23. AS MY BROTHER WEEPS

Lately my brother finds
solace in music

AS MY BROTHER WEEPS 

                                                            Cori Connors

 

The tree at the end of O’Clarion Road

Is bent with the weight of a late autumn frost

And heavy my heart, the days they grow shorter

The light from my window is lost

            Oh sorrowful tune, but sweet in its sadness

            What mother earth loses and keeps

            And sorrow I’ve known, but none be so tender

            As watching while my brother weeps

 

If you knew my brother, then you’d know his laughter

And you’d know his love of the world as a whole

And he would embrace you and show you the majesty

Held in the depth of his soul

            So, strangely they fall, these tears on my brother

            Weaving their way down his cheeks

            Sealing our hearts in a covalent manner

            As tenderly my brother weeps

 

As my brother weeps his eyes become clearer

Because I so love him, I see clearer too

The side of the hill is deeper and greener

The sky a more heavenly blue

            The child of his heart took part of the darkness

            When we laid his body to sleep

            Leaving his father a sacred awareness

            As reverently my brother weeps

 

This evening, as Dave and I were driving home from Salt Lake City, I was startled by the rising roaring pitch of a rocket bike doubling the speed limit, weaving in and out of traffic. I felt an immediate pit opening in my stomach, and the memory of my beautiful nephew who lost his life after an accident on a rocket bike. Something about the positioning of the body on that style of motorcycle compels young people to want to push it faster and further. Don’t go there, people. Just don’t.

Since then, I’ve been remembering little snippets involving the passing of Clayton Hansen. He was a beautiful soul, and a gorgeous human. He died in a perfectly formed 18-year-old body. Parts of that body still live on in a number of people who received his last great gift, via his parents decision to let him be a donor. I adore them for that decision, made in a most painful moment. You know a lot about them by that singular act.

My nephew, Clayton Hansen

Just weeks after Clayton died my brother George and his wife Cyndy came to my Christmas concert at the First Presbyterian Church in SLC. They sat with our family, near the front. I could vaguely see their faces in the reflective stage lights. 

I had recently written a new song, and we debuted it that night. It was a tune I had written that past sumer for my son, John, who would be leaving soon to take the Gospel of Christ to the people of England and Wales. It’s called Across the Wooded Hill, and it speaks the feelings of a mother watching her son go across the hill into the unknown, praying he would be well in his journey. I introduced the song to the audience, dedicating it to two beautiful young men on two different journeys. Cousins, the same age, one leaving for a foreign land, and the other on the journey to Heaven. I was feeling the ache of loss, for my brother and his wife, and for myself.

Our first-born sons, Clayton and John
at Sarah's baby blessing.

That particular performance of Across the Wooded Hill remains one of those very few magical moments, when the music, the lyric, the musicians and the audience became completely aligned. I have experienced this only once, that I can vividly recall, and it was this song on this night at this venue with this audience. I will sing the rest of my life trying to achieve that one more time.

The song ends acapella with three of us singing “ across the wooded hill” in harmony. The final note rang in silence, the sweet silence that hovers when everyone wants to inhale the moment just a little longer. Then the applause. As I looked up, I saw my brothers face, with his hands silent in his lap. The dim light reflected like a moonlit river, revealing a stream of tears making its way down his cheek. The image remains vivid in my memory, even all these years later, a whole lifetime doubled for our boys.

That picture of the brother I love, weeping at the loss of his boy, became lyrics to a song. I don’t think I’ve ever sung it for him, or frankly for anyone. I’m not sure it’s complete as a song. But I thought I would preserve it here, because lately I am feeling the fragility of life, and I am hesitant to hold onto things I am waiting to make perfect.

My brother George is known for many things. He’s earned all of it. But most prominent in my mind is his beautiful affinity for tenderness.

Clayton's obituary