Life Through Music: “Christmas Without You” by Onerepublic

It’s gone. 

That’s right I have lost my Christmas spirit. For someone that has always loved this time of year very much I never thought it was possible, but it happened. Unfortunately the reason for this has to do with the loss of the one person that instilled my Christmas spirit. I’m of course talking about my mother who is no longer here on this earth with us anymore. She loved this time of year so much I couldn’t help but follow in her footsteps since she was the guiding light that built a great love for Christmas. Much has changed this year. My love for Christmas was so much until now. 

It only makes sense that my mother would love this time of year because essentially it’s a season of giving to others. My mother was the best example I had in my life that showed me the joys of giving to others.That is still one of my favorite things about my mother that I love so much. She love the whole process of giving gifts. From trying to figure out the right present for each person to the reaction of the person when receiving the gift. Last Christmas I think she did the best she ever did with giving presents to everyone that was present at our last Christmas. It was almost as if she new it was going to be her last Christmas. It’s just amazes me when I look back at just how much she loved giving.  She just loved giving with or without money. She always gave more than she had and with so much love. 

This is the first Christmas season without my mother and to be quite frank its ruined everything for me as far as getting into the holiday spirit. I just can’t do it without her and it kills me to say that. It’s true that as you get older Christmas loses much of it’s magic and Christmas has been very different for me for a long time. I have, however, taken the time over the years to try to make it my own again. Losing my mother has been so much more difficult than any obstacle that I have ever encountered when that spirit will ever be back.

I didn’t just give up on getting swept away by the holiday season coming into this Christmas season. I have definitely made efforts to spark that Christmas spirit and all attempts have failed. I have been enjoying Christmas music (which the rest of the world hates), but I’m definitely not enjoying it like I have in years past. I want to enjoy it, but I just can’t.

It hasn’t just been me that has tried to spark the spirit within myself because lots of great people in my life have done very nice things for me, but with the same result. I really do have many good people in my life. I’m so lucky for their love, but I’m sorry it's just not enough. It's a shame too because over the last few years my family had some really great Christmases. I just have to except that this is what Christmas is for me "right now" without my mother who is my true Christmas spirit. This is not to say that it can never come back or that it’s dead forever, but for now the search begins to find a new light within myself. 

I actually have a song that goes with this feeling that I have about the loss of my mother and my Christmas spirit. This is a song that I heard last year and really fell in love with it. It was for a different reason last year that I connected to this song. This year this song has a much more powerful meaning to me that brings me to tears when I listen to it and really let my heart feel it. The song is called “Christmas Without You” by Onerepublic. This is definitely not a happy go lucky Christmas song. It’s definitely a representation of the sadder part of the holiday season. I cannot deny the impact on me when listening to it so lets go to the lyrics.

"Christmas Without You"

start of lyrics It's almost midnight, where you lay your head

But I'm calling numbers, buying plane tickets and bed

Every channel on the TV, it's a wonderful life

I don't feel so wonderful on this cold winter night

(I know the feeling and I dislike these cold winter nights.)

I missed Thanksgiving, missed a birthday or two

Didn't make St. Valentines, but I was thinking of you

Only one thing in the world, I couldn't do

Only one thing could kill me, Christmas without you

(I don’t want to have Christmas without you...)

Ooh, the snow is on the ground

The day's getting colder, I'm coming home now

So go ahead light the fire, turn that Christmas tree on

Cause I've been missing you so much I wrote you this song

Yes, I did

(I miss you so much I wrote this blog...)

I missed Thanksgiving, missed a birthday or two

Didn't make St. Valentines, but I was thinking of you

Only one thing in the world, I couldn't do

Only one thing could kill me, Christmas without you

Only one thing in the world, I couldn't do

Only one thing could kill me, Christmas without you

(Each and every other holiday and event has been so different without you...)

Oh, the presents wrapped, and 'Jingle Bells' on the radio

I'm turning down the street, there's no place I'd rather go

Every holiday, oh, you feel the same

Except for the ones when I'm with you

(Everything is in place, but it won’t feel the same without you. I don't know that I ever will.)

I missed Thanksgiving, I missed a birthday or two

I didn't make St. Valentines, but I was thinking of you

Only one thing in the world, that I couldn't do

There's only one thing that kills me, Christmas without you end of lyrics

(Christmas without you.)

So, I’m sorry if I’m a bit of a downer lately and if I retract myself from the holiday season or just life in general. This is how it has to be for me for now. Thank you for all the love that each one of you have shown me over this tough year because it hasn’t gone unnoticed. I have needed every single ounce of extra love because my mothers love is hard to replace. Thank you for your patients and support. I have great people in my life that give me many great reasons to be her in this life.

For now I’m trapped in a bad Hallmark Christmas movie without a happy ending...

As always I send this to you with so much love and pure D-lite. = )

Life Through Music-"Hedegraad" Featuring Lukas Grahan (Happy Home)

The holiday season always makes me think of the idea of home. For me home is that place that you hold as your space in this world. This above all things has always been very important to me. A place that no matter the world that is going on around you it’s that space that you hold that you can be yourself in the center of this craziness we call life. 

Home has always been a focus for me for as long as I can remember. Life is a very crazy thing that is always throwing something new at you because it’s rapidly changing. The only way that I have been able to deal with life’s changes all these years is having a stable place that I can center myself. This importance of a happy home has become more relevant to me as I have gotten older and especially now that I’m without both of my parents. They say that home is where your heart is and my heart has become the most important thing that I have in this world. Therefore, home has just as much importance in my life as I move forward. 

I was lucky as a child growing up because I always had a stable place I called home. It wasn’t always easy or perfect, but my mother worked hard to maintain a stable home as much as possible. When I look back I remember a wonderful home that I was a part of. When I was old enough to move out of my mother’s home and out into the world I took many of the things that I had learned growing up to instill that same greatness in my own space. 

In the time that I have live on my own I have been very fortunate to have had only two roommates. I have escaped all the horror stories I have heard of what it’s like when a situation with a roommate can go bad. My first roommate was my older sister that I have always had a strong connection with throughout my life. After our first round of living together we took quite a few years living apart from each other before we decided to move in together again. This time around I’m even more thankful than I was the first time that we lived together. Life is quite a bit different for both of us than it was when we last lived together. This time around we have helped to recenter and support each other. This kind of stability has been much needed for us both during this tough year of 2014.

I know I have mentioned it before, but to be more direct 2014 for me has been a shit storm of bad things that have happened in my life. Truthfully I can’t wait for this year to be over. 

Don’t get me wrong there has been some great moments and events that have been sprinkled throughout this year that have made life more tolerable. One of those wonderful moments came over the summer when I moved back in with my sister. In fact moving back in with my sister went so well it kind of scared both of us. Like we were still looking over our shoulders waiting for something to go wrong. So far the second time around living with each other is going great. Well, other than me eating to much of certain foods of my sisters on occasion and my struggle to get my sister to unload the dishwasher more than she does currently because she despises unloading the dishwasher. Overall though I couldn’t be more happy with the place that I currently call home. 

The song I picked to accompany this topic of home is a song that a good friend send me a while ago and probably thought I forgot all about it. Well, I didn’t forget about it. Sometimes it just takes me a little while to come around to getting to it. I love when others share music with me and especially when those songs hit the right note that strikes an emotion within myself. The song is called “Hedegaard”(Happy Home) featuring Lukas Graham. Lukas Graham is a Danish musical group consisting of Lukas Graham Forchhammer (vocals), Mark Falgren (drums), Magnus Larsson (bass) and Kasper Daugaard (keyboard). You read it right. LOOK OUT! Derrick Heine is now going international with my music selections. The version I first heard was the one that I will post on this entry right above the lyrics. I love this version of the song because there is such an uplifting big sound that the song holds and the live version helps build on that feeling. Really the song speaks for it’s self so lets go to the lyrics. 

Happy Home

Mama called about the paper turns out they wrote about me

Now my broken heart´s the only thing that's broke about me

(I have had much heart break this year for sure.)

So many people should have seen what we got going on

I only wanna put my heart and my life in songs

(Well, not in songs, but I do put a lot into these blog entries.)

Writing about the pain I felt with my daddy gone

(Yeah I definitely do. Some you have seen and some you haven’t.)

About the emptiness I felt when I sat alone

(Yes, I know this well.)Thankfully it’s not as often as it use to be.

About the happiness I feel when I sing it loud

(Yes, when I really let the music push that what’s in me out into the world I feel amazing. I do this mostly when others are not around though.)

He should have heard the noise we made with the happy crowd

Did my grandaddy know he taught me what a poem was

How you can use a sentence or just a simple pause

(We talked about this a lot in my public speaking class. How important and powerful a pause can be.)

What will I say when my kids ask me who my daddy was

I thought about it for a while and I'm at a loss

(I think about this a lot and I too am at a loss much of the time. Not just with my father, but my mother now as well.)

Knowing that I´m gonna live my whole life without him

I found out a lot of things I never knew about him

(I know I couldn’t have had them forever, but both left my life too early. It’s sad how much more I learned about them after they passed away.)

All I know is that I´ll never really be alone

Cause we gotta lot of love and a happy home

(Because of things that both my parents instilled in me I will always work hard to keep a happy home.)

Magazines are writing stuff but I don´t ever read them

Some of the folks I used to know would see and start believing

That I would pass them by on streets and never reach to greet them

I still remember folks even though I rarely meet them

Don´t you know I miss the times when we used to hang

(I think about those that have come in and out of my life more than I share. I reminisce about both current people in my life and people of the past people that have touched my life. I really hope they all are doing so well.)

Before twenty deep depended on a single man

Before a single heart was broken by a single blow

(This is how I have always been even before my heart was broken with “two” heavy blows to my heart.)

Before all our careers depended on a single show

I grew up with a lot of love in a happy home

(Yes, I did.)

Now I got a lot of cash and I'm on a road

I realize privacy´s becoming difficult

It´s all right now but what about when I´m old

I know my good friends now they´ll last

the same ones that stood by me when my daddy past

(I really have such a great core of friends and they continue to grow. This was proven to me very blatantly when each one of my parents passed on. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Great friendship is one of the greatest gifts in life.)

All I know is that we´ll never really be alone

Cause we got a lot of love and a happy home

I write a lot of songs will anybody ever read them

(I will never be alone that I know. I do hope my words written transcend both time and space.)

You hear them on the radio but will you really read them

Why do we have our idols and why do we wanna be them

After we see them on TV we really wanna meet them

Don´t you think they miss the time when they used to hang

Before a fan base depended on a single man

Before a single heart was broken by a single show

Who´s gonna stand who´s gonna fall I really wanna know

(Some people come and some people go.)

I grew up with a lot of love in a happy home

My daddy use to play me vinyl but now daddy´s gone

(Yes, he did and it was one of the greatest things I loved about my father. I truly think he was the best version of himself when he was behind the turntable doing what he loved the most. Thank you for sharing that with me dad.)

I used to practice with my mommy on the piano

I still get nervous every time I know she´s at a show

Now my family comes first before everyone

I had the perfect dad I wanna be the perfect son

(Both my mother and my father did their best to be as good of a parent as they could or knew how to. I think I turned out pretty well so I can’t complain. I try my best to be the best son and person that I can be.)

Though I really feel sometimes I am on my own

I know I got a lot of love and a happy home

So, my message to you this holiday season is as you make your way through the craziness that is the holidays please make sure you take the time to appreciate what it is that makes the core or the home of your life. This is important for many reasons, but especially because you never know how life will change your life in a heartbeat. I love you all and I hope you are taking excellent care of yourselves.

As always I send this to you with so much love and pure D-lite. = )