Cassandra's Song
On December 1, 1982, I dropped my 4-month-old daughter, Cassandra, off at the sitter's house before going to work. Two hours later a panicked call from the sitter sent me racing to the hospital. Something was wrong with my baby. Without any warning, she had stopped breathing. Doctors and nurses worked on her for 2 hours to no avail. Ultimately, we left the hospital ...without her. She was gone. My beautiful and healthy baby girl died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.
One of the hardest things for a parent who's lost a baby is how hard it is for people to understand the magnitude of our loss.
I wrote a poem that was read at her funeral. It expressed a small bit of my sorrow and loss. A few years later I wrote a chorus. A couple of years after that a friend added a melody. We got together in his living room with a Casio cassette recorder and put it all together. My best friend from High School, Robin, sang it beautifully while two guys played the guitar. We'd planned to create a finished version and a proper recording of the song but we never did. Casio recorders with condenser mics aren't known for their quality sound reproduction. No matter, I have listened to it year after year for more than 30 years.
A few months ago I asked my friend Laurie Scoot if she could try to clean up the recording for me. She's a genius at sound mixing and has been doing it professionally for many years. If anyone could improve the sound and minimize the hiss...Laurie could.
Laurie is a very busy business owner so I didn't expect her to devote a lot of time to my little project. After several weeks I completely forgot that I'd even asked her to do it.
Well, this weekend we received a package in the mail from Laurie. Just ahead of that delivery came an invitation to a Zoom meeting with instructions to not open the package until our zoom meeting started.
Honestly, I still can't believe what was in the box! Laurie explained that she did her best to clean up the recording but there was only so much she could do. So she got an idea to remake and remix the song from scratch.
She got her friend Fletch Wiley - a MULTI award-winning writer and composer (Grammy, Album of the Year, Dove, Davey, Telly...) to create a brand new arrangement for Cassandra's song. It's just beautiful!!!
Then Laurie got Michelle Arland, Stephanie Stamps and Allison Armstrong to do the vocals. All three sing and lead worship and have tremendous talent.
Then Laurie did what she does 2nd best. She put it all together. You're all wondering why I said 2nd best, aren't you? Well, that's only because what she does THE best are friendship and gift-giving.
When I played the cd I had no idea what I was about to hear. After the first few bars the vocals came in; "I may never understand, why God took you away..." I felt all the air leave my lungs in a rush. WHAAAAT??? How????? OMGOODNESS!!!!
I don't know how long it's been since I cried as much as I did the other night. Tears of joy. Pain. Grief. Gratitude. Love. Amazing Love.
Never before have Mike and I received such a wonderful gift. After we finally ended our Zoom meeting with Laurie we listened to the song several more times. We just could not get over how much time, effort and talent went into producing this beautiful song for us.
Today marks the anniversary of the day our precious daughter died. We miss her every day. But we know she is with Jesus and one day we will join her. Until then, I will remain grateful for the memories and the reminders of her life. Most especially, this beautiful gift. Thank you, Laurie! I love you more than words could say.
In His love and service,
Sharon Bollum