His morning shift staff asked me to sing "I'll Fly Away", "Amazing Grace" and "The Wind Beneath My Wings". I made it through without crying, which surprised me, because the staff had put up a big collage of pictures of K.
At his service, I learned that K was abandoned by his family at a hospital when he was four months old. He was in his early 60s when he died. Wow. That's a long time to live in an institution.
Toward the end of the memorial, A, the minister said to us,
You're going to go about your daily business, and then some time, maybe in the coming weeks, maybe a couple of years from now, you're going to think of K. When you do, thank him. And remember him, not as a body and not in the form he took when he was alive. Remember him as his true self. As a spirit connected to you.
Yes, just as I remember R, I'll remember K. A lovely smiling spirit for whom I had the privilege of being music therapist.
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