Music Monday: Songs To Remember Those Not Here Anymore

It’s been a long day without you, my friend
And I’ll tell you all about it when I see you again
We’ve come a long way from where we began
Oh, I’ll tell you all about it when I see you again

I was on lunch break at work, watching random YouTube videos while remembering to watch the rest of Red Eye, the new Richard Armitage project, tonight. I felt a poke, like someone wanted my attention, and turned around to see nobody there, but feeling like someone was around.

For whatever reason, I decided to log into WordPress and started writing a new post. The bell icon had a dot, meaning unread notifications had waited nearly eight months. I clicked to see Servetus among the many people liking the post. It reminded me of the little community of Richard Armitage fans I met through comments, liking posts, and the all-important reflections on this or that project.

Something felt off.

I typed away until it was time to return to the front desk, but I wanted to check the Richard Armitage tag. Where’s Serv? I wondered, using my nickname for her. Red Eye was on, and no post about this latest project. I scrolled down to see why:

Servetus passed away in April from Cancer.

It was a gut punch.

No, she can’t be gone. She can’t be gone.

Servetus can’t be gone because she’s a year older than me. She can’t be gone because she has more life to live and experiences yet to see like Richard Armitage returning to the stage. She. Can’t. Be. Fucking. Gone. We had disagreed, and sometimes I wished she would remember it’s only a show until I remembered it’s the blogosphere, and people can write what they want, however they want. Servetus wrote comforting words after my parents died within months of each other. Mom’s death reminded me to live life NOW. Servetus’ passing reinforced the lesson.

I watched her tribute video, which revealed her real name, Susan, but she will always be Servetus to me. I knew her, but yet I didn’t. I looked forward to what she had to say, whether it was books or dealing with her family. In May, bloggers wrote tributes to Servetus Susan about how they encountered her and what she means to them. Many have met her face-to-face.

I put the post I was writing into drafts and decided on a Music Monday one. Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth wrote “See You Again” for Furious 7; the song was commissioned as a tribute to Paul Walker and is now used at memorials and funerals. While reading Sue’s post at “I’m Feeling This,” she wrote about what she would say about the pink tuxedo jacket Armitage wore for the BAFTAs. It fits so many things people would say again.

In the car, another song popped into my head, one not played in a long time. I am not a country fan, but some songs resonate with me, like this one by Tim McGraw. “Live Like You Were Dying” earned accolades for the song and the music video featuring his late father, pitcher Tug McGraw. The lyrics talk about skydiving and riding a bull named Fu Manchu (it is a country song), but most of the song is focused on ordinary moments:

And I loved deeper
And I spoke sweeter
And I gave forgiveness I’d been denying”

After my mom passed away in 2019, I went up to a coworker viewed as a rival and we had a contentious relationship. I told her life was short and took responsibility for my behaviour. I watched mom race to say sorry to a sister-in-law, and the illness took her before she could apologize to another. McGaw’s song was played on repeat that year and its lessons echo today.

Finally, there’s P!nk’s “Last Song of Your Life.” It was a song I played on repeat in 2019 and into 2020. The song was played from my phone beside my dad’s bed after he died as a final goodbye. Maybe it wasn’t a goodbye song like “When I Get There” from her follow-up album, but those last “songs” are the last phone calls, last words, last touch, or the last time I would hear “minha filha” (my daughter.)

Servetus Susan left behind a blog that will outlive her and live on in the memories of others. She insisted I was a writer, whether I published professionally or not. I continue to carry it with me, along with her description of Richard Armitage as a “gazelle” after seeing him at the Crucible stage door. (We did titter about things like that as if to say, “We’re single, approaching 50, not dead.”) I don’t know if that “poke” was her or my parents. Maybe it’s the universe telling me, telling us to stop worrying about small shit, live, and love like you are dying.