
It is also about accepting that once grieving is over it rebounds again and again, though its guises may change. As Lewis describes
...there is no denying that in some sense I 'feel better', and with that comes at once a sort of shame, a feeling that one is under a sort of obligation to cherish and foment and prolong one's unhappiness. I've read about that in books, but I never dreamed I should feel it myself (1966, p. 46).
As he goes on to say, "I have discovered that passionate grief does not link us with the dead but cuts us off from them" (1966, p. 47).
Cognisant of the differing circumstance in the deaths under discussion here, I am still with Lewis for "...the programme is plain. I will turn to her as often as possible in gladness. I will even salute her with a laugh. The less I mourn her the nearer I seem to her" (1966, p. 48). How often I have laughed with the family about matters of our relationship with Heather; the times we have considered her with an over-flowingly glad heart.
The challenge is to be aware of how the passion in the grief can transform me into a sniffling buffoon, and I was not that in my relationship with Heather. Yes, I was a big brother with the attendant attitudes and predispositions but I was also a mature adult who had what I hope was a mature and considered relationship with another mature adult who happened to be my sister. There is a strong sense for me that my mourning may tumble into the "passionate grief" Lewis alludes to and separate me from Heather. I do know that the celebration, the joyful remembrances and hearty laughs which accompany them, take toll on the emotional lapses and provide some strength and resolve. They have given me cause to move on from grief to memories which, though suffused with sadness are redolent with the joy of familial affection and intense love.
That does not discount the nature of such experience. Those who grieve should not expect it to be over in any complete and finalised manner. Today, as I write this, I listen again to My Sister's Tears, my reaction may well have been less dramatic than the numerous times I have listened before, however, the emotion is still as raw and as pungent. I feel again the loss and the wonder of a loved sibling. I see again the twirly dress and the pulled back hair of the young ballerina and the smile that charmed mother, father and brothers.
There is pain and joy mixed. There is despair and promise fused together in this ache of heart and soul.
Lewis illuminates the hope there is "…for grief is like a long valley, a winding valley where any bend may reveal a totally new landscape…not every bend does" (1966, p. 51). He urges we not be discouraged even though
…sometimes the surprise is the opposite one; you are presented with exactly the same sort of country you thought you had left behind miles ago. That is when you wonder whether the valley isn't more a circular trench. But it isn't. There are partial recurrences, but the sequence doesn't repeat. (1966, p. 51)
There is hope evident in My Sister's Tears. The intent in its story is to give that hope to those who grieve and to illuminate hope in the lives of those distressed and feeling alone and alienated. In a very personal sense it reflects, along with hope, both peace and love; I would suggest an innately Christian response to death.
This case study is also an illustration of the intensely personal process that a composer might embark upon when creating such an autobiographical work. There is risk in an endeavour like this, but the venture is worth the emotional jeopardy associated with it. Here I have taken my circumstance and traced a line through from anguish to hope. In my situation, my ultimate hope is in God and my endeavour is to display such hope to others. Through My Sister's Tears my desire is to describe such hope, a hope inscribed in D Major.
Lewis suggests that "the notes (the journal writing he was also doing) have been about myself, and about H. and about God. In that order." (1966, p. 52). It may well be that in composing My Sister's Tears I too have found that it has been about me, about Heather and about God. Yet, "the order and the proportions (are) exactly what they ought not to have been" (1966, p. 52). Others may also find that their grief and despair locate them at the front of their reckoning and a re-ordering of priorities may ease despair less and the intensity of personal agony.
It is in the public performance of the piece that the proper order has been realised for it is about God and his unbridled mercy and about Heather, who I hope will be a recipient of that mercy. When it is about me it is also about her and those who surround us. The vulnerability inherent in giving the work over to be presented in public is counterbalanced by the provocative nature of the narrative and the potential it has to initiate discussion about the subject matter surrounding Heather's death. It has also elicited conversations about matters beyond my creativity and musicianship and lead to discussions about the nature of being and spirituality, death and redemption.