Henry’s Higher Love
Music: Higher Love
Artist: Steve Winwood
Shared by: Mary for her Son
“So, when I sing this song, or listen to the multitude of songs that we enjoyed together, it’s like a string connecting us through time and space. His memory is only ever a song away.”
The song “Higher Love” is one of many songs that I sang to our son Henry. Henry was born with a neurological disease called Rett Syndrome. The disease caused him to be mostly non-verbal and physically disabled along with other medical side effects.
My goal each day was to make it the best one possible for him. I started singing to Henry as an infant and really just never stopped. The joy on his face was all the encouragement I needed. My husband started calling me the Greatest Showman as I was so frequently singing and dancing with him.
I sang everything, from love songs, to hymns, to nursery rhymes. He connected to music so deeply. “Higher Love” was one of the songs I sang the most to him over the years. I started singing it to soothe him to sleep one night. The lyrics spoke to how I felt about him. I felt that caring for him, seeing the world through his eyes was truly a higher love than I had ever known.
The lyric “In this whole world what is fair” reminds me of Henry’s circumstance and how it felt to us. And the lyric “let me feel that love come over me, let me feel how strong it could be” reminds me of the deep love I feel for Henry. As for Henry, he always smiled when I sang this part “I could light the night up with my soul on fire, I could make the sun shine from pure desire.”
Singing to my children is one of my favorite things to do. Henry passed away in 2022 at the age of six. At his memorial “Higher Love” was sung, but not by me. I stopped singing for a long time after he left us. I’ve started again for our younger child. He likes hearing songs that Henry enjoyed and we both feel the connection that the music brings. Sometimes I close my eyes and I can imagine him with us while I sing, and I smile.
I think of Henry now…in the stars above, soul on fire, making sunshine, free from pain, filled with pure joy, roaming free. So, when I sing this song, or listen to the multitude of songs that we enjoyed together, it’s like a string connecting us through time and space. His memory is only ever a song away.