Credit: Wham! ‘Last Christmas’ 1984, Epic Records
When I was a teenager I always used to hate Wham!’s song “Last Christmas.”
With its mid-80’s sanitized production and its woe-is-me sentiments, it was an unwelcome holiday intrusion alongside the classics I’d grown up loving.
Then, one December a few years ago I got a voicemail from my father. He wanted me to know his favorite Christmas song had just come on the radio—and in a warbly, off-key channeling of Bill Murray, he began grossly over singing “Last Christmas” and abruptly hung up (but not before saying “George Michaels)! I burst into laughter, and kept the recording on my phone for years. It became a holiday classic in my heart, one I replayed often.
Since my father died, the song has become a grief trigger for me; one of those otherwise random and until that time ordinary parts of life that presently sneak up out of nowhere and sucker punch you with fresh mourning. It is just one in a seemingly limitless collection of stuff that brings tears and reminds you of the void in your world when a loved one leaves it.
People don’t often talk about grief triggers, but I suppose that’s fine. Before you lose someone you love, you wouldn’t understand it even if they did. I always marvel at the seemingly disconnected objects, sounds, and locations that become sources of remembrance and sadness; the grocery store around the corner, movies I never liked, smells that seem to have no logical association to my father, late 80’s Christmas torch songs. Practically speaking, the planet has become an unpredictable memorial. Really bad days trigger grief—and really good ones, too; obvious dates on the calendar and completely random ones; sensible associations and total non sequiturs. If you are grieving someone, I know you understand what I mean.
A few years ago our family went to see Disney Pixar’s Coco. It is a movie about love and death and family and connection, and without giving away any spoilers, there’s a scene where music directly links a character to someone they’ve lost. Many people in the theater were rightly brought to tears because of the beauty of the scene and the perfection of its execution. I was brought to tears because I understand exactly what it is to have a song let you transcend time and space and to let you touch the hand of someone you can’t any other way. This film became a new addition to my growing grief trigger collection.
This isn’t to say that I resent these countless reminders of my father. As with much of grief, they are paradoxical experiences; bittersweet oxymoronic moments that make you feel at once both pain and celebration. They are uninvited and yet usually welcomed heart guests.
A couple of years ago I lost the phone my father’s dissonant serenade was captured on, but it is indelibly etched into my mind and I replay it often throughout the year.
And every December without fail, when I’m in the car or at the grocery store and I stumble upon the silky voice of George Michael singing “Last Christmas, I gave you my heart…” it is no longer an unwelcome intrusion—it is communion with my father. It is a reunion.
May you find solace in your grief triggers; evidence of the depth and breadth of the love you have for those you’re missing.
May you celebrate every song.
