Serendipity
Music: Now Found is the Fairest of Roses
Artist: Arr. Danish String Quartet
Shared by: Julia for her Mum
My Mum, Clare Lawrence, died at the end of 2017 having been diagnosed with bowel cancer just ten days before Christmas. She was already living in a care home and had a form of vascular dementia but her final diagnosis still came as a shock.
“My enduring memory of that difficult time is being told she had just days to live in a room off the main social area where an Elvis impersonator was rocking out ’70s Christmas songs”
My enduring memory of that difficult time is being told she had just days to live in a room off the main social area where an Elvis impersonator was rocking out ’70s Christmas songs surrounded by care home staff in their finest Christmas jumpers. Mum and I were always music lovers but the relentless Christmas music that formed the soundtrack of my Mum’s final days was hard going.
As I drove home on Christmas Eve, catching glimpses of festive celebrations across the terraces of South London and feeling disconnected from the world, I turned on the radio. Serendipity struck. A 3-minute piece of perfection was playing. Now Found is the Fairest of Roses performed by the Danish String Quartet is an arrangement of a Christmas hymn by Danish theologian and poet HA Broson set to an old Lutheran funeral choral. The melody is simple, haunting and powerful, and it was what I needed in that moment to calm my soul and feed my heart. It allowed me to reset and refocus on Mum in her final days.
For the next five or six years, I couldn't bring myself to listen to any Christmas music—it was simply too painful. Yet, the Danish String Quartet track remained on my playlist.
Over time, it helped me reconnect with music, offering a sense of solace and reminding me of the one moment of stillness amid the chaos and distress of that difficult period.