SONG: “Closer to the Edge”
ARTIST: 30 Seconds to Mars
What does this song mean to me? Before my mom passed away, just another song my soul connected with. When she was in the hospital, the song I vowed to play every day until she got out. Now that she’s passed away? My way of knowing that she is with me. Her death was a surprise and shock to our family. The night before she went into the hospital, we talked and planned the weekend ahead of us. The next morning a phone call from my dad saying something wasn’t right, but not to worry. The next phone call was come say your goodbyes in case she doesn’t make it out of surgery. That day and the days leading up to her death are a blur in my mind. Sometimes it seems like only a few short hours and sometimes it seems like months. Even now almost 6 years after her death, time has seemed the same. She’s been gone so long and she’s been gone what feels like yesterday. There is no in between. It’s one or the other. I don’t go to this song as it reminds me of my mom and then the tears flow. This song always comes to me. Often when I was driving home to NC from Detroit, this song would pop up on my iPod in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere. It was after I had just talked to my mom, pontificated the meaning of the Universe and what it all stood for with her, or sometimes when darkness in my soul needed a light. She would come to me with this song to let me know she’s near. She still does. She lived her life honestly…brutally honest. You knew where you stood with her. If I told her some nutty dream or plan I had to live my life, she never scoffed at it, she would just say she knew I could do whatever I set my heart to. This song and these lyrics are my way to live my life: “I will never forget. I will never regret. I will life my closer to the edge.” Since she’s passed I have tried like hell to adhere to that motto and make her proud.
As this posts to the interwebs, my journey to Australia will still be in between (I land in Sydney on Nov 13). I know she is with my on my Aussie Adventure and that she will guide me as she guided me, Heather, and Suzanne when we were there in 2011. Like the guy at the end of the video says: “If you make a promise to yourself, you have to keep it no matter what.” I made a promise to myself and her to get to Australia and to live and work there. I’m halfway there…
As for the rest, I’ll figure out with her as my guide and do as I have always done…Never forget, never regret, live my life closer to the edge.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLqHDhF-O28]