I prefer the silence of meditation and memories.  I prefer to mourn quietly.  I don’t want to do it for a long time as I’d rather celebrate the life, but I do honor the act of mourning even though I believe in life eternal — especially for those who leave us seemingly early.

I lost over a hundred friends in the AIDS epidemic in the 80s and 90s.  Back then, when someone you knew was diagnosed as HIV positive, that’s when you mourned.  By the time they passed, you were grateful the ordeal was over for them.  It wasn’t fun and I’m sorry to say that I got used to it somewhat.  It became a regular occurrence in my life.  Who was next, one wondered, and it was always somebody.

Two wonderful people that Julia and I knew lost their son, Maurizio, in the late 90s Swiss Air crash over Halifax.  We went through this experience with these two loved ones and shared their grief.  Up until this point in life I pretty much left grieving to all the others and tried to focus on the positives of the life lost, but in this situation I got caught in the middle of it and fully experienced the parent’s powerful grief.

I remember once when the father began to weep in his grief and got up from the dinner table and walked over to the nearest wall, leaned his forehead on the wall standing up and just bawled for about 4 minutes straight.  We sat quietly and waited him out.  When he finished, he simply came back to the table, sat down and resumed eating.  He got it out of his system for the moment, and that taught me a great lesson.  His grief would build and he would cry it out.  Seemed like a good idea.

But I’m not built that way.  I guess I need to reason it out.  Sometimes I wonder if I’m cold.  When my Dad passed away, I decided that he had just moved to California.  This way I avoided the grief.  Seemed like a good idea.

Now, each time it’s different.  I let the person and the situation determine the reaction and simply try to go with my heart, but usually it’s a quiet thing.  I wrote this song for Maurizio and his parents.  I never knew Maurizio, but it was easy to mourn for his parents.  I think they suffered far more than Maurizio.

In Silence

When one you love disappears
Like smoke they blow away
The heartbeat rings in your ears
In silence
In silence

You lose your place with it all
And life goes hollow
You turn your face to the wall
In silence
In silence

But I am here for you
I will see you through

And if you weep then I will weep with you
And if you mourn then I will mourn with you
And if you die then I will live for you
In silence
In silence

The bells they toll on the wind
They sing of sadness
The mending soul must begin
In silence
Begin in silence

And as you bear your pain
Your loss will be your gain

But if you brood then I will brood with you
And if you grieve then I will grieve with you
And if you break then I’ll be there for you
In silence
In silence

We will weep
In silence
We will mourn
In silence
We’ll remember in silence

We will heal
In silence
We will mend
In silence
We’ll go on in silence

We will love
In silence
We endure
In silence
And we carry on…

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When my dad died, that was probably the first whopper that I had to face. I was in my 30s at the time and remember taking the adjustment that he did not die, but instead moved to California and gave up his telephone.

This helped. Often, over the years we have had little visits in my dreams and I’m always grateful for those times together no matter how intangible they are.

Lately, dear friends seem to have been dropping right and left. So many, in fact, that I find myself feeling slightly accustomed to the experience. The Aids epidemic in New York where I live was a rough stretch also.

Working in the theater where there has always been a large gay population, I lost over a hundred friends and cohorts over time. That disease decimated several generations of hugely talented artists and changed the course of the American theater.

In the experience with Aids I found that the real mourning took place not when they finally passed away, but when they were first diagnosed. At that time the disease was so fatal that once a person was diagnosed, it was over.

That’s when the mourning took place. Then, what they went through in the ensuing months was so rough that by the time they left us, we were grateful that it was over for them. Now, gratefully, people, at least here in the U.S. seem to live through it more often than not.

So death is not a concept unknown to me. I’ve learned to cope with it.  Unfortunately, I’ve had a lot of practice. I’ve learned to celebrate the life and not mourn the death. I’ve made a choice to attend memorials and avoid funerals when possible.

I’ve learned to think the phrase, “God needed them elsewhere” over and over until I accept the logic of it. I’ve learned to focus on the soul and spirit of the person and not the body. I’ve considered the eternality of life and simply decided to totally buy into the concept and live it as hard as I can, moment to moment.

And still, that first moment of information, “Did you hear…?” is shocking, stops me in my tracks, and changes the world. Because they moved to California…

So I’m able to get on top of it pretty quickly. I’m able to consider life and not death. And I’ve finally gotten over the guilt I often would feel for not mourning when so many others around me were. I simply mourn in a different way. I try to appreciate the greatness of their life and leave it at that. I visualize them moving forward, leaving the body behind, probably leaving their hard drive, their earth experience memory, behind also.

This, I figure, will happen to me too. Wherever I go next, I probably won’t remember this experience. After all, I don’t remember the last experience in this life. Maybe I will remember. I don’t know. No point in speculating.

I figure I don’t want to be mourned; I want to be remembered. Please skip over my so called death and focus on my life, my songs, my good deeds, my family, my funny moments, my past, my present and my future.  Please focus on my immortality, my eternal person.

I’ll do the same for you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For more inspiring music you can download
and information about Peter Link, please visit Watchfire Music.

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