the week of his birth

We are now entering 'the week of his birth,' as this coming Sunday would have been Steve's 50th birthday.  That means that this last year was his year of 'Jubilee.'  I need to do a little more research on this idea, but I do know that it is a hebraic one, that it has something to do with returning to the family land, the release of debt and freedom.


It is also my forty-ninth year.  I will turn fifty in August, a day known as 'lammas,' a celtic feast day associated with bringing in the harvest, the baking of bread and abundance.  I find this ironic, as I have known so much loss in the arena of material things, standard relationships and a secure future.  I do feel like I live a life of abundance, though, somehow, at least in the arena of meaning, beauty and friendship.


Early in the cancer fight I said to Steve's friend Brian, "I am going to be a case study for these hymns you write and put to music."  He answered, 'Don't you think we all really are, Melanie?"  I guess that that is true, even though we may not put it like that.  Do these hymns hold water?  Do they bring the life they promise?  Are the words life and breath?  Really?


Steve and I found our deepest resonance in these kinds of words and would often sit hearthside and sing them.  Sometimes the children would be sitting near with laptops and would record it all.  I now put these on repeat and hear his voice and listen as if my life depended on it.  As i think it does.


One of these recordings is of the hymn "How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds, " a song both of us had sung as lullabyes to our children and loved for years.  For the first four verses Steve and I sing together, and then for some reason he stops and i keep singing.  Maybe he thought we'd sung enough, or maybe it was a verse that was not as important to him, but now, the recording feels prophetic.  My friend Laurie told me that it is like I am left to sing one more verse, and then I will join him.


With this thought in mind, I discovered that there is another additional verse.  I have taught this to the school children, and when we get to that verse, I do not sing it.  It is the one they will keep singing when I am gone, when I have joined Steve.  When I have joined all those I love who have gone on ahead.

How sweet the Name of Jesus sounds
In a believer’s ear!
It soothes her sorrows, heals her wounds,
And drives away her fear.


It makes the wounded spirit whole,
And calms the troubled breast;
’Tis manna to the hungry soul,
And to the weary, rest.


Dear Name, the Rock on which I build,
My Shield and Hiding Place,
My never failing treasury, filled
With boundless stores of grace!




Jesus! my Shepherd, Brother, Friend,
My Prophet, Priest and King,
My Lord, my Life, my Way, my End,
Accept the praise I bring.


and my verse.....


Weak is the effort of my heart,
And cold my warmest thought;
But when I see Thee as Thou art,
I’ll praise Thee as I ought.


and the children's verse.....


Till then I would Thy love proclaim
With every fleeting breath,
And may the music of Thy Name
Refresh my soul in death!

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