Whisked Away by a Song

Her little red car sped us to the airport. My sister drove, my brother was up front, and I sat in the back. “I want to show you this song,” she told us. Popping in a cd, the mournful, blended harmonies of The Weepies filled the car.

The outside air seemed misty, cool, grey. After a long, emotional weekend, my brother was flying home to the west coast. We had cried together–the three of us–and talked deeply of life, relationships, hurts, disappointments, and fragile hopes. The weekend was a tumultuous answer to prayer in that our family had bonded deeply, after years of praying for that. The circumstances were terrible, though, and this answer to prayer of closeness had a high price.

We ached, hurt for him, wanted to fix it, and knew we couldn’t. So we cried together, both in my sister’s dark car one night and then back at my house with my parents.

Now a day or so later, he was leaving, and we hated to see him go, wanted to stay together as a family for a few days longer. Newly close siblings, newly close family…

So we sat listening to The Weepies in my sister’s car –she likes multi-voiced harmonies and married into a very harmonious family who sing together often. I had never heard them before, and didn’t know anything about the group, but their plaintive melodies were perfect for our sad drive to the airport last May.

Now, over a year later, whenever I come across a Weepies song online, it whisks me back to that car drive to the airport, seeing my brother up front, the misty air outside, and not wanting him to leave.