The Playlist

I hang up the phone with my friend Karen and return a call from Lauribeth, who left a message while I talked to Karen. The web of connections I have with sweet people who know each other is complex and beautiful. Karen’s daughters and Lauribeth’s twin girls met in college, and in a roundabout way I get to share in their relationship, knowing the moms separately.

We get caught up on what is going on in our lives then right before I hang up, Lauribeth says, “I’m going to send you a playlist to pass on to Karen. It’s one Maegan made for Morgan when she was in the ICU with her strokes. Can you text it to her?” I swallow hard and answer in the affirmative. Karen is looking at 18 weeks of chemo treatments. Maegan had several brain surgeries and made this playlist for her twin who suffered multiple strokes.

“I can’t talk about it right now because I’m about to walk into a Christmas party. I don’t want to be a mess, but yes, I’ll send it on and listen to it later.”

“You’ll love it, but don’t listen now!” she agrees with my plan and we click-off.

When my Christmas luncheon is over, I brave pushing play on the link. Some of my favorite inspirational music streams out of the speakers on the car ride home. The whole drive, I think about my sweet friends, what they’ve been through, and what they currently face.

I am, by nature, an easy crier; when a trigger hits and I’m unprepared emotionally, the tears just stream down my cheeks while my brain stands by helplessly. Just a few weeks ago a video popped up on my phone of a daughter who surrounded her dying father with her young friends. They sang all his favorite hymns a Capella. I don’t even know those people, but the tradition of singing over the beloved is such a part of my spiritual DNA, I wept and wept over what they shared, over who I’d lost without getting to sing them into glory, over who would sing over me as I pass into Jesus’ arms. . .

That memory ran into a more distant one. Eight years ago, I sat with my mother in the Day Room at River Place. Ladies from First Baptist played the piano and we sang along. Mom couldn’t tell you what day it was or who was President. She struggled to get sentences together to express what her knotted synapses wanted to tell me. But, she knew every word of those songs and sang faultlessly, “Farther along we’ll know all about it. Farther along, we’ll understand why. Cheer up my brother, live in the sunshine, we’ll understand it all by and by.”

I pull into my driveway as “The Goodness of God” from Maegan’s playlist starts. This is the song I tell Siri to play almost every day. If this were my earlier life, the cassette tape would have frayed long ago. Y’all, I hate suffering. I hate cancer. I hate strokes. I hate Alzheimer’s. I hate the uncertainty of undiagnosable mystery diseases. I hate loss. I hate anxiety. I hate separation. I hate worrying how all this hate is going to end. I expect tears to start running unrestrained as I pull into my garage.

But.

I.

Love.

These.

Lyrics.

“All my life You have been faithful

And all my life You have been so, so good

With every breath that I am able

Oh, I will sing of the goodness of God.”

I know His goodness is running after me, and Karen, and Maegan, and Morgan. I know His goodness is running after my sweet Mom. So, I’m not going to be anxious about who’s singing over them, or who will be singing over me, because I’m sure someone will click play on Maegan’s playlist for us when we can’t do it ourselves.