Grief Triggers

[Erinesque]

My dad died a year ago this Friday, February 12. This past week especially has been very hard; the last time I got to talk to him was on February 5, and just the other day, I heard somebody in my neighborhood using a chainsaw, just like my dad used to do. I guess that because I could only hear it, but couldn't see the person using it, it triggered memories, and I just broke down. I'm just grateful that I've got his text messages saved, and have a precious video of him preaching on youtube.

[Lady Legira]

I still often get little things that set me off even six years after my husband died. Can often be something as simple as a favourite song on the radio. They come less but I still get drown by them occasionally.

[morgana]

My father died 16 years ago. A friend of my mother sang "Danny Boy" at the funeral.

To this day, I will cry when I hear that song.

[MoonCat]

If I hear "Taps" I will fall completely apart. We couldn't get anybody from the local veterans' groups to do it at my dad's funeral, and I always feel like I failed him, even though I know he probably wouldn't really have cared.

[XCashier]

My father died 16 years ago. A friend of my mother sang "Danny Boy" at the funeral.

To this day, I will cry when I hear that song.

I'm the same with "How Great Thou Art". I cannot hear that song without my dad's funeral coming to mind.

[Sunshine]

Mosaic tiles. Yeah, I know its weird. My grandmother had mosaic tile stepping stones in the backyard of the house I live in(when she lived here). They've long disintegrated but every once in awhile we'll find one, like pennies from heaven.

[Eireann]

I used to love "Tears In Heaven". I can't listen to it now. I understand it much better than I did when it came out.

[IT Grunt]

It's "The Old Rugged Cross" for me. It was my father's favorite hymn, and my wife sung it at his funeral. To this day I can't get through it without tearing up, and it has been 17 years since he passed away.

[HotelMinion]

Oh boy. Mom passed a few years ago. Triggers are: Everytime the news mentions cancer, When I see a mom and her little mini me holding hands in the street, the song "A song for mama", yes "tears in heaven" too, and the song I dedicated to her when she was still alive "Daughters". I can still see her eyeroll at that. Lol

[jedimaster91]

The country song "If Heaven" came out right around the time a close friend of mine died. I have never been able to listen to that song. There was a stereo in the bathroom and I have a vivid memory of that song coming on the radio and me getting out of the shower sobbing to change the channel as fast as I could. He's the reason I can't listen to "If I Die Young" either. Other songs can trigger the grief if I'm in the right mood. It's been 11 years since he died.

The grief of losing a loved one never really goes away. It just gets easier to live with.

[Seshat]

If I hear "Taps" I will fall completely apart. We couldn't get anybody from the local veterans' groups to do it at my dad's funeral, and I always feel like I failed him, even though I know he probably wouldn't really have cared.

Rent or borrow or buy a bugle or trumpet (or whatever instrument you most wish it had been played on); and learn to play it. Then take a special trip to his grave, memorial, place his ashes are scattered, or other emotionally-significant place. And play it for him.

It will be special-er (I decree that that's a word) because YOU are playing it. Because you learned it.

If you have disabilities which prevent you from playing it on a brass instrument (and I know brass is the traditional instrument type); play it on whatever you CAN play it on. Instrumentalist musicians are likely to be sympathetic to the desire, and attempt to help you find a suitable (and affordable) instrument.

I offer this simply as a way to provide closure for that particular problem. I hope the idea is either useful, or sparks some useful idea.

Taps is a simple enough song to play as an intermediate amateur: you won't have to work your way to professional or skilled amateur level to play it well enough to satisfy yourself. Unless you're a perfectionist!

[dalesys]

... play it on whatever you CAN play it on...

Trombone...
I have played bugle calls as harmonics on a single string of a guitar...

[MoonCat]

Thanks, Seshat. I don't think I could do that, my musical "talent" is in the negative numbers. But I might eventually be able to find a group to do it. A few years after my dad died I found out that a group in a nearby suburb make themselves available for ANY veteran if needed. So there is a possibility, I just have to make the effort.

I have another trigger, actually. "Memory." Yes, that song from Cats. It reminds me of our old cats who are gone now, and every time I see Cats at the theater I turn into a blubbering blob of jelly