Soon You'll Get Better

Plato said that music gives life to everything. Sometimes, that “everything” includes deep emotions that bubble to the surface when we least expect it.  

“Taylor Swift has a song on her new album and it made me sob,” Madison wrote me in a text recently. 

Since Madison is a huge Taylor fan, I wasn’t surprised that she was listening to the newly-released album. But I was surprised by her emotional reaction and her sharing it with me. See, Madison isn’t the open book that I am. She has always held her emotions close and is a master at what we like to call cynical deflection. The glue that holds Team May together, she is always the one we can count on to lighten the mood and lift the sadness. This was certainly true as her brother battled cancer.

“What is the name of it?,” I responded to her text. “I want to listen to it. And will I understand why it made you cry?”

“Instantly. You’ll know. It’s called Soon You’ll get Better.”

I sat in my car and listened - physically feeling the weight of the fear and sadness in Taylor’s voice. I imagined Madison, without warning, being gutted by the connection to the lyrics: 

The buttons of my coat were tangled in my hair

In doctor’s office lighting, I didn’t tell you I was scared

That was the first time we were there…

Line by line, this song, written by Taylor about her own mother’s cancer battle, said everything I imagine Madison would have said if she could have found the words.  

In that moment, it was hard for me to breathe. I too was overwhelmed with emotion - both from living the experience and knowing the mark it had left on my strong, yet sensitive daughter who fiercely loves her brother. 

Like so many things about Matt’s cancer, watching it take Madison’s sense of security was difficult. She was 20 - a senior in college. It was the week of her indoor conference track meet. Clinical rotations were in full swing. To say her life was full would be an understatement. And then, we called her on that fateful Monday and asked her to meet us at the hospital. It felt like the world stopped in that moment, just the four of us in room 612 South. 

But it didn’t. Life has gone on. With Matt’s cancer in remission, he’s fully independent again. And as his body has healed, so are our hearts. This healing, I realized during that Taylor Swift song, looks different for us all. Madison’s heart connected to these lyrics and her tears were a visual sign that she is finding her way to being whole - albeit wholly different. And while her tears saddened me, I rejoiced for them, knowing that allowing ourselves to feel our emotions is an important step in healing from the wounds that created them.

There was healing in those tears. Those tears were an answer to prayer. 

To listen to the lyrics in full, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xf7DNfKPZM

I’d love to hear your thoughts on it.