The Music of Life

The Music of life

 Micki Peluso

     Music is ingrained in our lives from the melodic chirping of birdsong to lullabies crooned to sleepy toddlers. We celebrate with music, we mourn with music. Even some dogs like to sing; or maybe they just howl to get us to stop. My house was always filled with music, especially when five of my six kids were teenagers. It was the late 70's but we all loved to sing songs from the 60's as well; Elvis Presley was an icon in our home.

     My oldest daughter Kim played guitar and wrote songs, and her sisters and I sang along, sometimes taping ourselves on cassettes with a little red recorder. We all cried while singing “Teen Angel,” but couldn't stop singing it. That song would prove an omen of the day when we’d have our own Teen Angel.

     Dante could play any instrument and song by ear, even classical music like Beethoven and Bach — where did he hear that? Kelly sang in the school choir and Noelle played the trumpet in the band. The rest of us were not musically talented but I did know if a note was flat. I taught myself to play the guitar years before but when I could go no further I taught Kim who was six years old at the time. She quickly surpassed me.

     I did love to sing, albeit off key, and sang Baptist spirituals and folk songs like "I Gave My Love a Cherry,” and my favorite country-western songs. I could do a fair “Love Me Tender,” or so I thought.  Noelle burst in from school one day to show me her new trumpet by blasting me with a few earsplitting notes. “Can you play “Long, Long Ago, Far, Far Away?” I asked. When the joke finally the hit her, she just laughed. Thankfully we had an acre of land and no close neighbors – although I thought I heard the dairy cows from the nearby barn mooing backup up one day.

     On a sunny late summer day 14-year-old Noelle was singing and dancing down our country lane, on her way to a concert at the nearby park with her girl friend. I knew she was meeting her first puppy love, a cute, blue-eyed, shaggy haired boy named Chuck. Within moments, a drunk driver struck her and left her face down on the side of the road. That day the music died – except for the mournful dirge of the church organ on the day of her funeral.

     It was a few months later when her younger sister Nicole’s 11th birthday was coming up. I had to convince her to have her party at the Roller Skating Rank where the girls had spent so many good times skating to the hit tunes and a few oldies. She felt guilty but agreed to go. As she and her friends ate pizza and drank soda, I turned to gaze at the skating rink. For a few brief moments I saw Noelle, dancing on skates smiling and full of life. I was mesmerized.  I blinked, and the vision was gone, but I heard a line from the stereo playing the song, “American Pie,” by Don McLean . . .” The Day the Music Died.”