Connections

Many of you have heard by now about the Learjet carrying six people that crashed in Columbia, South Carolina this past Friday night.  Four people were killed and the two survivors recovering in a burn center in Augusta, Georgia are Travis Barker and DJ AM.  Here’s a link to the latest news of their condition: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0055003/news#ni0570275 .  According to this source, the two are “expected to fully recover from this horrific event.”

I’ve written before about the way music connects emotion, memory, artist, and fan (see previous blogs “Someone saved my life tonight” and “Musician, heal thyself”).  Today I am further considering the complexity of these associations.

This tragic event has changed the way I will listen to Blink 182 and subsequent projects that drummer Travis Barker has been involved with.  As someone who has enjoyed and appreciated his art, I already feel a kind of connection with him.  When I hear him, I celebrate life–keeping the beat with him, thinking about where I was when I first heard the song and then thinking about the wild ride to where I am today.  Now, I will also be thinking of the horror of what he has survived, wishing I could know how he is, and wishing I could do something to help him.

That’s it . . .

Thoughts on bands and grief and loss

I’ve been thinking of the Dave Matthews Band a lot the last couple of weeks.  They lost their saxophone player (founding member, arranger and co-writer LeRoi Moore) to complications following an ATV accident last June.  To lose a member of the band and continue on without them is very difficult.  Every rehearsal, every concert, every song is a constant reminder of them.

The grieving process is a long one.  The key to moving through it is to stay open to all the possible levels of the grief.  Each will experience these in different measures of time and intensity.  There may be anger, sadness, guilt, and regret.  A critical element of support is to accept one another’s emotions without judgment.  There is not one best or right way to get through, except to remain open to feel.

The most painful, yet most present way to live is finding your own way to celebrate that person’s life with gratitude for being a part of it while the deep emotions of grief are ready to surface at any moment.  The tension between remembering and stepping forward into the future will weigh upon the members of the band for many months, even years.  Your lives ahead will be an endeavor to do both.