Adding a Touch of Music to Death

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Those of you who know me personally know that I grew up in an Irish-heritage family, which means that death/dying is a part of who we are in a way that other ethnic cultures are not. It doesn’t mean we aren’t sad when we lose a loved one but we see it as part of the integrated lifecycle more clearly, you might say. We grow up with death, at least in my family we did.

My maternal grandmother died when my mother was 10-days old. My mom never knew her mother. (Interesting fact: In Missouri, there was no death certificate required indicating the cause of death of my grandmother. At-home deaths did not require a death certificate before 1910 in the city of St. Louis.) My mother and her two sisters were raised by their maternal grandmother. My grandfather, Patrick Hayes from Ireland, moved into a nearby boarding house and would walk over on weekends to visit with his daughters.

One of my dad’s favorite sayings when we would talk about something in the future was always “If we’re still on deck next year!” It wasn’t morose; it was just how we saw life. Life was tentative. Among us Irish, death is not shielded from our young. I can remember when my younger sister, Maureen died. I was six-and-a-half. Of course I was sad. I learned early that life is fragile and we lose those who we love. I was also a typical young child. Young children tend to be very self-centered; part of normal child development. What I recall is that my neighborhood friends came to the wake with their parents (wakes lasted three days then, compared to three hours now). My friends and I played hide-and-seek. It was July, so we could run around outside. Some years later in my adult years when we lost another relative, we adults welcomed family and friends while the grandkids played air hockey in the basement of the mortuary. It’s who we are! We bring our young to be with us, to be with our deceased loved ones; part of the lifecycle.

So when our now 13-year-old grandchild, Gabriel, wrote a musical play titled, Death the Musical, I realized that buried under the Chinese heritage (Grandfather Shen) and Anglican-English heritage (Grandfather Beal), the Irish gene was still alive and well (Grandmother Bridget). We Irish are survivors, as are our genes!

The theme of the play is:
Life without death is life without meaning.
Life without meaning is no life at all.
Life without death is death without life.
One needs the other, the other needs one.
~ Death the Musical, 2024, G. Shen

In the year 2025 we find ourselves in an evolving approach/attitude towards death and dying. Some countries already allow for assisted dying (euthanasia). Segments of our population seem to have lost the meaning of life. Current statistics indicate that there is a growing number of suicides among males, especially younger males. Older males, too. Most frequently, older males tend to use firearms to commit suicide. Younger adults, males more than females, overdose. In 2023, the suicide rate among males was approximately four-times higher than the rate among females. Additionally, suicides among the elderly have increased; people who have lost the ability to find meaning in their lives.

Four essentials to continue to find life worth living are: 
A sense of meaning
A sense of purpose
Having people in our life who care about us
Having people in our life who we care about

Each of us has to find meaning in our life. Our search is very personal. What I find meaningful may not be what you find meaningful, but we keep searching and growing in our understanding of what is, in fact, meaningful. What is meaningful shifts and evolves as we grow and change and age, as we face the “unexpecteds” in our lives. We keep searching and filtering; letting go of things that seemed so meaningful in one decade of our life, discovering new meanings of what is important; growing and changing.

To close with a line from Death the Musical:

“Life without meaning is no life at all.”

Bridget