A New Adventure: Amazing Grace, Music and 29 weeks

Amazing Grace still makes me cry every time! The meaning of the words, the feeling of the music. I just love it. My dad always said, "I want you to sing Amazing Grace at my funeral," and we did. I told Brant the morning of his funeral I don't know how I'm going to make it through the song. Incredibly, God got me through it and I sang every word, all the verses, loud and clear that day. Amazing for sure. We sang it in church today and Brant looked at me at the beginning and squeezed my hand. By the end of the first line, I was crying! Had to mouth the rest of the words or squeak them out quietly.
I don't think of myself as one of those people who has SUCH a strong connection to music, but perhaps that thinking needs to change. Mom and I went to see the Les Miserable movie the other day. That music just overtakes me. I first saw Les Mis while I was student teaching in London. It was incredible and the best there! Afterward, my friend Kristina (whom I've written about in the blog,) and I walked through the London tube system, down many elevators into the deep tube stations singing:
"Will you join in our crusade,
Who will be strong and stand with me?
Somewhere beyond the barricade
Is there a world you long to see?
Do you hear the people sing?
Say, do you hear the distant drums?
It is the future that they bring
When tomorrow comes!"
I have seen Les Mis two more times on stage, then on screen. I realize that when I first saw it on stage, I didn't "get" all the story and it was much more about the music "getting" me.
It got me on screen too. Mom and I cried many times during the movie. I just LOVE all the stories there too now that I "get" it!!!
I'm reminded also of a time our friend, Ryan, was moving my car real quick. I had Les Mis BLARING. He came in and said, "Woah, what's that you're listening to? That is trippy. I like it!" Funny. Another funny one: After college, just after my student teaching in London, I moved back home and played my Les Mis CDs a lot. John said, "gah, do you have to listen to that again? All the songs start off the same way, 'dun, dun, dun, dun...dun dun, dun, dun, dun.'"
After church today, we walked out to see the new prayer garden and columbarium. It's a beautiful place to sit, relax, read and also have your loved ones remains put into a wall you can visit. : ) It is special because we are having some of Dad's ashes placed there. Mom will have a place there too. It is also special because the sign was paid for by the funds and giving in Dad's name/memory after he passed away.

Sign says, "The Fellowship Prayer Garden"

After church, we went to eat out with Mom (mmm...Papagallos,) then to Sears to buy a new vacuum cleaner. (Sounds like the movie Old School-"Busy day- Home Depot and Bed Bath and Beyond if we have time!") Brant went on a last minute fishing expedition with two of his friends who live close by. One of them heads up the fishing club at my alma mater, the high school where he works. He's looking for good spots for his kids to fish. The three of them have decided they need to go to the coast to fish next weekend. Sounds fun!