it makes me feel like the pain had a purpose
On almost losing a loved one, processing, & the new Hayley Williams album, Flowers For Vases.
I could build out a whole timeline of how Paramore has been woven into my life, especially when it comes to firsts. The first band on my blue SanDisk Sansa Fuze MP3 player, the first band shirt I ever owned, the first CD I brought along with me as I learned to drive (Brand New Eyes, of course).
Hayley Williams’ solo album, Petals For Amor, became one of the three records I listened to when the pandemic first hit, and what I thought was a one week stay at my parent’s house became five after I lost my job and uncertainty fueled my every anxious thought when they weren’t drowned out by the TV shows I tried to silence them with. While PFA is all about growing from hardship and into one of hope while welcoming in love and positivity, her new record, Flowers For Vases, has accurately been described as the sort of prequel to that.
It’s like taking off layers of paint on a now perfect house to find the layers of lost memory-filled wallpaper and color combinations that lead to a now strong, unshakable foundation. It’s a stripped-back look into what needs to occur in order to grow in ways that can only happen when one navigates through it alone. Which is fitting as PFA is full of collaboration with long-term members of the Paramore family while Flowers For Vases was written and performed by Williams all on her own.
The processing of grief that it took to create and now release these songs is exactly what’s allowed me to process my own. The constant pain that’s always sort of there but if you ignore it for long enough, you’ll get used to it. But we both know that doesn’t make it go away. Only confronting it can.
All of the words before what follows feels like a slow build I had to make myself string together to get to the real point of this. If I had started here, I would’ve let my thoughts fall apart just like I have every time I’ve sat down to write since October. While all the other pieces of work I’ve used this space for were about processing moments from the past, I guess it’s fitting that a new album is what is helping me get through something recent that I’ve had difficulty processing.
On October 7th, my mom called. But it wasn’t a normal “let’s catch up” call as per usual. She told me that my dad had a heart attack. The call was short, her voice was shaking and she hung up before I could ask any of the sudden questions I had that would add some kind of sense to the situation. In the group chat full of my high school friends that I was messaging before the call, I asked what to do and they suggested I go back home to Florida, so I did. I drove from Nashville to Gainesville from 8 PM to 5 AM. I don’t remember much of it aside from frequent stops to splash water on my face and the fact that I listened to Southern Weather by The Almost for nearly 3 hours while I zoned out.
The month that followed as my dad recovered feels blurred but probably from my own doing, I could make clarity of it (as I’m attempting here) if it weren’t so painful. Months later, when he mentioned the huge hospital bill from his two-week stay (which was mostly covered by their insurance) and how I should’ve seen the huge room they stuck him in, my mom told him that I did. This was news to him, and to me.
Holding his cold hand in a hospital room while he was hooked up to a ventilator on that first day is something I’ll probably never forget. He was in a medically induced coma at the time and has no memory of me being there and by the time he was awake in the hospital, the thought of being there again became too much and other family members visited instead.
Now having a relationship with half-siblings and relatives I hadn’t spoken to in 10 years because of this situation is another thing entirely. In conversations at my parent’s dining room table, we discussed forgiveness, our now adult lives, and the need to keep in contact - we still are. It’s strange to think about how this connection with all of them probably never would’ve happened otherwise.
It’s something that I will continue to process much like I’m continuing to do as I listen to Flowers For Vases and pick up on each song’s lyrics and small intricate moments. Maybe in a way, this is my prequel to it all. Processing the moments I thought I’d never been able to get past and I know that through future grief, I’ll never be alone.
I am a Big Music Fan and excessive playlister. If you want to throw any funds my way, they’ll be donated to the Nashville Free Store (open every Saturday from 12pm-6pm CT) & Nashville Community Fridge (always open & regularly stocked) located at Drkmttr (the city’s only all-ages venue) here in, you guessed it, Nashville.