Music meant so much to my dad. I vividly remember one of my favourite childhood memories of being filmed by my dad with his camcorder as I danced to his favourite songs. 

When I was four years old, my dad happily filmed me dancing, running in circles with me trying to jump to the beat in our apartment living room, on the mosaic parquet floors.

Up until I was seven years old, I would always dance alongside my sister. We came up with hilariously random hand movements and moves to match the rhythm of the songs playing. 

My dad’s great taste of music brought the light into our household every single day of the week, including busy school evenings to family get-togethers. 

He would play different types of upbeat music, including Bollywood, West Indian music and more, so that me and my family were exposed to his Indo-Caribbean culture and roots through the songs he grew up listening to back in Guyana.  

Whenever his favourite music was playing, he would drum his fingers on beat while he was reading the news or watching videos on YouTube on the computer desk, and he would sing or hum the lyrics.

Music was the glue that kept my family together through thick and thin, especially a couple of months before my dad got his cancer diagnosis.

My dad was officially diagnosed with pancreatic cancer on Dec. 23, 2019. The news of my dad’s cancer diagnosis was shocking, devastating and disheartening for me and my family.

No one on either side of my family had been diagnosed with this type of cancer before.

Years before his cancer fight, he was health conscious with his diet and lifestyle, and made sure to keep his body in top shape with his exercise routine at home everyday.

My dad had a hard time acknowledging the fact that he was battling pancreatic cancer. He wanted all of us to treat him as normal, as if his cancer didn’t exist and that he was still his old, perfectly healthy self.

He didn’t want his cancer diagnosis to personally affect him, as he wanted to enjoy the small and big moments that brought him joy with us as much as possible.

Bonding through DJing

In early 2020, I watched him, often every weekend, in the living room learning to DJ on his own DJing Serato set, mixing and scratching his favourite songs. I would always catch him dancing with a big smile across his face. 

Eventually, I scratched and mixed some of his songs on my own, perfectly on beat, and he was overjoyed of this small accomplishment from me.

This experience of spending time and bonding with my dad through DJing is where my love for music started. 

I didn’t understand the Guyanese Creole lyrics of my dad’s songs, but through him playing his culture’s songs, he wanted me to learn that this will always be a part of my identity.

Even though my dad was in constant, debilitating back and stomach pain, he fought hard to remain strong to continue this hobby to distract himself.  

It was like music therapy for him, where he found joy and comfort within himself. He truly made the most out of our months together with his hobby of DJing, just to see and make us all happy. 

The final hospital visit

Since my dad passed away three years ago at St. Michael’s Hospital on a very snowy night, I occasionally still get those incredibly sad flashbacks. 

I felt sorry that my dad was all alone in the hospital, but it was just the way it was. This was the last time he had to be admitted to the hospital before he passed away on Feb. 19, 2021, due to a second serious blood infection known as sepsis.  

Due to strict social distancing protocols related to the COVID-19 outbreak and pandemic, my mom and I couldn’t be with him to spend as much time as we liked with him.

The next morning, after my dad passed, there was huge void in my heart. I felt emotionally numb, but I also had a feeling like he was still physically there for my family in my household.

The pain and the grief especially struck me very hard on the first day without him, whenever I saw our family photos on the wall and his medical supplies along with his medications laying around our home.

Every single corner of my household had a piece that reminded me of him and made me miss him more. I couldn’t stop crying my eyes out. I felt that my life lacked colour, and all the quality family fun that we used to have had been sucked out so soon.

It took me until after his second-year death anniversary to muster up the courage to gradually listen to all of my dad’s favourite songs.

His favourite playlist of songs that he would often play in the same order transported me back to a memory lane of nostalgia, and made me feel at peace, and able to acknowledge that he is in a better place, no longer suffering anymore.

Music is a healthy outlet for people who are grieving 

It turns out that people do listen to music for healing qualities to help them get through grief.

Listening to music while grieving “has both a mental and physical impact on your body,” according to a PPL PRS United for Music article. For many, listening to music is a source of entertainment that can uplift your overall emotional state.

Music can also serve as a healthy mechanism tool as a universal language, expressing or processing emotions of missing a loved one, evoking happy memories of a deceased person and many more, according to a Matthew Funeral Home article.

According to Larissa Zouberava, a registered psychotherapist and music therapist, uplifting music and music therapy is one way for people to support themselves in their journey of grief. 

She uses a music program for her sessions for 30-45 minutes with clients, which sometimes helps them process their emotions.

“Sometimes, the music program is for releasing their emotions or for evoking good memories, as well as ocassionally for clients in validating their feelings,” Zouberava says.

“If they work with a music therapist, the therapist chooses music which helps to validate their feelings and then, music plays the role of a co-therapist to support clients,” she adds.

Similarly, a BlueCross BlueShield Arizona article revealed that people experience increased energy, positive emotions, and increased motivation levels when playing upbeat music, according to a Journal of Positive Psychology study cited among others in the article.

Family and music are always there for me

As of now, life for me and my family continues to be full, with some bad periods of grief, great days, and surprises that we would never have imagined moving into our first new house without my dad.

We try to make each day and every minute count as much as possible, and we celebrate the small milestones together, from my sister graduating from university, to one of us learning how to fix something small in our household.

Most of all, we are there for each other as much as possible, like my dad always taught us to be.

I’ll always have the habit to listen as well as make a playlist on YouTube of my dad’s favourite Bollywood and Chutney songs while I’m doing assignments at home.

Listening to my dad’s music makes me concentrate and motivates me to successfully complete writing assignments, especially long form news writing, which can be boring at times. This makes getting these assignments done a fun task to do.

Listening to my dad’s music helped me to regain my strength and hope, to keep making my dad proud from above.

Music has played a part in all areas of my life, from continuing to go above and beyond on my dad’s wishes, which one of them was for me to attend college, as well as to succeed with flying colours in my academics.

Music has benefitted me in helping me rise up to the challenges that have come my way, to keep growing into the person I am today.

Alongside writing spoken word poetry on my YouTube channel, this big change in my life taught me to always find comfort and relief by transforming my outlook of grief through my love of upbeat music from my dad.