Let music keep you company during and after cancer.
BY Laura Yeager
PUBLISHED October 01, 2019
As well as being a cancer blogger, Laura Yeager is a religious essayist and a mental health blogger. A graduate of The Writers’ Workshop at The University of Iowa, she teaches writing at Kent State University and Gotham Writers’ Workshop. Laura survived cancer twice.
Music can truly save your life; when you're in the deepest despair, listening to just the right song could keep you from jumping off the edge. And it can be self-affirming when everything is going great. Crank up the radio and go for a cruise in the valley in the early fall; there's nothing else like it in the world. Sing at the top of your voice.
Of course, music preferences are extremely personal, and while you undoubtedly have your own choices, here are some of my life-affirming favorites.
Lately, I've been thinking of Sondheim's words "Sometimes just pretzels and beer, but I'm here." These, of course, are lyrics to "I'm Still Here," from the play Follies. As a cancer survivor, this song rings true to me. In this song, the character sings about all of the things she's been through (the Great Depression, J. Edgar Hoover, etc), and she's still here. If I were to create my "I'm Still Here" song, I'd sing about two cancers, chemo, radiation and a double mastectomy. And I'm still here.
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