Sweet Avenue

Driving home today, my Apple Music was on shuffle. The last song to come on before I parked in my driveway was one by Damien Rice. Moving, and maybe a little strange, his music has a way of making me simultaneously anxious and calm. The sound of his voice floods me with memories that make my breath catch, every time.

Damien Rice’s music became part of my life when my world was shattered; when I was broken.

I remember going through my sister’s music, trying to find songs that were her enough to play alongside a photo slideshow. Her music collection was huge, and I know I had help figuring out which were her current favorites. I remember one of her friends telling me to listen to a certain song by Damien Rice because just a week or two earlier she had said it described exactly where she was at in life.

We added other Damien Rice songs, but that song did not make the slideshow soundtrack. It needed to play somewhere else that week.

I remember giving my eulogy without shedding a single tear, my eyes the only dry pair in the room. I vaguely remember the more than a thousand people listening to my words, but I vividly remember being able to feel my sister sitting closest to me, her smile wide. After I sat down, I don’t know what happened until we ended the service with that certain song by Damien Rice. As the opening notes played, I finally allowed myself to crack.

This day could someday be, an anniversary. Everything is light and sound.

It had been six days since I last spoke to my sister. She had told me she was proud of me and I told her I loved her.

That song, Sweet Avenue, will always stop me in my tracks. Sometimes it breaks my heart all over again while it plays. But, it always makes me smile because it always makes me feel connected to my sister again.

In an irony my sister would enjoy, it took me more than 10 years to learn that Sweet Avenue isn’t by Damien Rice at all; it’s actually by Jets To Brazil. I wonder if she knew.