Lamenting

I first heard Lynn Miles perform at a local music festival this summer.  I completely feel in love with her talents and was amazed that I had never heard of her before.  Apparently she has been writing and recording songs for over 25 years!

I always buy some CDs from new performers every year when I attend the festival, but over the years as my festival collection has grown I have become more picky in my selections.  This year, as soon as I heard her, I had to have her CDs.  One song in particular, stuck with me and my husband both.  It was a beautiful, but mournful song called "Black Flowers".  It spoke to us particularly because we are from a mining town and it is about a woman grieving her husband who has been killed in a mining accident.

Even though I loved this song at the first listen, it didn't really hit home to me until the night my mother died.  It was just a couple of days ago, but already it seems so long ago.  I stumbled home late Saturday night after leaving her death bed, feeling stunned, feeling somehow numb, actually not feeling -- at least not what I thought I should be feeling.  Then the words to Black Flowers started to echo in my head and I needed to play that song.  So I lay in bed with my iPad playing the song over and over because it made me cry and I needed to cry.

I have never before understood the ancient practice of using professional mourners, usually female who would participate in funeral rites by loud expressions of grief, sometimes even of a musical nature.  I have always found it easy to cry for others, but somehow not for myself.  My father passed away 12 years ago at the age of 90 and now my mother reached the end of her life at 97.  I feel their loss, but it is not a painful one.  Perhaps if I did not believe that they went to a better place I would be more upset.

Lynn Miles' voice is tender and achingly sad. The song reaches a keening climax that is breathtaking. I am in awe and I am grateful for her gift of song which is my grief therapy.