Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist was a new TV show this year and it looked like a fun premise and God knows we all need a little lift to our spirits every once in a while.
The show is about Zoey, a woman in her early 30s who is fearful that her headaches are a sign that she has Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP) the same disease as her father. During her MRI there is an earthquake and suddenly, thanks to the magic of TV, she can hear people singing and dancing to songs that reflect their inner feelings – she’s called them heart-songs.
I figured it would be something light and fluffy to balance the heartbreak as I watch Jim decline. I guessed it couldn’t be too horrible, as there were some pretty big names on the cast list.
In this show there are two main storylines. Zoey’s life as a lead computer engineer as she deals with having two suitors (typical romantic comedy) and then her home life, where her father (played by Peter Gallagher) is near comatose as PSP slowly kills him (yeah – not so Rom-Com).
Side note – my Dad died almost 10 years ago. I got the call on a Wednesday night to get my ass home (West Coast to East Coast) I got home just after midnight Thursday and Daddy was gone that Saturday morning. Which is probably why this TV show has hit me so hard. I’m re-living losing Dad, as I lose Jim a little more each day.
I’d missed last week’s episode so tonight I watched the final two installments for the season.
The first, Zoey’s Extraordinary Mom: Her Mom (Maggie played by Mary Steenburgen), took us through planning a funeral. It was compassionate as it showed the struggle of adult children trying to help their parent plan a funeral. No one knew what they wanted, and they were all desperately clinging to denial.
Helpful tidbit learned from this program, seek out advice from someone who has been there. Someone who understands how hard it is to let go but also understands that this is a train that will continue whether you are ready or not. In the show, help came in the form of a wonderful character played by Bernadette Peters.
Personally, we were lucky because Mom and Dad had a plan for their funerals. Their plan made everything so much easier on all of us.
Lesson learned – no matter how distasteful, plan ahead.
I have cried at least once during every episode of this program. The parts with her messed up love life are light, yet still carry some depth but the parts with her father strike me right through the heart. The final episode where her dad died was devastating. I’m tearing up as I write this. I don’t know if they could have chosen better songs to wring our heart strings.
They’ve used the song True Colours a few times during the show as the heart-song between the dying Dad and his daughter Zoey, as she comes to terms with his death.
Zoey’s Mom, said goodbye to her husband by singing “Dream a Little Dream of Me.”
The son and his dying father sang Billy Joel’s “Lullabye” (good night my angel) not only to each other but to the son’s unborn child.
And then, during the gathering after the funeral, the members of the family and their close friends sang all seven minutes of Don McLean’s ‘American Pie” a.k.a. ‘The Day The Music Died’.
I spent the last 15 minutes of the program bawling my eyes out. Partly to grieve my father and partly in anticipatory grief for the loss of Jim.
In my reading about this program, because I’m me, of course I wanted to know more. I learned that this program was inspired by creator Austin Winsberg’s personal experiences as his father died from the same disease as Zoey’s dad in the show.
A final side note from personal experience – if you are in the middle of planning funerals and cremation is part of your plan. You do NOT have to purchase an urn from the funeral home (seriously, they wanted $700 for a small box my brothers could have made in grade 7 shop class).
I will forever be grateful to one of our funeral planners. He told us the only criteria was that the urn had to hold at least 7 cups. Other than that, we were free to make the urn as personal as we wanted. He said he’d seen favourite toolboxes and even a motorcycle gas tank used to hold the ashes. We took his advice and never regretted it.
We found ship’s lantern with large round glass. One of my brother’s painted the inside black to hide the bag of ashes, with the oily sheen to the glass, it looked like a black pearl. We bought one for Dad and a matching one to use for Mom when she passes, both for under $100.
They are not only gorgeous but the ship’s lantern has a sentimental meaning to our family. Knowing we’d channeled our father’s penchant for finding creative solutions, gave us something to smile about.