Killing Me Softly with His Song
Yesterday, here in Wheeling, Michelle Duffy beautifully sang the song “Killing Me Softly with His Song” at the remembrance and celebration of life for Shawn Thomas. I think I heard Ms. Duffy say she had first sung this favorite of Shawn’s with him when she was a teenager. The first verse of this song by Fugees is:
Strumming my pain with his fingers
Singing my life with his words
Killing me softly with his song
Killing me softly with his song
Telling my whole life with his words
Killing me softly with his song.
Some readers may best remember this song as sung by Roberta Flack although it was originally written for and recorded by Lori Liberman in 1972.
Later in the service a recording of Shawn singing “Amazing Grace” was played. Ms. Duffy then led the congregants in singing “Amazing Grace”.
I was remembering the myriad of emotions which these songs and the words of others who spoke at the service in honor of Shawn elicited or evoked in me when this morning I read what another friend, Mark Armbrecht, posted in SIGILS A means of Self Expression : “If you are too tired to speak, sit next to me, because I, too am fluent in silence.” (Quantum World).
Many stories of and sentiments about the life of Shawn were shared yesterday, but what I and some others will most remember about him is the way he took command of a room as a performer, an athlete and in the past several years as a man sitting in his wheelchair. When I visited Shawn whether he was in bed or in the wheelchair he commanded my attention even as he questioned what he had left to share.
As I basked in the warmth of the packed church on a Monday afternoon I was again reminded of the power of our presence; of our ability to love; to strum the pain of others with our fingers; “to kill softly with our song”; to celebrate the life of another with a few words of music; to be deeply present as we communicate beyond words or music; to let the silence between the words speak.
The silence says:
We are enough.
Together we love.
Together we are love.
Sometimes the silence powerfully hangs in the air showering the room with love.
Thanks Shawn.
Written September 11, 2018
Jimmy F. Pickett
Yesterday, here in Wheeling, Michelle Duffy beautifully sang the song “Killing Me Softly with His Song” at the remembrance and celebration of life for Shawn Thomas. I think I heard Ms. Duffy say she had first sung this favorite of Shawn’s with him when she was a teenager. The first verse of this song by Fugees is:
Strumming my pain with his fingers
Singing my life with his words
Killing me softly with his song
Killing me softly with his song
Telling my whole life with his words
Killing me softly with his song.
Some readers may best remember this song as sung by Roberta Flack although it was originally written for and recorded by Lori Liberman in 1972.
Later in the service a recording of Shawn singing “Amazing Grace” was played. Ms. Duffy then led the congregants in singing “Amazing Grace”.
I was remembering the myriad of emotions which these songs and the words of others who spoke at the service in honor of Shawn elicited or evoked in me when this morning I read what another friend, Mark Armbrecht, posted in SIGILS A means of Self Expression : “If you are too tired to speak, sit next to me, because I, too am fluent in silence.” (Quantum World).
Many stories of and sentiments about the life of Shawn were shared yesterday, but what I and some others will most remember about him is the way he took command of a room as a performer, an athlete and in the past several years as a man sitting in his wheelchair. When I visited Shawn whether he was in bed or in the wheelchair he commanded my attention even as he questioned what he had left to share.
As I basked in the warmth of the packed church on a Monday afternoon I was again reminded of the power of our presence; of our ability to love; to strum the pain of others with our fingers; “to kill softly with our song”; to celebrate the life of another with a few words of music; to be deeply present as we communicate beyond words or music; to let the silence between the words speak.
The silence says:
We are enough.
Together we love.
Together we are love.
Sometimes the silence powerfully hangs in the air showering the room with love.
Thanks Shawn.
Written September 11, 2018
Jimmy F. Pickett
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