Retirements, music and soul
In contemporary society, we witness the attenuation of meaningful rituals, and one of these is raising our voices together in song. Having grown up in the sixties, when we carried our guitars and sang everywhere, I miss that.
Loss requires ritual, and so does a change of state. After long years of service, retirees need and deserve to be ritually helped forward into their next stage of life. People love to be sung to, and they love to sing along. This personal kind of music lubricates the passage through change.
The retirement celebration I attended on Friday night was for four colleagues with whom I worked for over twenty years. We've been a tight group of baby boomers in our workplace, and it was sad for those who have not yet retired to think we would not see these work friends in our hallways again.
Strangely, as one moves between phases of life, loss brings its own blessings. In this case, the loss of four dear and familiar afforded us the satisfaction of planning and carrying out a ritual celebration to mark the border between the working state and the retired one.
A fellow wordsmith and I took it upon ourselves to create songs -- familiar tunes, altered lyrics -- to recall some of the remarkable history we shared with these departing colleagues. In the afternoon before the dinner, we practiced and prepared for our performance.
Only to discover that the "room" that had been booked for the party at the back of a noisy and boisterous restaurant was little more than an alcove. At first we feared it would be impossible for the lyrics over which we had laboured would be largely inaudible.
But we wanted to deliver our personal songs to the people we wrote them for, and we found a way. Seating our departing colleagues directly in front of us on chairs while the others gathered round behind them meant all could enjoy our invented lyrics and our a capella singing. We began with a ballad, addressing each of them in turn with memories that spanned many long years.
After our songs, others gave limericks they had created, as well as spontaneous memories and tributes. We then closed with a traditional Irish song. The Parting Glass is a benediction that follows the last drink of an evening. Our version was altered (always allowed with folk songs) and a bit lighter than that of the famous slow, sad version of the Clancy Brothers.
And so my dear colleagues, Mary Jane, Herbert, Dave and Jack, you have been ritually celebrated and sung into your next stage.
"Good night and joy be with you all."