Wild Horses and Music
Music: Child of the Wind
Artist: Bruce Cockburn
Shared by: Leah for her Father
“And the last drive home, listening to this song and others I finally stopped to communion with a mustang along the highway. It was surreal and beautiful and heart wrenching.”
My father was diagnosed with kidney cancer in 2018 and died April 10th 2019.
Jim was his name. He was a complicated man. And so was our relationship. He lived with my family and I while he went through an unsuccessful round treatment. He eventually moved three hours away while still receiving treatment to be with his brother.
The three hour drive back and forth to visit him was filled with the Mt. Hood National Forest, Warm Springs Indian Reservation, wild horses and music. I would cry and sing. I would release our visit or prepare for his ever declining state. Some visits meant he was in the hospital, then the ICU, and then hospice. Then the morning hospice called and said you’d better come. So my sister and I drove that last three hours towards the end of my father’s life. He died 15 minutes after our arrival.
Music was my constant companion on those drives. This song I have mentioned was my father through and through. And the last drive home, listening to this song and others I finally stopped to communion with a mustang along the highway. It was surreal and beautiful and heart wrenching.
I instinctively used music, knowing I could call on it when I wanted to remember. I find this has truly been the case.