by Anna Huckabee Tull

Sometimes wonder comes from the places you might least expect. But if you keep your heart and mind open, I have discovered, little sparkling miracles are everywhere.
 
Earlier this year, I received a commissioned song inquiry from Blanche Cybele Derby who lives in western Massachusetts. At first, her request sounded straightforward enough. She’d heard about my musical creations and wanted me to write a customized song for her husband. Perhaps a third of my commissioned works start out just that way. But every exchange and interaction that followed between Cybele and myself changed this particular project into an entirely different and, for me, a riveting experience.
 
Cybele started out by telling me she wanted this song to incorporate a ghost.
 
Even this isn't particularly strange, given my line of work. I've been delighted many times to create songs in the voice of someone who has passed on or to help communicate messages to beloved individuals who are on the other side.  I know it sounds strange to say, but I actually feel as if I have a particular gift in this area.
 
Here, though, the story gets a little more twisty and turn-y, coincidental and unique. Cybele and her husband Charlie live in Northampton, two hours away from Concord Massachusetts where I live. Charlie's family history runs deep in the town of Concord. I later learned  the little "ghost" Cybele mentioned was an eight-year-old boy named Robert who had lived and died in Concord Junction (West Concord) in the early 1900s.

​On his mother Carrie’s side, Robert was part Native American and on his father Benjamin Jr.’s side, he was descended from many generations of  Yankee Concord farmers—an unusual mix, to be sure. When Robert unexpectedly died of an infection on the way to the hospital in 1919, his mother Carrie was utterly bereft. She was a rare and special woman, imbued with sacred powers, and this lost child of hers had had those same abilities: a sense of inner knowing, a way to receive guidance through dreams, and to connect to larger energies in singular and helpful ways.

​Devastated as she was at his death, she was told by a psychic not to worry and was reassured that this same special-child energy would return to her soon enough in another form.
 
And so it did! When Carrie Derby became a widow, she received a gift  from a wealthy relative so she could purchase a house in West Acton Massachusetts. One of her adult sons and his wife moved in with her. A few years later the couple welcomed a baby boy they named Charlie. As soon as Carrie saw him she knew her dreams and the psychic’s message had led her to this very moment: the appearance of a tiny remarkable child. An emptiness within her was lifted and replaced with light. This was the beginning of a special and life-changing relationship between grandmother and grandson.

Today that little grandson, Charlie, is 83 years old and lives with his beautiful wife Cybele—the person who had contacted me so I could meet them and hear Charlie’s intriguing stories about his grandmother. They hoped I could create a song to honor Charlie and Carrie’s powerful shared connection of seeing, of music, and of wonder.
 
I'm a big believer in intuition and inner guidance. I felt a strong urge within myself to make the drive out to their house. And so, off I went to undertake the elaborate, multi-layered process to take someone's message and turn it into a meaningful song. I love trying to figure out how to tell a particular story in a way that is universal enough for others to hear and be touched by it as well.
 
Cybele and I had researched each other. She found my website and had listened to a wide range of my songs, including “We Gather Here” which was commissioned by the Concord Museum for Concord’s 250th celebration and placed on their website. Like a good researcher, I googled before I signed on as well. I was surprised to discover Cybele is an author, artist, and forager who has supplemented her diet with wild edible plants for almost sixty years and shares her knowledge with many people on her lively and informative YouTube channel. She’s an energetic 81-year-old with a distinctive long silver braid and sparkling, loving eyes. I quickly surmised Cybele is one of those people who knows how to look directly at things most of us walk past and barely see. She knows about wonder. And, for many complex and simple reasons, I understood why she had been drawn to the handsome and magical Charlie Derby, whom I was about to meet.
 
I had read about Charlie too—about the books he’d authored, his collection of art, and the store he’d owned and run for many years. But I was unprepared for the scene I walked into when I entered their home which was unlike any other I’d been to in my life. It's a fascinating cross between a museum, a ceremonial site, a welcoming hearth, and a glorification of the echoes of expansive repetition that come about when a serious collector discovers and tunes in to a passion.

​Charlie has spent a lifetime collecting Native American and African art. Cybele is a collector too—of whimsical artworks that feature cats. Examples of both their interests and creations appear in every room. I could feel their shared love, creativity, and vibrancy wherever I looked. I found Charlie to be dapper and thoughtful, with riveting stories to tell—and telling them is not as easy as it once was, because he has Parkinson's disease.
 
I sat with them in the parlor so I could learn more about Charlie, and how he carried his grandmother Carrie’s Wampanoag history and energies. I soon discovered how Charlie and Carrie experienced unexplained phenomena, shared tribal knowledge, and explored the meaning of dreams.
 
As I listened to him, I was intrigued – it captured my heart! This resonated with my own fascination with the magical and strange energies of Concord, Massachusetts. This town played an important part in the Revolutionary War, the Transcendentalist Movement, and its connection to the native peoples who once called all of this land home.
 
As a young woman, half  Wampanoag and half white, Charlie’s grandmother  Carrie E. Ritscher came to Concord Junction from Martha’s Vineyard in 1900. Her name was listed in the 1900 census as a servant. However, she soon fell in love and married the prominent Benjamin Derby Jr. Ten years later, she was listed in the census as having servants of her own—a strange twist!

​Carrie and Benjamin had six children, five of them light-skinned and one with the darker features of his native ancestry. That little boy, Robert, was the “ghost” Cybele had initially called me about. Many years after Robert’s death, there were stories told by children who played up in the attic of the Victorian house where Carrie and Benjamin Derby Jr. raised their growing family. These youngsters sensed the presence of an unknown child who wore a sailor suit and wandered about. His energy, it seemed, had remained there.
 
When some people hear things like this, they may roll their eyes, look for scientific explanations, or be skeptical. Not me! I'm a deep believer in the idea that most of our growth comes from the areas within our consciousness which are uncharted, still unfolding, and offering hints of something larger at play in our everyday lives. If someone tells me they’ve experienced the energy of a child playing long after the child has passed, I think to myself – – I bet there’s more to discover here.
 
(A side note: Since I'm a believer in coincidences, I had to laugh when I learned with surprise and delight the story of the playful Concord ghost of Robert Derby. For the past several years I've had a running joke with my husband that I’m “on the lookout for an eight-year-old boy”—perhaps some new neighbor child or local kiddo to engage with. It was a favorite age when my two boys were younger and lived at home. It's a strange thing to say “I’m looking for an eight-year-old boy” from out of nowhere, but when I heard Robert was eight when he died, and had been from my hometown, I shared this odd coincidence with Cybele and Charlie. Huh! I exclaimed…Maybe this is the eight-year-old boy I’ve been looking for. Cybele gave me a wink ☺ )
 
Robert Derby does show up in the song in a few different ways. He is referenced in the first line. And, fascinatingly enough, I had reviewed the finished studio recording four or five times before I noticed the faint sound of a spoken voice squarely in the middle of the song. I’m pretty sure it’s my voice, inadvertently recorded speaking during our studio time, and not properly “scrubbed out” when we finalized the mix. But I loved the surprise of finding it later and the three of us decided to leave it in the finished recording as an homage to Robert’s energy that seems to magically live on. So yes, Robert is in there.
 
But the heart of the matter, I learned, was really about Charlie and his grandmother. When Charlie was born, his grandmother Carrie knew immediately the sacred energy of her lost child had returned to her in a fresh new form. Others knew it too. A dog from several farms down the road faithfully came to sit beneath baby Charlie's cradle each day before returning back home to its own farm.
 
As he matured, Charlie's connection to his grandmother grew and grew in a manner that filled him with light and love.
 
"Sing-song, sing-song" she would say, which was her way to coax him into the piano room each evening to sit down and make music together.

​These were moments of deep connection. Carrie’s musical prowess was strong. She often sang on Boston radio, at funerals, weddings, and played the piano at a silent movie theater. Charlie’s absorption of the songs she shared was palpable and binding.
 
But there was music for Charlie separate from his “Sing-song” time with his grandmother. From a young age, Charlie had heard a strange tune regularly arising from deep within him.

​Hayawakenaya ho ho hey hey hayawakenaya ho ho yahay
 
He kept it to himself—never shared it, even with his beloved grandmother. It was just a little “something” that lived inside him. He found it soothed and steadied him. Privately he referred to it as his “Special Song.” It was a sacred, behind-the-scenes tune that offered a kind of reassurance when troubling moments came…
 
And they did throughout his youth and young adulthood. His father was a heavy drinker. He was bullied by his schoolmates. His mother worked full time at her brother’s law firm so Carrie became his second mother. She brought the musicality of her love into his heart. In the years after Carrie was no longer alive, this Special Song always soothed and centered him, bringing comfort to help him stay grounded. It never even occurred to Charlie to share his Special Song with others. What would he say? How would he explain it? Who would understand? What would be the point?
 
It was only much later in life when he did speak about it, during a time when he was invited to seek membership into the Wampanoag tribe. Years ago, when he attended a Native American conference, a Nipmuc chief chanted a song as a greeting to the attendees. Charlie was surprised that his special melody bore an uncanny resemblance to the Nipmuc welcoming song. Most likely, the Nipmucs would have greeted members of the Wampanoag and other tribes in the vicinity with this song. Today Charlie is a member of the Wampanoag tribe, another way to honor Carrie’s memory.
 
As he moved forward in his life, Charlie found he had a calling. Drawn, full circle, back to a fascination with the art forms of Native Americans, he began to seek and find beautiful tribal art. Sometimes he’d locate pieces or make important choices in his life based on messages and information he received in dreams, just as his grandmother had.
 

​Soon he met his mentor Paul Rabut, a well-known illustrator and collector of tribal art who encouraged Charlie to open a store of his own. Paul kidded Charlie that he had “the Eye of the Angel”—a kind of sixth sense about which pieces were exceptional. This phrase became the title of his first book. At that time, he had a dream he should depict himself holding one of his objects as part of an ad campaign to publicize his gallery. Above his photo was the phrase “A Familiar Face,” which was appropriate since he was often seen at flea markets, tag sales, and auctions. People seemed to like the idea of being able to see who they were dealing with, and his ad was a success.

​Listening to Charlie talk, I watched him struggle to control the muscles of his hands and arms. Parkinson’s is a rather exacting disease, but it has its ebbs and flows. Charlie pointed out that whenever a story he told became particularly meaningful, his emotions would overtake him in ways that never would  have happened before the onset of the disease. His hands and arms  became especially shaky, which was a challenge and a burden. To me, it was as if his “shakes” were lighting the way for the song that was to come.
 
“I want a song that honors my grandmother and her energy” he said as he trembled more than usual.
 
“I’ve been able to go places she could never go, using the same kind of inner knowing that was hers,” and I saw the tears well up in his eyes.
 
“Now I want to circle back, and honor her. She made the world a better place for me and always let me know I was special.” More emotion. More tremors. It was as if Charlie’s shakes were illuminating the song’s path.
 
Cybele pointed out that his grandmother had tremors in her later days as well. “They didn’t call it Parkinson’s back then, but perhaps that’s what it was,” she mused.
 
And that’s when it hit me.
 
Unshakeable.
 
Here Charlie and his grandmother, both wrestling with “the shakes” on the earthly level, had this powerful otherworldly unshakeable bond, that could outlast death. That could light the way forward for Charlie even after she had passed on. That could connect them across time and space after all these many years and leave him clear about the message she had passed on to him. He was special, the message communicated. And…but…So, too, are all of us.
 
It’s not that Charlie was singled out, but he was able to catch glimpses of the ways in which he is part of something so much larger.
 
The song started to write itself in my head as Charlie spoke, as he shook, as he teared up, as he worked so hard to convey his love for this astonishing woman. She defied the odds, stepped out of one world into another, opened her heart to the wonder of love, and helped Charlie do the same:
 
All of us are filled with light
Sacred is our birthright
Unshakeable from deep within
These journeys that our dreams began, begin again:
Full Circle
 
Charlie gifted me with the books he’d written about his collections and his personal history. I found his book “Eye of the Angel” was meaningful for me as I went home to compose the song.  I was struck by the parallel to how his grandmother Carrie must have felt when she saw Charlie’s face for the first time, returning to her the energy she had lost when her son Robert died. Charlie was a Familiar Face.  His book mentioned his store had been called White Star and something in me shivered. Those words seemed important, even if I wasn’t sure why, and I knew they would somehow land in the song, too. Cybele later explained to me that her given name, Blanche Starr, translates to “White Star”—the inspiration for the name of his store.
 
And then the biggest “aha” feeling of all: Here was his grandmother, Carrie, whose very name suggests the thing she did for him. She carried him. Literally, of course, when he was small and she was his caretaker, but more importantly, in a particular energy-infused way, she carried him all of his life, well out beyond her death, and into the illuminated path he has walked for all of his days, as he has learned to carry himself.
 
More of the song began to write itself. I realized the most powerful way to bring Charlie’s message to light was not so much to have us create a song about his grandmother, but rather to have the voice of the song be hers—to have Carrie Derby, “on the other side” singing to him.
 
You carry our spirit, you carry my love, you carry my name.
 
And now Carrie, who had carried Charlie in so many ways, might be coming around Full Circle (the title of the song) to see the ways in which Charlie now carries her.
 
“Maybe you can change the way it’s spelled in the song,” Cybele suggested. Maybe it’s “You CARRIE my name.”
 
And so it became!
 
I brought the song back to their home when it was fully written and played it on my guitar. I loved the silence in the room when I finished singing it. Cybele’s eyes were closed, and her cheeks were moist. Charlie was watery-eyed too, and “the shake” was present. We had hit the mark.
 
The next step was to take this song to the studio, and I felt it would be appropriate to have a piano accompany me. I called my longtime collaborator Sandi Hammond, and she brought an absolutely inspired level of gentle sacredness to the studio recording of the song.
 
You can hear the recording here. Bringing the finished and noticeably upgraded arrangement of this version to Charlie and Cybele was a dream come true for me. I knew in my bones they were going to love the finished product, but there is always that tiny 1% of never knowing for sure until the moment actually plays out.
 
“I cried twice as much when I heard this version,” Charlie said.
 
“I wouldn’t change one thing about it,” Cybele said.
 
And so it became.
 
It was foretold, your coming, and so it became.
You carry our spirit, you carry my love, you carry my name
…say the lyrics.
 
Charlie and Cybele were happy to pay me for my services but in the true spirit of the ancients, we also made a trade. I came home with an incredible, vibrant hand-beaded pouch.

​They had walked me through the rooms of their home, looking at all the mystical, magical objects mounted and displayed there, and I waited for something in particular to “glow” in my mind and heart. And there it was, nestled amongst everything else they’ve cherished and protected for all these years. It hangs proudly in my office now--a symbol of a special journey with two unique and beloved souls.
 
If Carrie were here (and, in my opinion, she is!) I think she’d feel honored to know her love lives on in this song and in her grandson Charlie, a man of many stories, wonder, and love.
 
I’ll be performing “Full Circle” this January at my annual concert at the Concord Museum, and not only does Charlie hope to attend, with Cybele, of course, but if the Parkinson’s is treating him well enough that day, he tells me he just might stand up and sing the opening refrain—his Special Song, which is the gateway to all that follows. 

Honoring the Life of Charlie Derby
Through the Voice of His Wampanoag Grandmother, Carrie Derby (1881-1981)
And in Recognition of Her Young Son, Gone Too Soon, Robert Derby (1911-1919)
 
Hayawakenaya ho ho hey hey hayawakenaya ho ho yahay
 
Before I knew you there came one before
Spirit child with an open door
Waiting was I till I saw your face
And here in your eyes that light was remade
 
Spirit child, familiar face
Sacred spirits under your cradle, marking your place
It was foretold, your coming, and so it became
You carry our spirit, you carry my love, you carry my name
 
When we were both here there were songs to sing
About the beauty of everything
The music bound us and it showed the way
It lived in me and it lives in you today
 
Hayawakenaya, hayawakenaya
 
Spirit child, familiar face
Sacred spirits under your cradle, marking your place
It was foretold, your coming, and so it became
You carry our spirit, you carry my love, you Carrie my name
 
And you have followed that white star
It brought you right here to where you are
You feel the shake and I felt it too
We have both trembled with the deeper truth
 
That all of us are filled with light
That sacred is our birthright
Unshakable from deep within
These journeys that our dreams began, begin again
Full circle – you went beyond where I could go
Full circle – eye of the angel
Full circle – I felt the call you felt the call
Full circle – Sing-song, sing-song
 
© Anna Huckabee Tull, CustomCraftedSongs.com

Two months ago, my dad died. The experience of losing him was slow and gradual, because he had Alzheimer's Disease. It was also quick, because the difference between near-death and actual death turns out to be pretty sudden and profound. But above all, my dad's death felt magical to me, because loving my dad was always a magical experience, from the time I was tiny and he was creating birthday magic shows, Halloween haunted houses, treasure hunts to the town dump and movies starring us kids, until the very late stages of his life with this challenging disease when he was asking me deep and caring questions about my view of the world. His death felt magical because it ended with singing. My mom, sister, brother and I all held hands around his bedside and sang "Dona Nobes Pacem" ("Bring Us Peace") - a favorite round in my family - in his final hours. What follows is one song about my dad and mom, in honor of National Alzheimer's Disease Awareness Month, and two others to round out the story of my dad and my family's journey with Alzheimer's.

TOPIC: An "Alzheimer's Waltz" for Love and Life

Rita lost her husband and long-time life-partner (and dance-partner) Dick, this past January. To commemorate his life and celebrate their relationship, she came up with a truly original idea: Why not commission a song that could be choreographed, so that she could dance to it, at his memorial service, as a way of celebrating his life and honoring their life-long love of dancing!

I thought this was an incredibly brave undertaking on her part. I listened carefully as she told me all about

TOPIC: A Father Dies of Lou Gehrig's Disease and Leaves Behind a Song for his Daughter

For this month's song, I have been racing against the ticking clock of cancer. And while I have been doing so, a whole town in western New York has been rallying around one dear little boy. 

UPDATE
Alex Haws died of a rare form of liver cancer on Wednesday, October 24 at 4:15 PM.
The write-up below was written and ready to publish earier that same day, and I have opted to leave it in its original form, written when Alex was still alive.

THE STORY
Lisa's brother Steve died unexpectedly at the age of 36. In attending to her grief she did two astonishing things--one which made the papers in St. Louis where she lives, and one which helped her grieving father to finally cry with her.  I want to tell you briefly about both of those things, because it will give you an idea of what an inspired and inspiring person Lisa is, and it will provide the back-story out of which this month's featured song, The Connection, grew. When Lisa's brother Steve died, he left behind a life-dream of refinishing, to very exact plans, a once-fine, run-down house he had purchased many years earlier, in downtown St. Louis. He died before he was able to raise the funds for his vision. Lisa transformed her grief into a miracle, gathering  the funds and completing the house, along with her extended family, as a labor of love. As the project came to completion, she had a second transformative idea when she learned about what I do: She commissioned a song for Father's Day, for her dad, in the voice of Steve. Steve and his dad had not had an easy relationship, and when Lisa shared that song, which was called Regained, with her dad, father and daughter were able to cry together for the first time since Steve's death. (That song, incidentally, was featured on the Brave Records website in May of last year for Father's Day and created a phenomenal  spike in their website visits as people across the country and around the world shared the song on Fathers Day.) 

TOPIC: Last Days of Life
A Mother on her Deathbed Says Goodbye to a Loyal Son

THE STORY
Jen commissioned me to write this song as a gift for her husband Tony in the days leading up to his mother's death. Jen's goal was to honor Tony's mom and to create a focal opportunity for Tony to grieve, when the time came. In an unexpected twist, Tony’s mother died after I had sent Jen a rough cassette of the song and before I had recorded it in the studio. So Jen, a singer herself, got her father to quickly learn a guitar part, and he accompanied Jen while she sang this song, live, at Tony’s mom’s memorial service. A few weeks later, the finished studio version arrived, and provided a powerful and timely opportunity for Jen and Tony to grieve together…

TOPIC: Miscarriage

THE STORY
I get invited along on some pretty intense journeys with commissioned songwriting. This one took me to a place few people even talk about beyond the boundaries of quiet whispers and private family conversations. Jen came to me two years ago asking for a song to help her heal. She and her husband Dan had one child and were in the process of trying to conceive another. But they had been beset by a painful miscarriage which seemed both to stand in the way of Jen's moving forward toward conception again, and, too, of Jen's ability to feel the support of Dan. Jen brought her journals and the one book I have ever seen containing poetry about miscarriage to the song-interview. It was at that point that it hit me how very "unspoken" this kind of loss can be in our culture. She described to me the circumstances of her miscarriage, the shock, the sadness, the confusion, the doubt. And then she told me of how she had made the decision to plant some flowers--called daphnes--in her garden as a way of commemorating the life that was lost. I was particularly struck by the image of a flower rising up each year come spring, and that image became a central piece of the song.

TOPIC: "In the voice of" mother to son

TOPIC: ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease) and LOVE
A Father With ALS Offers Up a Song to Leave Behind for his Daughter

A SONG WIH A LIFE OF ITS OWN

WOW! This month's featured commission is one of those rare and wonderful stories where a song takes on a vector and velocity that far exceeds anything I could have wished or imagined for it! The heart of this story is Andy and his daughter Rachel. But the fireworks around the song are really quite incredible! To wit: as I write this, I am days away from performing this song, in a private concert, for the entire Board of Directors of The ALS Association. And I am just two weeks away from being flown to Washington DC (being put up at the Plaza!) to perform this song before a crowd of upwards of a thousand people at the ALS Association's National Public Policy Conference. The evening's agenda? Two US Senators receiving awards and...little old ME!  But the heart of this story is not about private concerts or Boards of Directors or Senators or crowds of thousands. The heart of this story is Andy, and ALS, a strikingly debilitating disease, and Rachel, Andy's teenaged daughter, and love. Love is definitely the star of the show. Read on to learn just how much heart there is in this story. And see to what far and fantastic corners, when it is deep and real, love can reach.

(Brace yourself--this write-up is an extensive one, whch perhaps underscores how much this experience has touched me.)