The Song Hasn't Changed. I Have.

When an old Beatles song becomes the soundtrack to missing your children

I have spoken a few times on this blog about how I feel about music. I often take a lot of inspiration from the music I am listening to. There are songs that I hear, but more importantly, there are songs that hear me.

Who would’ve thought that a Beatles song from 1963 would become the soundtrack to me missing my children?

Listen to "Misery" by The Beatles on YouTube

The song “Misery” is, well, a breakup song. But as I listen to it now, I don't really hear a breakup. If I move a few words around, it starts to sound a lot more like my life.

Let's go.

The world is treating me badly… Misery.

That's how the song opens, and right now, I understand that feeling. I know not everybody in my life is treating me badly. I know that. But everything feels so heavy right now.

My bike is still broken. I can't see my kids. I still don't have a real job. I'm dealing with my ex-wife, which is anything but trivial.

I'm battling on so many levels that sometimes it feels like the whole world is pushing back.

Not because it actually is.

But because that's what it feels like.

Then the song gets to the part about losing someone and never seeing them again.

And that's where I change one word.

Her becomes them.

My kids. Suddenly, the song hits completely differently. Ever since my kids' social worker told me that I can't see my kids “for their safety,” I've been absolutely crushed. 

I've been angry.

I've felt powerless.

I've felt like there is nothing I can do to change any of it.

And I can't pretend those feelings aren't there.

Then I hear the part about remembering all the little things. And that's where my mind goes...

I have so many memories of time with my kids. Most of them are good. Some aren't. One memory that keeps coming back to me is from when my second daughter was around seven. She was travelling with me while I was working. We were in the truck heading somewhere south, and we'd had a busy day. At some point along the way, I got her a cinnamon roll. That's it. Nothing extraordinary. Just a cinnamon roll. I was driving, and I remember looking over at her in the passenger seat. She was fast asleep, clutching that cinnamon roll. I don't know why that particular memory sticks with me the way it does.

Maybe because it was so ordinary.

Maybe because those ordinary moments are the ones you don't realize you'll miss until they're gone.

My kids have always been one of the biggest reasons I've kept going, even when life gets hard. They are why I'm here today. I can hear their voices on the phone, but I can't reach through that phone and hug them. There is something brutal about that.

The song gets to the part about wanting that person back. Again, I change one word.

Her becomes them.

I really don't want anything crazy or difficult. I just want the chance to be a father to my kids. I know I have a past. I know it matters. But I am tired of being reduced to my past. I'm tired of being seen only as a risk, a liability, or an unknown.

There is more to me than that.

I am a child of God.

I am their father.

And I miss them so much that it hurts.

Then comes the part of the song that really gets me. The loneliness. I know my kids miss me. I know this because one of them is asking me to see her anyway.

And that absolutely breaks my heart.

Because I want to see her too.

More than anything.

But I made a decision that restraint is the wise course. There is nothing easy about choosing not to see your child when your child is asking you to come see her. But I have to think beyond today. If I do something that makes this situation worse, I could end up with a court order that keeps me from seeing my kids long term.

I don't want that.

So I'm choosing to wait.

Sometimes doing the right thing means doing something you don't agree with. Sometimes it means sitting there with the anger, the loneliness and the pain because acting on those feelings could cost you something far more important.

And that loneliness?

It is painful.

Because loneliness isn't always about being alone. Sometimes you're surrounded by people who care about you, and you're still missing the people you desperately want beside you.

The song hasn't changed.

I have.

The Beatles recorded “Misery” in 1963. They weren't singing about my life. They couldn't have been. But somehow, decades later, I found my own story hiding inside it. That's the strange thing about music. Sometimes the song stays exactly the same, but the person listening to it changes. And suddenly, the song means something completely different.

This isn't somebody else's misery.

It's mine.

And right now, I don't have a clever way to make it better.

I just miss my kids.