Matthew M Cornett

Tag: love

  • “Time After Time”

    Growing up, we always hear that time seems to move so much faster the older we get. If you’re like me, you never believed it until you experienced it. 

    I remember hearing “old” people say it back then but it never made sense to me. When I was a kid, summer break felt like an eternity. I remember going back to school in August feeling like I hadn’t seen my friends in forever but in reality, it had only been a couple months. I read somewhere that the passage of time seems so much longer to children only because they have experienced so little of it. That makes sense and explains why their perception of it is different, which in turn, explains why that perception shifts the older we get. I guess after 53 summers you’ve “been there and done that” and they all start to blend together.

    But time doesn’t move faster or slower. It’s a constant and it’s only our perception of it that gives us those feelings. But every once in a while something hits you right in the face with it all and you ask yourself where did it all go? Yesterday my sister in law sent me an old photo she found of me, my nephews, and my son from the summer of 2006, 19 years ago! The six of us were riding a rollercoaster at Dollywood. As I looked at it the first thought I had was “Man, I’d be so sick if I was on that right now” but then another thought hit me hard. The boys in that photo were between the ages of 8 and 15. Heck, I was 34 years old! Where did that time go? They are all grown, amazing men now between the ages of 27 and 34. My oldest nephew is the same age I was riding that rollercoaster. What in the world??? Where did that time go?

    I have said this time and time again. Most of us just don’t truly see the significance of things until it is too late and hospice reinforced that to me daily. In the 14th chapter of my book If We Never Meet Again, I wrote about this very thing. In that chapter, I met a broken man, not much older than me, who was about to lose his wife not much older than my own. It’s a story that had its twists and turns that ended with her passing away before we could even help her. The last time I talked to him I told him that if he or his daughter needed anything to just reach out. His response was “I appreciate all you tried to do. But it don’t matter now.” 

    When it came time to pick a song for that chapter, there was only one choice: Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time.” I have always loved that song. I remember the girl who lived across the street from us had the cassette tape. I would go over to her house, and we’d shoot hoops and sit on her  back porch and listen to music. I’ve always had a melancholy side to me even as a kid and I loved how that song was both beautiful and sad, inspiring yet a little depressing at the same time. I’m sure I didn’t understand the bittersweet appeal of the song then as much as I do now but I really likes it even as a kid. 

    If you get a chance, go to Youtube and watch “Time After Time-Cyndi Lauper: Music Production Breakdown.” The first thing the guy mentions is that the rhythm part of the song made up of a kick drum and Cabasa. The cabasa is reminiscent of a ticking clock and the kick drum sounds like a beating heart. Let that sink in.

    The guitar begins and she sings “Lying in my bed, I hear the clock tick and think of you.” Honestly, there really was no other song that could have worked for the chapter. It ultimately reminds us that time moves on and there’s nothing we can do about it. 

    But what has always blown my mind about the song is how there is still hope and comfort even in the midst of such sadness:

    If you’re lost, 

    you can look, 

    and you will find me

    Time after time

    If you fall

    I will catch you

    I’ll be waiting

    Time after time

    Yes, time moves on and yes, there is pain, but as long as we have the people we love, we can make it. But what if those people are gone? For me, the lyrics still work, because we have those memories. I lost one of my childhood and teenage friends to cancer way too soon. But every once in a while, I think about him and yes, it makes me a little sad, but it also brings a smile to my face too. The thought that the ones we love will still be with us even if it’s only in our memories is sadly comforting to me and I hope it can be for you too. 

    If you still have those people in your life, cherish them each and every day because you don’t know how much longer you will have them.

    I guarantee that husband and everyone else who has lost someone that they love would tell you the exact same thing. 

  • Slip Sliding Away

    You never really know what someone could be going through. 

    If hospice taught me anything, that’s one of the more powerful lessons I learned early on and one that has stuck with me. When you see firsthand what some people go through when losing a loved one, it affects you and opens your eyes. You begin to see things differently. Just the other day, I stopped at McDonalds to get a drink and noticed an older lady eating by herself. My immediate thought was why is she alone? Did she lose someone and now she has to come here all by herself? Before working in hospice, I probably wouldn’t have even noticed and gone on with my life. But there I was wondering if I should risk looking like a weirdo and say hello or just move along. After all, maybe she needed the peace and quiet of eating alone and I was just making a bigger deal than I should. At least that’s what I told myself as I simply got my drinks and walked out to my truck. 

    The point is, we never know. My cousin posted something this morning that said “We’re all just one accident, one diagnosis, one unexpected phone call from a different life. Stay humble and don’t take anything for granted.” But that’s the problem…we do take it all for granted, don’t we? We go about our lives and don’t give a second thought to those kinds of things until it’s too late. I’m not saying we should go around gloom and doom all the time, but maybe taking a moment every once in a while to remind ourselves what’s really important could be beneficial. There’s a fine line there and we need to learn to navigate it.

    Music helps me do that. I’ve talked about this before, but that’s why I like sad songs. They are cathartic for me and remind me how good things actually are. Take Paul Simon’s “Slip Sliding Away.” Talk about a depressing song. It’s about three people-a husband, a wife, and a father, all of  whom see their lives “Slip Sliding Away.” Oh, and by the way- the one and only Oak Ridge Boys actually sang backup on it! Go read about it! It’s on “My Favorite Songs” playlist and has been since the first iteration of the list. When the main hook is“The nearer your destination, the more you’re slip sliding away,” you know you’re dealing with some heavy stuff. So why? Am I just masochistic? Or is there something more there?   

    In chapter ten of my book If We Never Meet Again, I wrote about a woman who was not exactly the happiest woman I’ve ever met and even her granddaughters admitted as much, but as I learned a little more about her story, it all started to make sense. She lost her husband early in their marriage during WWII and never remarried. One afternoon I was driving out in the country and the song came on. I listened to the first verse and the chorus without batting an eye. But when it got to the second verse it hit me.

    I know a woman became a wife

    These are the very words she uses to describe her life

    She said, “A good day ain’t got no rain”

    She said, “A bad day’s when I lie in bed

    And think of things that might have been”

    As I began to reflect on the lyrics after she had passed, it hit me. Later, I wrote about that moment: “I have always taken that part to be about a lonely wife unsatisfied with her marriage but in that moment, those lines spoke differently to me. I imagined all of the memories and emotion she must have lived through daily; images of a young couple in the 1940’s and their desperate love caught up such in a turbulent time; images of him heroically dying for his country somewhere in the South Pacific; images of her falling to her knees after being told of his death. Yes it was long ago, and yes she was able to move on and create an amazing life for her daughter and eventually her granddaughters, but those memories were still there, underneath the surface of all of that, seemingly eating away at her daily.” I concluded: “Honestly, I don’t know if we ever get over anything. We move on and we cope, but the pain of loss is always there just waiting at a moment’s notice. I’ve heard some sad love stories in my lifetime, but for some reason the one I’ve had to imagine has stayed with me to this day.”

    For me, when I listen to this song, yes it reminds me of how bad things could be and that makes me stop and think, but more importantly, it reminds me how good I’ve really got it. Sure, I’ve gone through things but comparatively? I don’t have anything to complain about. In fact, I need to be thankful for what I’ve had and what I’ve still got each and every day. 

    That’s why the Greeks liked Tragedy so much. Not because they were masochistic, but because it reminded them how good they had it and to be thankful for every day that was “slip sliding away” whether they wanted it to or not. Like Paul Simeon said, “We work our jobs, collect our pay, believe we’re gliding down the highway when in fact we’re slip sliding away.”

    That fact is inevitable. What is not, is the ability to recognize that and value each and every moment before they are gone. It’s all about a mindset and I’m thankful for the people in my life who have taught me that.