Carmel Breathnach

Broken Records: Reuniting With My Mother Through Her Music

Carmel Breathnach and I met on social media many years ago admiring each other’s posts. Carmel is from Ireland and visits often to spend time with her beloved and much-missed dad. My parents were both from London, and in recent years my dad and I have made yearly pilgrimages to his homeland to visit the myriad relatives. We both posted pictures of our adventures with our spirited fathers, and quickly discovered we had a lot in common.

In 2019, the AWP was in Portland and I wanted to go. Once an avid traveler, I’d spent nearly a decade staying put due the challenges my health (head and brain injury) presented. I was doing much better but wasn’t symptom free. And as anyone with a chronic illness knows, things that used to be routine suddenly become A Big Deal.

Carmel lives in Portland and she and her husband Parag graciously opened their home to me knowing that I might turn out to be a complex visitor! They met me at the airport, provided me with a gorgeous, quiet bedroom, drove me everywhere, and took me to fantastic (in the case of Pixie Retreat: life altering!) restaurants. In other words: Carmel is a kind soul not just in words but in action.

She’s also a gifted writer. When Carmel was eleven, her mother died of ovarian cancer. This loss has shaped the way she experiences the world and became the focus of her writing. I’m pleased to share her enchanting essay about mother loss, music, guilt, tenderness, and unexpected redemption.

A former school teacher, Carmel’s writing centers on childhood grief and the long-term impacts of early mother loss. Her work has appeared in The Irish Times, The Huffington Post, and Modern Loss, amongst others. She’s just finished her memoir, Briefly I Knew My Mother.

As a special treat this week, Carmel is reading her essay with her gorgeous Irish brogue. Just click on the audio link above and settle in for a tender, transportive journey, perhaps with a nice cuppa in hand.

Next week’s interview is with Ross Gay. Lots of insight into joy, delight, and gratitude in the midst of, well, all this stuff we’re collectively slogging through.

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Broken Records

It's Wednesday evening and I’ve been on Irish soil for three days. Our Tullamore weather has been mild and for that I am grateful having left glorious sunshine behind with my husband in Portland. Being back in my childhood home with my elderly father allows me the opportunity to reconnect with my past. Intentional in how I dip back in time, these moments can be solitary, though frequently I take Dad along for the ride, creating new memories out of old. 

A loud whistle alerts us to the kettle boiling furiously in our kitchen.

“Tea or coffee, Dad?” I ask, hopping up from the couch in our living room where my father sits next to a blazing fire.

“Coffee, please.”

I grab two mugs from the press and pour steaming water into each. My Barry’s Tea bag rises, the water turning dark brown. On the television is Ros na Rún, an Irish-language soap. Dad doesn’t watch much telly and Ros na Rún will be over in ten minutes, so I hand him his coffee and retreat from the room. There’s something I want to do and now is as good a time as any.

Propped beneath a table in our front room are a damaged stack of records once belonging to my mother. I’ve missed these songs, even as I worked to erase them from memory. When I was eleven and Mam was dead four months, my family was preparing to head west for the summer. I decided, last minute, to bring her records with us to Galway. Within this music existed the mother I loved and missed dearly. In spinning these tunes Mam’s voice and joy floated back to me and I needed that connection. After selecting a few favorites, I placed them on the rear window ledge of our car. The drive to Galway was long, yet familiar. I fell asleep and woke hours later at our destination, bathed in hot sunlight penetrating through the glass. Onto a gravel driveway I stepped, yawning and smiling at thoughts of another lazy summer spent with Dad and Seán. I reached for Mam’s records but they were warm. Panicking, I grabbed the stack, but her beloved 45s had warped into black ocean waves. Guilt, horror and confusion rippled through me and I wondered how I could have been so stupid. Tears came later as I realized I’d never hear my mother’s best-loved songs again, a realization so painful it felt like a thousand blades through my heart. Her music was destroyed, and I was the destroyer.

We kept the records, because who in this family could have disposed of them? Not me, nor Dad. Not my older brother. My eyes remain fixed on the collection as I drop onto our burgundy piano stool and wonder whether to remove vinyl from their sleeves and examine each one or let them gather dust for another decade. Next to the dejected stack sits a crowded rack of 45s, also my mother’s. Untouched for years I consider the infusion of mother-memories this collection of music holds, and a longing to dive into a past where Mam and I danced and sang together grips me. Sometimes she’d let me polish furniture alongside her, or roll out dough for scones, and unless she was listening to a radio talk-show, my mother was singing or playing her music. I hoist the dust laden rack out from beneath the table and place it on our velvet stool, tracing the tops of dusty singles with eager fingers. A member of a local choral group, it was she who ordered the second-hand piano for Seán and I, so that we could take lessons. I reach for the broken records but a sudden flare of sorrow makes me recoil.

Dried lavender scent drifts in the air; its floral fragrance grounding me, a reminder to remain present, even as my heart journeys backwards. Propped on a shelf next to the piano the lavender bowl came from a friend of mine, a thoughtful woman who understands lavender’s healing properties. Dad grows lavender in his garden, and I carried a lavender bouquet down the aisle on my wedding day. Lavender was Mam’s favorite color. Am I correct? I’m not sure. Nobody has told me what her favorite color was. Does anybody know?

Throughout my childhood Mam was away from us for weeks and months, enduring chemotherapy and other painful procedures in hospitals around Ireland. Though I felt safe and loved by my father I learned early in life that nothing was permanent and nothing was a given. Mam died from ovarian cancer when I was eleven. By then three grandparents had already passed. I knew death meant never seeing my mother again. Her belongings were dear to us and we kept many. Beautiful vintage pieces of clothing hang in my wardrobe and on occasion I’ll wear a dress or a blouse of hers, proud of Mam’s distinct sense of style. At twelve years of age, I learned to play her button accordion. When I browse through Mam’s belongings I discover more about the mother I only briefly knew.

My father’s inability to hold a note was passed to me, but as a little girl I knew only the delight experienced through singing. To hear Mam’s favorite songs after all these years would mean time spent with her in the present. Scooping up the damaged records I carry the stack and the rack into our kitchen, setting them on the counter next to Dad’s record player. My tea is growing cold, so I gulp it down. 

Stevie Wonder’s classic hit “I Just Called to Say I Love You” is the first on the rack. I forgot Mam loved Stevie Wonder. Ray Charles is next. I didn’t know she liked Ray Charles. Thumbing quickly through vinyl I’m surprised to see Buddy Holly in there. So, she had a thing for American musicians, as do I, but my genre of choice is rock, which I doubt she’d appreciate. What would Mam think of her daughter living in America, where I have resided for almost twenty years? I’ll never know. The next record brings on a smile. “Kentucky in the Morning” by Tom T. Hall. She surely knew nothing about Kentucky, not even its position on a US map, but I’ve been there, to visit my penpal, Hilary, and I know now that Mam was aware of its existence. Ah, finally, here’s one we all loved! I lift the cover of Dad’s player and slip “Two Little Boys” onto the wheel. Enjoying tunes with Mam felt special back then but now I realize the experience was sacred.

I turn to the dejected stack of records and tentatively slip a misshapen single from its sleeve. Oh! Millie’s “My Boy Lollipop!” Played repeatedly and often I who requested the cheerful song, it’s a hit I forgot existed until now. For most of my life, there was no other way of hearing these tunes. Our house was without internet access and some of her music isn’t available online even today. Beneath Millie’s chart-topper I spot “A Little Peace,” the 1982 Eurovision song contest winner. This one is severely warped and my heart sinks with the recollection of what happened to these treasures.

Ros na Rún has ended and I push open the living room door as the needle drops on “Two Little Boys.” 

“Familiar?” I ask Dad who is sitting low in his chair, arms folded across his chest. A smile breaks across his kind face and he nods. “It is indeed,” he says.

I hold up a damaged record and remind him of what happened.

“I broke them,” I say.

He shakes his head. “I don’t remember that, Carmel.”

“Will I try one?” I ask, peering at the vinyl in my hand.

“Do,” he says, and I exchange records, slipping “My Boy Lollipop” on to the player.

The needle drops and miraculously it works. 

“Oh my God!” I say, turning up the volume.

“Now,” Dad says, smiling.

I mouth the simple lyrics, giddy with delight and shake my head in disbelief. “A little Peace” will never play again, but a few less damaged singles work. Mam often sang Phil Collins’s “You Can’t Hurry Love” and I delighted in listening as she cheerfully went about the housework. Here it is, in perfect condition! One by one I try them out, watching as the needle bounces determinedly across miniature waves. I avoid any badly warped records, no point in breaking the player as well. 

My mother’s life encompassed far more than the cancer she fought. She was a bright light, a protector and a cherished individual. When she sang, even her eyes danced. It took more than three decades but tonight I discovered that I didn’t destroy all of Mam’s favorite records. Vinyl spins, treasured music soars and a memory blooms in my mind of a mother and her little girl. We are dancing together in this very kitchen, singing of hope for tomorrow with no idea of how little time we have left.

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