BITTER-SWEET MEMORY OF AN MS REMISSION

There was a time when I was a skilled guitarist. Multiple sclerosis stripped my ability to play in 1985.  Although I don't refer to it, there was a brief period during the 1990s when I regained my ability to play the guitar. It was bitter-sweet. 

Throughout most of my pre-multiple sclerosis life, music was my great passion, and I was good at it. Fear that MS would snatch that love away again -- as it had cruelly done before -- kept me guarded. My teenage son asked me to teach him Signe from Eric Clapton's Unplugged album, which I did. 

Not long after that, what I feared happened. I lost my ability to play the guitar again. The experience was more bitter than sweet because once more it broke my heart. My ability has not come back. And so I closed the interior music door so thoroughly that that memory slept for the past twenty years. I put it out of my mind. That is why I don't speak of it. 

This past weekend I was enjoying supper at my now adult son's home. Music softly played in the next room and Eric Clapton's Signe started. My little grey cells holding that memory awoke! I remembered teaching him that song. A vague sadness came over me listening to the pleasant melody again and thinking of the time that has passed. My son has his own family now, and I am a grandfather.

Here then is Eric Clapton's Signe from his Unplugged album (1992).