Breathe Me, Six Feet Under, life force and grief walk into a bar…

I have music to thank for getting me through the angst of adolescence, the directionless-ness of early adulthood, and keeping me moving throughout life with children, work and challenges. My love of music and dance led me to my first husband Steve, with whom I share 5 amazing children, and to Chip, my beloved husband who came along with three bonus children. These days, music is not only causing grief, but is also pulling together many of the pieces to managing the grief of losing Chip.

In my post on December 3, I wrote about how songs played in my workout classes at the gym have been pulling at my heartstrings, and Friday December 4 was no different. Kim, the always-vibrant and forever-cheerful instructor of Friday morning’s “Shred” class, typically plays a mix of old and new music that doesn’t usually yank on my heartstrings too hard. Typically, it’s her cool-down music that has me fighting back tears. She selects songs that swing musically between mournful melodies and gentle cadences to follow the high impact workout perfectly, but the songs always manage to churn up a melancholy feeling in me. Friday’s cool-down song, Sia’s “Breathe Me,” had more of a Vitamix effect rather than a wooden-spoon-through-pancake-batter effect on my emotions (Here is the official video of Sia performing “Breathe Me” from her album Colour The Small One, 2004).

For me, Sia’s “Breathe Me” is one of those “I can name that tune in 3 notes” songs. I first heard the song in 2005. The song was utilized for the montage in the series finale of Six Feet Under, a show focused on the lives of the Fisher Family, who run a funeral home in Los Angeles, and their friends and lovers. The show ran for 5 seasons (2001-2005) and was probably the last weekly TV show series that I watched without missing a single episode (with the exception of “Downton Abbey,” which Chip and I binge-watched together over the course of a few months long after the series had originally aired). In the montage in the series finale, viewers found out how each of the remaining main characters dies as Clare Fisher drives off to her future life. I sobbed extremely hard when seeing the montage for the first time, despite never having known the deep grief that I know now after losing Chip, and even harder when I watched it before including it in this post (If you view the montage here, you will know the ending of the series…if you haven’t already seen it…but it’s not really a give-away to any of the previous episodes other than seeing how and at what age the main characters die).

Somewhere in the deepest recesses of my mind, Six Feet Under, which focused on human mortality and how life and death feed off of each other and co-exist together, had somewhat prepared me for losing Chip. The show burned into my memory banks the realties of death and dying as I watched the 63 episodes in the series. The show also made it clear that the crises that characters experienced in life were directly related to their environment (i.e., working in a funeral home) and other grief they experienced in their personal lives (e.g., loss of a dream for themselves, loss of parental acceptance, loss of self-esteem, etc.), a relatable concept for me. The characters in the show use life force, or the force that gives something its vitality or strength, to push through the sadness and grief that they are surrounded by daily as they run a funeral home. It is this last idea from the show, the one of pushing through daily sadness and grief by channeling life force and emitting love, joy and unity, that taught me (unbeknownst to me in 2001-2005) the most about how to prepare for and handle life after Chip’s death (For more on the idea of life force, or the spirit or energy animates living creatures, you can go here or here).

The pain of losing a loved one is forever enshrined for me in Sia's “Breathe Me." It would be great if I could listen to the song at my discretion, likely because I need a good cry, but that is not what the universe brought me on Friday morning at the gym. But beyond pain, the song also brings a crucial piece to understanding grief: I never know when it will hit me and I'm just going to have to work through it with life force since there is no avoiding it.

My deep breaths, positive thoughts about Chip and embracing feelings of love, joy and unity that I have had throughout my life (and especially during my time with Chip) will get me through. To be sure, the latter serves the dual purpose of getting me through as well as keeping his memory alive daily.

Everlasting be his memory.

Connecticut, July 2018