Saying goodbye unmasks part of circle of life

I'm taking a creative writing class, so I've been thinking a lot about words and art these days.

Have you ever read Billy Collins' poem about angels, the one where he wonders why all we ever ask about them is how many can dance on the head of a pin? He wants to know more, like if an angel fell off a cloud would he make a hole in a river? A person could think about that all night. I know, because I have.

It helps that I believe that art, whether it is made with words, music, or pictures, matters even more when bad news is raining down. Sometimes, like Saturday night at the Chilkat Center, you can see, and hear, what I mean.

I am embarrassed to admit that I didn't know Irish musician Tommy Sands was from Northern Ireland, or that he has an honorary doctorate in the saving the world with a song department, and not just because of his help with the Irish "troubles." He has had a healing hand, or should I say healing song, in the fall of the Berlin Wall, the rescue of Sarajevo and the rehabilitation of young inmates in a Reno, Nev., jail.

I went to the concert because I like Irish music and because I want to support the arts in Haines, which means buying a ticket to the shows. With the Red Sox game on and a high school volleyball game in the gym, the crowd might be thin. Also, my husband is on the Arts Council board.

He surprised me a few years ago when he said he wasn't going to run for re-election to the Haines Borough Assembly (he served about 15 years on it and the old City Council) because he was tired of spending his free time in meetings with unhappy voters.

He says the Arts Council events are the opposite of assembly meetings. People come to concerts because they like the program. People only come to assembly meetings when they don't like the program.

And even though my husband is a die-hard Red Sox fan, he left the TV to hear real people singing because he said, "anything live is always better than the screen." And oh what lively songs Tommy and his son and daughter sang.

They sang about the day Tommy Sands' idyllic rural Irish childhood ended. The day a friend who was Protestant was killed by rioters, and another friend who was Catholic was killed in retaliation. It was such a sad a song, but a hopeful one too, mainly because of the refrain about blooming wild roses. They sang about thorns, but they sang louder about the flowers.

Tommy Sands told gentle jokes too. Like the one about two poets sitting at a table writing, and one asked the other for a word that rhymed with great, and he thought a minute and said "fascinate." His poet friend said that was perfect, and wrote: "I have a duffel coat, I think it's great, it has nine buttons, but I can only fascinate."

He also said, in a way that reminded me of Billy Collins' angel musings, that he thinks people are happy because we laugh, not that we laugh because we are happy.

My favorite song, "Goodbye Love, There's No One Leaving," was about taking his mother to a nursing home because of advanced Alzheimer's disease.

He sang about walking her in the door of the home, and how she held his hand with the same trust and fear he had held hers on the first day of school, which didn't seem that long ago. He sang about knowing he couldn't stay and not knowing how he could leave.

He sang: "Just when I feel I've betrayed you, I am lost and don't know what to do, you smile and whisper 'My darling, you must take your little one to school.' " Then he and his grown children sang the refrain, "Goodbye love, there's no one leaving. Goodbye love, there's no one leaving," and I felt the way I did every time I've had to say goodbye to anyone I love at the ferry, or an airport -- or a funeral. I thought about that whole happy, sad, circle of life and was grateful for the singer and the song.

Heather Lende lives and writes in Haines and is the author of "If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name." She can be reached at hlende@adnmail.com.