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featured memoryM, my good friend for close to 30 years, lived three provinces away. A few years ago she was on a trip to Jamaica celebrating the completion of her cancer treatments with her partner, K. I was so happy for her! M had been told by her doctors that she was in remission. However on the plane ride down, she developed a blood clot in her leg that traveled to her lungs. She died suddenly on that trip. I was devastated. She was the first close friend I had ever lost. It was so hard to comprehend and I grieved for a long time. Prior to her death, she had had to take several months off of work to undergo chemo treatments. During this time, M would often call or text me and give me updates on how she was coping. We would talk about the crazy ups and downs of our lives. I always cherished our talks. She told me that she was working on her guitar playing since she had all this new found time on her hands. And playing guitar didn't zap her dwindling energy. YouTube was her teacher. Unbeknownst to me, she had recorded herself playing quite a number of her favorite songs. After she passed away, her lovely partner presented me and a few other friends with a homemade CD. K had compiled about 20 recordings of M singing and playing guitar. The only device I own that could play a CD was my car stereo. It took me a long time to get the courage to listen to it as I knew it would break my heart to hear her. But finally I did. It was wonderful and heart wrenching to hear her voice, which I missed dearly. On the CD, M would introduce a song with some funny anecdote and would dedicate it to one of her friends. I was so thankful to M and her partner for this gift of song, this gift of her life! Several months later, I was having a particularly difficult day as my boyfriend and I were going through a very stressful time. There were no right answers to our problem without one of us having to make a huge sacrifice. We were at a point of ending the relationship. I decided to have coffee with a friend to talk about it and see if she had any answers we hadn't yet thought of. She was supportive but wasn't able to shed any new light on the situation. I was feeling particularly forlorn. I left our coffee date and walked to my car. Sitting in the drivers seat with tears streaming down my face, I put the key in the ignition and turned on the car. For some reason the CD player came on. It was M's voice singing. The song was "No woman, No cry" by Bob Marley. What an amazing coincidence! I had been listening to the radio the last time I was in the car. How did the CD start playing? And of all the 20 songs on that CD for that one to start playing? Perfect timing! What was also bizarre was that I have listened to that song for most of my life but had never realized that one of the lines in the song is: "everything's going to be alright". Immediately my mood changed from sadness to relief. I felt calm and reassured. I took from the words that whatever the outcome of my relationship, life was still going to be okay. I would be ok! I wiped away my tears and thanked M for sending me the message that I needed to hear. Sure enough, in time, my boyfriend and I found a solution to our problem. But even if we hadn't, I knew that everything was going to be alright... ~ SR |