GBE #2 - week 22 - Safe haven

 

WHAT IS THE MUSIC BACKDROP OF YOUR LIFE?

Music for me started with this: Southie Is My Hometown

I was born down on “A” Street,
Raised up on “B Street,
Southie is my hometown;
There is something about it,
Permit me to shout it,
It is tops for miles around;
We have doctors and flappers,
Preachers and scrappers,
Men from the Old County down;
They will take you & break you,
But they’ll never forsake you;
For Southie is my hometown. 

I never seem to follow my first inclination of what a writing question suggests would be a good story.

I truly thought that I would tell you that I love almost all music with good lyrics.  I'm Irish and grew up in Dorchester and South Boston, Massachusetts and St. Patrick's Day was more than a celebration, it was almost a sacrament.  You didn't have to know the words, but you learned them eventually.  My blog's name - A Good Cup Of Tea - is because I'm Irish... we drink a lot of it.  A good cup of tea (pronounced tae in my grandfather's brogue) can solve every problem, celebrate every victory - sometimes with a drop or two of whiskey in it.  

Irish music, like the Clancy Brothers, Tommy Makem, The Irish Rovers, formed my base of loving music that told a story.  I still love them today.   Molly Malone, Whiskey In A Jar, Danny Boy, Four Green Fields, The Unicorn, The Wild Rover and so many more that told you a story of lives lived.

My grandfather left Ireland during the famine when he was 16 or 17 - hard to be sure as records were kept in churches then, and a priest may only come once a year or so to small villages, and he'd ask when the child was born and they'd say April last but it was a guess really.  I've done the a family tree from what I could gather but I am back 4 generations.  I know the ship that my grandfather sailed on.  I know that he was 17 when he worked his way to the States but that he worked his way across Ireland, and worked on a boat to make it to Scotland, and worked on the ship that brought him to Boston.  I know that he worked as a longshoreman after that, and my Mom said he delivered milk in a horse-drawn carriage.  He was almost 100 years old when he died.  Or maybe.. 101.  I can still hear his brogue. 

My mother's father.  I don't ever remember seeing my mother cry until the day he died, and it destroyed her.  

Her story continues.  She is 92 and it has been a difficult year for her.  She had a bad fall and broke her hip, both bones in her wrist, her humerus (upper arm) very high and had to have a plate placed there to put her back together.  She went through weeks at rehab and told us she couldn't do it, she couldn't walk again, it was too hard.  Rehab facility was amazing and one of the therapists asked where she lived before she came in.  She told them at her house.  So the therapist asked her who she lived with.  She said she lived alone in her house, but that her daughter helped her with things like grocery shopping, and the rest of us visited.  The therapist said, "You were living alone in your own house? Well, you walked in here and you are going to walk out!  It will be hard work, but you were a nurse and you raised 6 children so you know what hard work is.  Today, all you have to do is stand up."  And she did.  Then she spent the summer in Massachusetts, and I got to visit her every month and spend time with her.  She returned to Florida before the cold and snow set in.  She's using a walker now for safety and my sister spends the nights with her for safety sake but she walks every day and still loves music.  

My Kate introduced me to the music of Matt Nathanson when she was a teenager - a very long time ago. If you asked me who my favorite singer/songwriter is right now, I may say it was him.  So many of his songs touch my soul, and none more than 'Run' which is a duet he sang with Sugarland.  It is my favorite song with my favorite lines 'I'm amazing when you're beside me, I'm so much more."  Those words are tattooed on my arm as a reminder of where I come from and how music has enriched my life.