For the love of music
Do our loved ones send us messages?
Arlie's world was music. He knew the lyrics to just about any song that would come on the radio. About a year after he went home to heaven, some words to a song popped into my head....it played over and over in my head for days. The words were "I can see it in your eyes, I can see it in your smile". I looked up the lyrics and found it was from the song "Hello" by Lionel Richie. The song was perfect for where I was at in my grief journey. Coincidence? Maybe.....
The Longest Time...
About 2 years after Arlie went home to heaven, I had more song lyrics in my head. This time I heard the words and melody "The Longest Time"..... of course I had to look up the song. It was a song I had heard, but wasn't too familiar with. It again was perfect for where I was in my grief journey....and perfect for our story.
"The Longest Time" - Billy Joel
"Happiness goes on"
"I intend to hold you for the longest time"
More Lyrics
Over the years I've had more lyrics pop into my head....
"Put your head on my shoulder"
"Forever's gonna start tonight"
"...and here I go..."
and this one popped up on my screen "Lady"
A couple of songs that gave me comfort through my grief journey. (These are songs that I picked out.)
Dancing in the Sky - Dani and Lizzy
This song seemed very fitting as I imagined how Arlie felt after he left his body:
Believe it or not - "The Greatest American Hero," sung by Joey Scarbury
But even more important....
The love songs are amazing and sweet and heart wrenching...but even more important are the songs of praise to God Almighty that I sang from the depths of my soul after that dream. I was in AWE of the God of Heaven, and I had an intense desire to praise him continuously. I gave up all of the secular songs I used to listen to, and I only had the desire to praise God with hymns that spoke to "How Great Thou Art"!!
(one of my favorites):
More of my favorite hymns:
Amazing Grace, Blessed Assurance, Just As I Am, O How I love Jesus, I love to Tell the Story, I'll Fly Away, Trust and Obey, The Old Rugged Cross, Seek Ye First
Our love story
Arlie loved traveling to Cancun. On one of our trips, he surprised me with a playlist of songs that he had put together for me. He had obviously spent a lot of time picking them out. The words were very meaningful and of course, just right for our relationship. I had a hard time picturing a "tough guy" truck driver traveling down the road listening to love songs, lol.... but with tears streaming down his face, we danced to the songs that night in Cancun and that's when we started talking about getting married. Below is the list... we added a couple more onto the original 8 over the next few months.
