The Widower

Contemplating a “Mix Tape” of Our Lives

Before digitized music, even before compact discs, music lovers often made and exchanged mix tapes of cherished songs. A music-loving acquaintance of mine read one of my recent Substack columns and recommended the book “Love is a Mix Tape,” by Rob Sheffield.

I’m not a music fanatic, but I ordered the book online and enjoyed it. Sheffield is a longtime contributor to Rolling Stone magazine. The subtitle of his book is “Life and Loss, One Song at a Time.” The sudden death of his wife at a young age left Sheffield wracked with grief. He and his wife loved music, and he wove music into his search for a way to move on with life.

After reading the book, I started thinking about the music Cheryl and I enjoyed as a couple. In doing so, I built what I’d call a mix tape of songs and artists woven into our nearly 30 years together, 25 plus as husband and wife.

That tape would start, first and foremost, with “Unforgettable,” by Natalie Cole. I realize that it’s ironic; maybe to Cheryl I was unforgettable, but only until Alzheimer’s robbed her of most every memory. Oh, in her final days, weeks, and months of life, I’m sure she recognized me—at least as her person, if not her husband. Even months before she entered a memory care facility, as I drove on a Friday night to one of our favorite fish fry restaurants, she leaned over and gently asked me, “What’s your name again?”

Still, Cheryl and I always thought of Cole’s song as our song. So after she died at Agrace Hospice’s now-closed inpatient facility in here in Janesville, Wisconsin, I asked the staff to play that song during the solemn procession as a funeral director rolled my wife’s casket out the door.

What other songs might be on that tape? Here’s a list I compiled after finishing Sheffield’s book.

— “Seasons of Love,” part of the musical “Rent,” which Cheryl and I saw twice at Madison’s Overture Center. We bought the CD containing all the songs and often played it in the car, singing along, on cross country road trips.

— “Home” by Michael Buble. Cheryl and I both enjoyed Buble’s music and the televised Christmas specials he used to orchestrate.

— “Ready to Take a Chance Again,” by Barry Manilow. Like Buble, Cheryl loved Manilow, and we saw him perform at the Coronado theater in Rockford, Ill.

— “When a Man Loves a Woman,” By Michael Bolton. I surprised Cheryl with a Bolton concert at the Summerfest Amphitheater on Milwaukee’s lakefront. At first she thought we were going to see friends, then a Brewers game, then the circus train (She was not thrilled with that!) before I told her we were going to see Celine Dion. “Who?” I reminded Cheryl of a recent hit by the budding artist. “Oh, and there’s an opening act, some singer named Michael…Bolton.” She all but screamed in excitement. After the intermission, when Bolton—then with long locks—emerged in the middle of the crowd, not far from us, to continue his show, Cheryl was thrilled.

— “My Heart Will Go On,” and “Because You Loved Me” by Dion, the first being the theme song in the blockbuster movie “Titanic.” Dion was actually the opening act to that Bolton show. She has gone on to sell hundreds of millions of records worldwide, far surpassing Bolton’s sales.

— “Sherry” by The Four Seasons. Cheryl loved that band, from her era. I played their boxed set of CDs for her in the year she spent at a memory care facility. We saw “Jersey Boys,” the Broadway musical about the group, twice.

— “My Way” and “New York, New York,” by Frank Sinatra. Cheryl and I both appreciated Sinatra. We often played two of his greatest hits CDs and sometimes danced in our living room to our favorite tunes.

— “Pink Houses” by John Mellencamp. I was a bigger Mellencamp fan than Cheryl, but we did attend four of his concerts, three at the Summerfest Amphitheater. In fact, one summer, with a tight timeline, I drove all the way from Ontario, Canada, on a Saturday after wrapping up a week of fishing with buddies, picked up Cheryl, and we headed for that night’s concert in Milwaukee.

— “Tell Me Ma” by Gaelic Storm. Again, this Irish band was more my fixation than Cheryl’s. But we also saw it four times—once here in Janesville, twice at Madison’s Barrymore, and the last time at Milwaukee’s Irish Fest. After that festival show, we bought a CD and band members posed with Cheryl for photos.

Patrick Murphy, lead singer for Gaelic Storm, hams it up while posing for a photo with my wife, Cheryl, after we saw the band at Irish Fest in Milwaukee.

Cheryl poses with other members of Gaelic Storm.

— “Always on My Mind” by Willie Nelson. Cheryl wasn’t really a fan of Willie, but we attended many concerts through the years at the Rock County 4-H Fairgrounds, a short walk from our home. Willie’s concert was one of the most memorable. It rained through most or all of that show, and we endured it from under an umbrella and on a soggy blanket in front of the grandstands. “He must have played every song he knows,” Cheryl said afterward.

— “When I Fall in Love” and “That Sunday, That Summer,” by Nat King Cole. It seems fitting to conclude this look back with these two songs by Natalie Cole’s father. After all, if I wasn’t playing The Four Seasons or Michael Buble out at Cheryl’s memory care facility, I was playing a CD by Nat King Cole with those two beautiful songs on it.

“Every mix tape tells a story,” Sheffield wrote at the end of his second chapter. “Put them together, and they add up to the story of a life.”

The above songs are the story of my life with Cheryl.