” I Buried My Dog Today” by Matt Larson

I realize that this song is not my best writing, but it captured what I wanted and was able to say.  We ventured down to SC this week to visit family and brought our dog.  Not the first time we’d traveled with her.  She actually enjoys peeing all over the countryside and smelling new smells. 

We made the trip in 15 hours and the whole family traveld quite well.  We woke the next morning and Kara and I went for a 3 mile run with Abby.  She ran like she was 7 years old.  Later that afternoon she colapsed in the kitchen walking across the room.   I went over to her and just had the gut feeling that she was going to die.

At that moment I pet her and asked God to take her before tonight and that she wouldn’t suffer.  She struggled the rest of the day and had to be carried from one room to another because she was unable to move herself.  The evening turned to night.  We were doing a family camping deal with the kids in the yard, so after petting on my dog for a long while (fully knowing this could be the last time I did so) I went outside to be with the kids.  Kara sat with Abby the rest of the evening.  Her breathing slowed.  Her sister Wren came down and sat and cried with her.  Kara felt helpless.. watching our beloved dog fading, wishing she could do something.  Wren prayed with Kara for God’s mercy and in that moment Abby breathed her last.

I came in to see her and woke my oldest son as well.  He was really sad, but it was good for him reflect on what had transpired.

I have never personally watching anything in the process of dying. 

It is a strange passing of time.

It still hangs upon me in an odd way.

I woke this morning.  I went and found a shovel and proceeded to dig a grave for my faithful mut.  I had no desire to partake in my morning coffee until this matter was fully resolved.  We brought her from the house and I placed her in the grave.  I found it difficult and felt sick as I put the first shovel full of dirt upon her body.  Once filled we made plans to put up a little cross and have a small family eulogy. 

It was a beautiful time to talk about the preciousness of God’s gift of life and His personal interest in our lives.  How he used Abby to impact our lives in a way that nothing else could have. 

As Kara said “she represented the youth of our lives”.  We found Abby the first year of our marriage.  She had been abondoned.  Our landlord wouldn’t allow pets so we bought a house.. becuase we wanted to keep her.   On and on my stories could go, but they are my stories and will mean little to you.  The wrap up is that God changed my life through this animal that has been deemed “man’s best friend”.  I will be sad for some time and glad for the time that was.

 

I Buried My Dog Today
Written by Matt Larson
Copyright April 20, 2011

she was 98
eyes half blind
still full of life
she liked to walk
but loved to run
God knew Tuesday morning would be the last one

I buried my dog today
in the South Carolina clay
she lived a long life
and Abby breathed her last breath
her last breath last night

I remember the day
my wife and me
found you in the street

you’ve been there
with all three kids
and everything we did
it can be hard to fill the hole
but that’s part of letting go

“Where There’s Smoke There’s Fire” by Matt Larson

Today’s installment of Song A Day is a short tune I wrote to help reinforce the chords my students are learning. http://www.dreamcenterpeoria.org/freedomartsproject.html . I hope this helps you future rockstars!

“Where There’s Smoke There’s Fire”
©2011 Matt Larson
April 13, 2011

||: A / / / | D / / / | Bm / / / | E / / / |
don’t think that you can
figure me out
by smokin’ me out

you’ve got a lot of nerve
it’s unnerving
but it’s what I’m deserving

where there’s smoke there’s fire
it’s a burning desire
fearing you is making me wiser
I might choke up and cry
I’m broken inside
I know all of Your ways are right

I thought that I could
do without You
but it’s not true

I found pride was
rooted deeply
but you freed me

“Harvey the Tree” by Matt Larson

welcome to song a day with Matt Larson where I’m writing a song a day, roughly. They aren’t perfect, and may not even be pretty but they are fresh daily. Today’s idea was sparked by one of my Facebook Friends (FBFs look me up www.facebook.com/mattlarsonhascatlikereflexes ) Sam Atkins.  He said: “The sad passing of things around us? There were a couple of guys felling a tree outside today in view of my study and it was actually quite sad…especially as it looks to be for the sole reason of making someone’s driveway wider.”

It struck a chord with me.  I’m a fan of God’s creation and, along with my wife, tend to get irritated with all the concrete.  Though I am somewhat of a hypocrite because I also like driving on the road.  so.. yah.. anyway.  Here’s the song, hope you enjoy it.

“Harvey the Tree”
©2011 Matt Larson
April 11, 2011

||: Bm / D / |  A / / / | Bm / D / |  A  / / / | Bm / D / | Em / A / | D / Em / |A / / / |
Harvey the tree
started as a sapling
they didn’t know how old he was
until they counted his rings

he learned to expand
as progress demands
embraced the soil and suns light
lived to understand

||: D / / /| A / / /| Em / / /| A / / / |
most things are going to change
you can’t always plan
in some unanticipated ways
but you do what you can

really liked his yard
didn’t mind the increasing cars
on the driveway that seemed to be
more closer than far

“Breakforth (don’t let me go)!” by Matt Larson

Today’s idea came as I pondered the potential thoughts that an innercity kid might have.  The idea of being sufficated by the environment.  Dealing with pressures that no kid should have to confront.  Feeling like everything is hopeless, and that hopelessness extends beyond sight.  The chorus calls out to you (and me).  Breakforth!  You can help me.  Save me from the place I’m at.  Then it asks the question “can you help someone you don’t know?”  I personally think it’s a tough question on various levels.  There are people who naturally rise to the occassion of helping people they have never met.  I don’t know if I am, and think that if I’m asking the question then the answer is probably that I’m not. 

The third verse takes us into the day to day choices.  Not all choice is opportunity.  There are many people, kids who don’t get the open doors that I have been given.  Again the chorus resounds with an appeal to help.  Rise to the occassion.  Enjoy the tune, and hopefully be inspired.  Amen.

“Breakforth (Don’t Let Me Go)!”
©2011 Matt Larson
April 10, 2011
For Abby, my old dog

someone forgot the air
cause I can’t breathe here
why

pressures pressing on me
endless hopeless it seems
why

break forth don’t let me go
save me from the undertow
can you help someone you don’t know?
break forth don’t let me go

lots of choices before me,  though I wouldn’t
call them opportunity
why

even with the earth beneath my feet
I still feel like I’m drowning

“It’s Good To Bathe” by Matt Larson

A very good afternoon to you.  Today’s song idea comes from my cousin Amanda Spencer Harkness (the southernbell of the family).  She mentioned the phrase bathing the dog and it become the spring board for today’s song.  So, while she will realize the extent of my stupidity at this juncture, it’s not something that has been entirely hidden.  Enjoy, see you tomorrow. m

“It’s Good To Bathe”
©2011 Matt Larson
April 8, 2011
For Abby, my old dog

bath was half empty
certainly
it wasn’t half full

and she bathed
with a face
like life had taken its toll

water ran off her face
she stared into space
wondered when it would be done

she
calmly
weathered the storm

hey hey hey hey
it’s good to bathe

she mostly tolerated
anticipated
the end of it all

why fight
though it didn’t seem right
having wet paws

hey hey hey hey
it’s good to bathe

“Who Will Listen to Me?” by Matt Larson

I found today’s song particularly difficult to write, due to the nature of the story content.  One of my facebook friends Christine Meyerhoefer shot this idea to me:  “A young girl in my community was just found.She jumped from a railroad tressel and then froze to death.She lost her mom 5 years ago from cancer and never excepted it.Her boyfriend broke up with her and it was more than she could handle.So many young people these days think they have nothing to live for.Asong letting them know theres hope or a song about the sadness of a parent losing a child.Sorry if it’s too sad, just can’t get her out of my mind.Her name was Angel.”

You can read the full story and other stories from various news sources.  Here is one of those sources:

At age 12, Angel M. Leverenz lost her mother to cancer. So besides being an A student, working and volunteering in her spare time, she was counted on to help keep the family’s house together. “Angel took care of her brothers and her dad and ran a household and went to school,” said her aunt, Carol Ann Czora. “She was a teenager with a lot of responsibilities.”  The young woman’s body was discovered by fishermen Friday in a wooded area near a railroad trestle, not far from Eighteen Mile Creek. She was 18. Ms. Leverenz was seen last March 22, and family members reported her missing two days later. Police in Evans who searched for the young woman for days say they do not suspect foul play. An autopsy was performed Saturday, but results were not yet available. Police said the investigation into her death was continuing.  Born in Buffalo and raised in Angola, Ms. Leverenz was an A student as a senior at Lake Shore High School, where she had transferred the previous school year from Immaculata Academy in Hamburg.

“She was an excellent student,” Superintendent James E. Przepasniak said. “She took AP classes [and was] a friend of many. She will be terribly missed.” Ms. Leverenz was active in the Fire Explorer Program with the Angola Fire Department for a few years and enjoyed volunteering with Habitat for Humanity, her aunt said. She worked at the Jubilee supermarket in Angola, where she saved up enough money to buy a car. Ms. Leverenz also enjoyed collecting angels of all kinds— necklaces, ornaments and knickknacks. “She was just a real sweetheart— very unassuming, a very good friend to a lot of people, a good listener,” her aunt said. “She definitely got that from her mom, that’s for sure.” Her mother, Michele, died in 2004. Survivors include her father, George; two brothers, Jacob Safe and Dylan; and her grandmother, Anne Safe.  Services will be at 3 p.m. Wednesday in Southtowns Christian Center, 6619 Southwestern Blvd., Lake View.http://www.buffalonews.com/city/communities/southern-erie/article384016.ece

One of the things I noticed as I read the story is that you have this teenage girl taking care of her family.  You have a lot of things being said about what a good listener she was, but no where does anyone say “she was struggling” or “she was having a hard time”.  At least from the news report no one seemed to really know her.  To have asked her how she’s doing.  That made me sad.  It also made me wonder if there were people that I failed to be in tune with who need to be loved and listened to. 

The two concepts that Christine mentioned at the end of her FB post were hope and saddness.  I think she was think of them as separate songs, but I think this tune blended those concepts together nicely.  The real story is tragic and leaves a lot of questions, at least for me.  It causes me to wrestle with some issues, which is good.  I ended the tune with what I believe to be the greatest, and only, hope you can really ever have.. God.  We all have space in our lives that needs to be filled and we will fill it with something.  We may even fill it with lots of good things, stuff that’s not necessarily bad.  Still empty we will be.   Even as someone who identifies himself as a Christian I will still look to other things from time to time.   In the end when I begin to feel stressed, worn, and ready to quit.  

The lyrical analysis is like this.  “Mom’s left the table” captures the loss of Angel’s mother to cancer.  She’s no longer in their lives.  “Dad’s unavailable” illustrates that while he was around he had nothing to give.  Again, I don’t know the full story.  I don’t really know who he was or what he did, so I’m taking some liberty to make an assumption that he had nothing to give his daughter.  “railroad trestl is the last place to wrestle” is identifying the location where her body was found.  It was the last place she churned the thoughts that presed upon her. 

The bridge section is how I think she felt most of the time.  One paper stated that she broke up with her boyfriend and that was all she could take.  I think it takes more than a break up to want to die.  My guess is that she had thought about that option on more than one occassion.  The Chorus states what I think most of us really want… someone to care, to listen.  

The third verse continues the thinking that she heavy with all the things she’s managing in her life.  In the last verse I played on her name with the idea that Angle’s should be strong.  She felt fragile, she was fragile and felt hopeless.  At the ending of the song you get, what I believe to be as I stated eariler, our hope: a relationship with our Creator.

Everyone will let you down at some point.  You can’t do enough to fill yourself up.  You are valuable.  If you feel alone, you are not. 

“Who Will Listen to Me?”
©2011 Matt Larson
April 6, 2011
In loving memory of Angle M. Leverenz

Mom’s left our table
and dad’s unavailable
I don’t know where to start

railroad trestle
is the last place to wrestle
with the things on my heart

ask me how I am
and you may find
I want to die

who will listen to me?
care about me?

I’ll carry the weight
so don’t stay up late
I’ve got a lot to do

I can’t be an angel
I’m much to fragile
don’t think I can make it through

ask me how I am
and you may find
I want to die

who will listen to me?
care about me?

God it’s You that I need to fill me

“Falling” by Matt Larson

I’m attempting to get ideas from my Facebook friends and I hope I don’t tick any of them off but I had one of my older ideas calling to me today.  So I went to the “unfinishedideas” folder and reviewed the initial idea video i did.  A couple weeks ago I was working on scraping paint off the wall in the bathroom.  Side note, I’m not much of a project guy.  I like to think I am and that I can do anything that needs to get done but at the end of the day it is just not my skillset.  So While inhaling some of the natural citris paint remover this idea came to me and I promptly went to the piano to record it.

This morning I sat at the piano humming the verses and singing the chorus.  The first verse came quite naturally, the second followed suit.   Now where to go.  So far it’s about a guy that’s got everything together.. ah yes.. let’s mess up his world.  She comes across his path.  He’s immediately “stirred” and loses his senses.  The third verse after the chorus reenforces his current state.  He lost his balance (really and metaphorically) She knows why he has ended up where he’s at.  She’s a superhot soul and he is now an unstable mess.

It’s fun to see how ideas can begin as one thing and be molded and shaped into something that you really hadn’t planned on.  The creative process is a blast.  If you don’t write you should give it a shot sometime.  Thanks for listening. m

“Falling”
©2011 Matt Larson
April 5, 2011

payin’ my bills
making my way
doin’ what I got to do today

making plans
I’m a planning man
even planning for what might change

then I saw you walking
feet moving cross the floor
my heart started stirring
and my plans went out the door

now I’m falling
I’m falling
I’m falling
for you

I was sideswiped
opened my eyes
tried to get up off the ground
you stood there smiling bab
cause you knew what knew what knocked me down