Today's Jukebox Brought to You by the Letter S

S as in schmalz.

This song is kinda schmalzy. It's perky and chick-lite. When you hear it you might, if you're that sort of person, ask "how do I know this song?" and the answer, which is as schmalzy as the song, is "you must watch TLC". But I like it anyway so shut up.

It also has quite the hook, which repeats over and over in your brain.

The production values on the video are lame. I'm pretty sure that this was made with a cam corder and edited on someone's home PC. No matter. You could just go unload the dishwasher while the song is playing and just listen. Trust, you won't miss anything visually.

But part of why I like this song goes back to our brief chat yesterday about my BIL, Mr. Martha Stewart. When he was first diagnosed with melanoma, it was one of those weird down, up, down things. Down because he had something suspicious. Up because they got it all in the surgery. Then down because further tests showed that a wee bit was in one of the lymph nodes. And that is what led his doctor to say that it could recur in 6 months, 6 years, maybe never but that "if you have anything you want to do, get it done".

Here's the thing: that sounded to me like pretty good advice regardless. Based on the pretty solidly verifiable evidence that no one gets out alive anyway, ought we not all be living in a "if you want to do it, get it done" frame of mind? I think so. And whether that "doing" is writing a novel or sailing the 7 seas or just making the commitment to be more faithful about showing the people you love that you love them, "get it done" seems like a reasonable mantra.

August was the last time I saw Mr. Stewart. He, Martha and Keira had stopped over during a family vacation. It was just a normal evening...Martha and I talked in the living room, the guys outside in the garden. The cousins hung out wherever. The next morning, Mr. Stewart spent 2 hours training for a marathon he was soon to run, then came back and asked Martha if she'd make him a fried egg sandwich for breakfast. Before they left, we all held hands by our front door and prayed together. It was just like every other time with the Stewarts. And even though we knew Mr. Stewart had received that initial diagnosis, there was absolutely nothing to suggest that he was anywhere close to a recurrence.

Less than a week later Martha called to say that the cancer was in his liver and lungs and that he had, maybe, 6 months. You wanna know the real irony there? This was discovered during his routine checkup, preparatory to him getting a clean bill of health so he could travel, with Keira, on a mission trip to Rwanda.

Well, the trip to Rwanda is something Mr. Stewart didn't get done. He did run in his marathon, placing 1st in his age group. He also preached every Sunday at his church up until about 2 months ago. He got to hold his first grandchild, who bears his name. And I also know that every night he goes to bed having told his wife and daughter that he loves them. He's not afraid. He is, I suspect, a little annoyed at this point that he does, in fact, keep waking up the next morning. He's done. But he trusts that even that has a purpose, that there must be one or two more things he has to do or learn or something before he goes.

As far as I'm concerned, this really is a very sucky situation but man oh man is there a lesson in it for all of us...about will and love and dignity and grace. So I'll take that from it and try not to think about the suckier parts.

Anyway, here's the song and maybe next week I'll play something really head bang-y.




Fisher "Beautiful Life"