I’ll sing for you when you’re out of bed

It was nice out. I was sitting outside on my lunch break at work, soaking in some of the sun that’s been so rare this summer, and I decided I wanted to add a little music to the vibe. I opened Spotify, and the first thing I saw was that AJR had released a new song called God is Really Real. I am a big fan of AJR (I honestly haven’t yet heard a song of theirs I DON’T like) so I was immediately psyched to check it out. At that point I had no idea what it was about or what they had been going through, but as soon as I started listening to it I thought “oh my God, their dad died.”

1 minute and 42 seconds later I was crying. There was nothing that could have stopped it. This song hit me in the most unique and profound way I have ever experienced from one song. I sent the link right to my sister because I knew she would hear what I heard. It was… everything. Such a simple song, yet every word, every line, resonated so deeply with me that I couldn’t remain unchanged by it.

At a picnic table in the sun, my heart and soul were screaming: They get it. They GET IT.

Not just in general, but in a very unique and specific way. The AJR brothers just lost their dad to a terminal illness, slowly and painfully over time. 7 and a half years ago, I lost my dad to a terminal illness, slowly and painfully over time.

God is Really Real tells it like it is, like it was, like I experienced it.

AJR said:
The earth is spinnin’ like it always did
The New York Times is publishing
Some real important thing
And each day when the world wakes up
Our lawns will still be wet
And my dad can’t get out of bed

I remember:
The surreal feeling of my entire existence crumbling around me; standing there facing the worst thing I could possibly imagine, while the world kept going on as normal—completely oblivious, or at least largely apathetic to the deepening fractures of life as I knew it.

People are going to work, and making dinner, and reading books, and I am one of them, oh and by the way my dad is dying, but anyway… there is no word for that, but there is music for it now. It’s a theme throughout the whole song, as it is throughout life itself, and it is conveyed so beautifully it makes my heart ache.

AJR said:
What if we could break you out tonight?
This kind of thing happens to other dads
It don’t happen to mine
I’ll distract the doctors; we could sneak out with your meds
You could come along and be a roadie for the band
Come on, Dad, get out of bed

I remember:
The chaos, the denial, the need to pretend everything is fine. Everything’s going to be fine. The begging and pleading and reasoning. The “let’s just get up and go to those specialists in NYC.” The hope and despair intertwined. The understanding that if my dad could have gotten out of bed to experience life even halfway full again, my God, he would have.

The interjection that this kind of thing doesn’t happen to *my* dad is so powerful in its honesty, in its placement, and even in how it stumbles off the beat a little bit. They could have made that a verse on its own, but it strikes basically in the middle of a thought, which is exactly how it feels to go through this. It is not linear. It is not organized. It is not fair. It is just happening. When you put it to music, this is what it sounds like.

AJR said:
Now it’s late, I really gotta go
And we can’t face our feelings, so we’re makin’ lots of jokes
And we won’t cry about it, no, we’ll be manly men
“I love you” sounds all corny, so I wrote this song instead
I’ll sing it for you, Dad, when you get out of bed
I’ll sing for you when you’re out of bed

I remember:
The evenings spent in the hospital, settling into each new room as if it was our living room. Being tired, having to leave. The day I showed my dad John Mulaney’s “The Salt and Pepper Diner” skit and he laughed so hard he cried. The night before he died, when my family was gathered around his bed making jokes and sharing funny stories and laughing together because that’s what we do. The belief I clung to, even at the end, that my dad would get better. It was not if, it was when. If only because I had more to show him.

The last line is a promise. It didn’t play out the way I wanted, the way they wanted. But our dads left the pain behind. Our dads made it Home. Our dads did get out of bed. And now that promise will be kept one way or another.

I’m not a singer, but I will write for you, Dad.

Listening to this beautiful, poignant song was like tearing open a wound and washing over the raging pain with a sweet salve all at the same time. I couldn’t stop. I don’t know how many times I actually listened to it because I had it on repeat for the rest of the day. Over and over again I lived through the feelings with these brothers, and felt my own, and broke, and healed, and sobbed.

After all this time, it is still so raw. I think it always will be. The grief that came with losing my dad when I did, the way I did has never gone away. It goes into a storage box in my heart at times, and over time those stays in the box have become longer. But it will always be there, reminding me that I am a human who loved another human; it will always need time to be felt. And that is why encountering a piece of art that shines a soft, comforting light on even the darkest and most personal corners of that grief is so important. That is why, though I grieve for their loss as I grieve for my own, I am thankful that Adam, Jack, and Ryan could turn the depth of their pain into something so touching and incredible.

To Bill and Gary.