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Mom |
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Music...Art...Transcendence Bach, Beethoven, Mozart - These are the ones most often mentioned when speaking of great classical composers. This man however, will always be grateful for a little Canon by Johann Pachelbel because of what it meant to his mom in her time of need.
I think it was my friend Allan Tibbels who first introduced Pachelbel's
Canon to me. At the time I remember thinking it might be the
My wife and I were actually living with my parents at the onslaught of the disease waiting for our house to be built, in late 1986. As it turned out our living there was good timing considering the demands that caring for someone with cancer can make on a family. As is often the case with cancer, there was quite a lot of pain that my mom had to endure. And as the disease progressed, the pain naturally increased. It was hard to tell just how much mom was suffering at times because she was never one to complain. Every once in while however I would see her grimace when she didn't think anyone was watching. You see Mom didn't like taking the different pain killers that were available because of the mental stupor, and hallucinations, they would often cause. So she basically took the pain as best she could. In early 1987 I purchased my first CD player. Since all of our stuff was in storage, a set of headphones was all I had to listen with. The first CD I bought for my new toy was...you guessed it...Pachelbel's Canon. Mom was laying on the sofa in the living room when I came home that day. I proceeded to set up the CD player and sat down to listen. After listening to the Canon several times over I turned to my mom and told her she just had to hear this piece of music. Now she had heard this before, over the years, from both my brother and myself so she was understandably hesitant. Prior requests of this nature had seen her subjected to the likes of Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, etc., on the part of her two sons. Great stuff mind you, but not exactly in tune with my mom's taste in music. But after some assurances from me and aided by her curiosity in the new technology; She allowed me to place the headphones on her and play for her - Pachelbel's Canon in D. As I stood over mom and watched the expression on her face...I could see she was really enjoying the music and that it was clearly taking her someplace...someplace outside of herself. For the first time in month's I saw a look of peace and contentment come over her. As she lay there with her eyes closed her whole face seemed to completely relax. When the music ended she asked me to play it again...and then again...and again. We quickly figured out how to program the player to repeat the Canon over and over for her. I'm not sure whether it was after the first listening or not but at some point she looked up and said it was the most beautiful thing she had ever heard, and that somehow as she listened to it her pain would diminish considerably. Well, this was all most of us in the room at the time needed to hear, to completely lose it. And you know that to this day, my brother in-law Jim cannot listen to the Canon without immediately thinking of mom, the comfort it brought her and the terrible sadness that comes from her being gone. Mom would listen to the Canon many more times in the ensuing month's drawing much comfort from it. But eventually even the Canon's magical elixir could not stave off the inevitable and unbearable pain that comes with this horrible disease. Then, in March of 1987, the Lord took Mary Frances Lange to be with him. Never again to feel the pain and suffering that comes to us in this life, she now enjoys music that even Pachelbel's Canon pales in comparison to...the music of GOD. Who is, after all, the greatest Composer of all. Mark
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mslange.net. All rights reserved.
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most beautiful
piece of music I had ever heard. But it wasn't until my mom was diagnosed as
having cancer that the piece took on the very special meaning it has for me
today.
