Dies Irae

the things we lose to trauma's wrath

“Solvet saeclum in favilla … Lacrimosa dies illa”
“The world will dissolve into embers….that day will be full of tears”

Berlioz Requiem, “Dies Irae”

The Berlioz Requiem was my last performance.

I grew up surrounded by music. When I was very little, my dad and his brothers speculated about what kind of musicians they could raise if they only communicated with us in song. Weddings and funerals meant at least one hymn sing with extended family. My siblings would sing together as we washed and dried the dishes by hand. Visitors to our house would listen in awe as we harmonized effortlessly.

Perhaps they enjoyed seeing performances of familial harmony—or perhaps it’s because their ears recognized a different kind of harmony. Sibling voices often display a similar tone and resonance due to shared genetics and upbringing. Some people refer to that similarity as blood harmony.

Music was in my blood. My parents met at SUNY Potsdam while my father was pursuing music theory and my mother was studying elementary education. Therefore, their children had two career paths: elementary education and music education. It didn’t matter if they weren’t interested in teaching; my brothers were expected to train their voices (or fingers) and march off to college for music education.

This isn’t an accurate translation of the Latin; I just wrote down what the choir director said!

I sang in college, but I was more interested in the friendships I gained through Women’s Chorale than mastering challenging repertoire. My senior year culminated with a massive performance of the Berlioz Requiem—several hundred voices, a large orchestra, and four brass choirs in the corners of the auditorium. Elderly concert-goers were instructed to pull out their hearing aids. Berlioz didn’t write for altos, so as a second alto, I jumped around doubling both the sopranos and tenors. The altos joked and complained that Berlioz was pretending altos didn’t exist, but I was used to going unnoticed.

My aunt recalls a family dinner where my father announced that my voice was unremarkable compared to my younger brother’s vocal cords. I was sitting at the table while he belittled me, but I don’t remember the occasion. That kind of comment was normal.

It wasn’t until I was married and singing at church that my father finally noticed me. He sent me a brief email in which he could only compliment me by telling me (twice!) that he hadn’t bothered to pay attention to me.

Just an observation. Not a compliment—a detached, impersonal observation.

Eventually, I stopped singing. My throat grew tight when I sang at church in front of my parents and I started having panic attacks. My husband didn’t break into song while he put away laundry so I didn’t feel the urge to sing. I didn’t feel the tug of blood harmony—the chord progressions that glistened in the air as they resolved.

When my cousin married in a New Hampshire mountaintop wedding, the family was instructed to sit in one section of chairs to sing together. I chose to sit on the other side of the aisle and listen as some 20-odd family members stood to sing in four-part harmony.

These days, music conjures up more pain than joy. I attempted a performance of La Boheme this spring and ended up leaving at intermission because the walls closed in on me as soon as the orchestra began to tune their instruments. Perhaps one day I’ll be able to reclaim that part of me. Perhaps one day I will wrest my music from trauma’s wrathful grip.

It’s just not today.