A Simple Gift that Brings Light to Life

A personal message from Lisa Smartt about her mother, her daughter, and what has brought her light in this challenging time.

My Mother & Daughter Are Both Bedridden:
Music Helps Me Make Sense of My Days

It is the day after Christmas but one would never know it.

There are no traces of wrapping paper on the floor. No ribbons. No candy canes. No tree or lights. The apartment is quiet except for the purr of an old space heater next to me as I write this letter to all of you, beloved subscribers.

Everything I have with me here in California is scattered in a few boxes. All else of the life I used to have in Asheville, North Carolina is in storage now. 

I have come here to sit at the bedsides of the two women most dear to my heart: my mother and daughter.

My 85-year old mother is dying slowly and gracefully and has bounced back three times as she edged close to the threshold. Each time, she escaped the grasp of the Angel of Death and upon her return to the living, has asked, “But why? I want to die. I am ready to return to your father, Lisa. The man I loved for 56 years is waiting for me in Heaven.”

My 28-year old, however, is another story. She does not have her eyes on Heaven, gratefully, but every day is a painful reminder of what Long Covid can do to an unsuspecting and healthy young body.

She can no longer eat or toilet herself and is wracked with unending nerve pain, shrieking tinnitus, weakness throughout her body, and strange strobe light hallucinations that intensify at night and leave her trembling in sweat in the morning.

We have a wide array of meds and supplements from both allopathic and naturopathic specialists to try to relieve her suffering and bring her to recovery. After four months, nothing has worked.

I move between these two precious people, care taking, handling all their financial affairs, and seeking answers. It is exhausting, heart-wrenching, humbling.

However, in these dark days there have been two rays of light that have broken through the shadows.

One is my piano.

The other is Kevin.

Both of them have brought the medicine of music.

Eighteen months before my daughter became ill, I began keyboard lessons. Learning to play was a lifelong yearning that I finally pursued–and I have fallen in love with the keys, especially under the spiritually-tended teaching of Daniel Barber. Lessons with him are as much about tapping the Divine as they are about melody. He has helped me forge a relationship with my keyboards and a source greater than myself–and both have brought me comfort and joy in these difficult moments.

I met Kevin on the dating website Silver Singles, a week before I got the life-shattering news that my daughter had landed in the ER with Covid. Both Kevin and I are 63 years old and seeking a soul mate who loves life and music. Kevin captured my heart right away when he wrote me, “Every day is a living prayer.”  

When I met him, he was living in the Southeast, a few hours from my place in Asheville. We emailed, Zoomed, and then he flew out to visit. Not only were we compatible in so many ways, but we both knew right away that we had found our soul’s home in one another.

Within weeks, we were engaged.

In a month, we will be married.

Three weeks ago, Kevin packed up his house and mine, put most everything into storage, and made the long trek to California in his van, towing my car. He drove tirelessly across the country, with the single aim to be at my side and bring me love and comfort in these painful days. 

Kevin also brought some of the best guitar music I had ever heard. For 50 years, he has been playing rock, blues and country-Western guitar…and I am honored to be at his side every night to hear his elaborate, hypnotic riffs.

We have been playing and writing songs together– and although he has been a musician for 50 years to my one and a half years on keyboard, he never acts superior to me. He tells me, “Music is for everyone. It is a gift from the Creator to enjoy and to express. I have more experience, but you have a love for music. That’s all you need. Just takes a note or two to build a melody. Music belongs to all of us.”

The music that now fills my days has kept me from drowning in despair and keeps me full of hope and light. 

In the coming months, lifeafterlife.com will be featuring a series of blogs that honors music as medicine and spiritual practice.

These blogs will share the music and perspectives of near death experiencers for whom music was a major part of the journey to the afterlife. The Music & Spirit Series will also include posts by Jim Duncan, my collaborator in the NDE Song Project which launched a few months ago and for which we are seeking submissions. (Have you had a spiritually transformative experience and would like a song written and produced about your story? Find out more here.)

These have been painful months for me– and I have left so much behind in my home of Asheville, North Carolina to be near my mother and daughter here in the San Francisco Bay Area.

A man named Kevin, his guitar, a beloved music teacher, and my keyboards have illuminated my life, giving me the strength to keep going.

The light of Heaven lives in music and…, gratefully, in Kevin’s kiss.

P.S. Kevin found a bridal dress tucked away in one of my mom's upstairs closets. We just found out she wore this dress when she and my father renewed their vows many years ago. It fits me perfectly. My parents' love legacy continues.