Choosing our wedding song was an extremely taut process for Tommy and I. Everything seemed cliche and none of the songs felt personal to us. I’m an incredibly sentimental person so we couldn’t just pick any song. After weeks of searching, we settled on a cover of “Can’t Help Falling In Love With You” by an artist that I honestly can’t even remember now. We both really liked the melody, the lyrics were sweet, and Tommy mentioned it was one of his mom’s favorite songs which seemed favorable. And though it didn’t feel entirely ‘perfect’ for us, I figured it was personal enough. A couple weeks later I asked him to listen to our wedding song with me to which he responded, “What song did we choose again?” You could hear the steam coming out of my ears. Choosing that song was the ONLY decision we had made together thus far and HE HAD ALREADY FORGOTTEN WHAT IT WAS?!?! Did he not care what song we picked? Was the First Dance just a tradition to him that held no meaning? Was having any part of our wedding day be intimate even important to him? I wasn’t kidding when I stated earlier that I’m an extremely sentimental person so naturally I took his response personal and was overturn with hurt and disappointment. Tommy was deeply sorry for having forgotten the song and consoled me as best he could. He promised he would be more emotionally engaged with the planning process going forward and while his promise felt reassuring, having that song as our First Dance choice no longer was. It might sound a little extreme to dump the song altogether, but choosing our wedding music was cathartic to me and I refused to have my First Dance song be a song my husband forgot multiple times throughout the planning process. I won’t lie – I definitely harbored feelings of resentment from the experience. Anytime he’d ask if I wanted to search for a new song I’d tell him I wasn’t ready yet so we ended up putting it on our long list of “to-do”s for the wedding.
Then The Incident happened.
Tommy’s hospitalization was a cloudy time for me. It felt like I was constantly coming in and out of consciousness and all I knew was that room, that chair I never moved from, and holding Tommy’s hand while he “slept”. I’d whisper “I’m right here” over and over to him as I sat beside him. I didn’t say much else during this time. I mostly prayed and wrote him letters. In my letters I always asked him what he was dreaming about. ‘I bet you’re dreaming about basketball and dunking on a bunch of people,’ I wrote. When I could, I’d give him kisses on his eyelids because that’s always been my favorite place to kiss him. I do it every morning when I get up to get ready for work and he always sleeps right through it but I know somehow he always feels it. And my hope was that he would through this as well.
I’d acclimated to functioning (perhaps “existing” is a more suitable word) with little to no sleep during this time. Anytime I’d become fatigued I’d feel tremendous guilt. What if I fall asleep and he doesn’t sense my presence? What if I leave and it makes him sad? What if he thinks I deserted him? These lingering thoughts enforced a need for me to stay awake and in the echoes of silence a familiar verse crept into my memory.
I could stay awake just to hear you breathing.
My heart became suddenly heavy as more lyrics emanated.
I don’t wanna close my eyes, I don’t wanna fall asleep.
Why was this song coming to me in this moment? I had heard it hundreds, if not thousands of times, but suddenly in this moment it felt incredibly powerful and heartrending. I reached for my phone and pulled up the lyrics. Even though I knew them by heart, I needed to read them in poetry form. My eyes filled with tears as I read on and when I got to the second verse I completely lost it:
Lying close to you feeling your heart beating
And I’m wondering what you’re dreaming
Wondering if it’s me you’re seeing
Then I kiss your eyes
And thank God we’re together
I just want to stay with you in this moment forever
Forever and ever
Through out this entire experience I was finding it so hard to communicate my thoughts and suddenly this song was speaking every word that was on my heart. It felt like a big warm hug from God saying “I hear you, Amy. And I’m right here“. I needed that message and that hug so badly. Sometimes I think God was singing that song to me the whole time and it wasn’t until that moment that I actually stopped to listen. And while the lyrics played on a continuous loop in my head, I refrained from listening to the actual song. I knew if I heard the melody with the lyrics I’d break down so I told myself I’d listen to it when I was ready. I continued to pray to God for hope and healing. He answered those prayers by letting me see Tommy in my dreams and then a week later He woke Tommy up.
The first couple of days of Tommy being awake were unsurprisingly filled with visitors around the clock. When we were finally alone I asked if I could play a song for us. I explained that the lyrics came to me while he was sleeping but that I had been waiting until the right time to listen to the song. As we held hands and listened to it for the first time together, neither of us could hold back our emotions. We wept fiercely through out the entire song and knew it had to be our wedding song.
When I was preparing the music files for the wedding I decided to add a special touch to our First Dance track. I prepared a voice recording of me reading a journal entry I had written and inserted it as an introduction to the song. A week before the wedding we decided to practice our first dance at home with the actual soundtrack. It was the first time Tommy heard the recorded introduction and he immediately broke down.
When it came time for our First Dance at our wedding we asked our wedding party to surround us on the dance floor. The voice recorded intro was an extremely emotional surprise to all of them and their reactions were a clear indication of that.
Life is so bewildering and astonishing all at the same time. I’ve always believed wedding songs should hold special meaning to couples but I never could have imagined the impact our song would have on me. Every time I hear it now I go back to that room, that chair, and holding Tommy’s hand as I watched him sleep. I think back to that awful fight we had over him forgetting the first song we picked out and realize that it’s so true what they say – what is meant to be, will always be.
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