When my daughter Ellen’s life was cut short in a car crash, my life too came to a halt. Slowly I began to play and sing Ellen’s songs, but resisted the label “performer,” because that had been Ellen’s dream, not mine. Over time I came to accept, then embrace this new role as I shared Ellen’s words and wisdom.
I have been humbled by the interest so many have expressed in Ellen’s music. Often people approach me to share their own losses. Even if not visible, we all carry some pain beneath our exteriors. By exposing mine openly, I touch that tender place in others, so carefully protected. I hope to provide inspiration for others.
I consider this process a collaboration with Ellen, trying as she asks in her CD’s title track, to write her a future. In addition to sharing the beauty of her lyrics and melodies, I celebrate Ellen’s life, share stories, and bring joy and humor to my performances. Most of all, I wish to honor Ellen and keep her light shining.
After Ellen’s death, I began writing as a way to process well-intended but hurtful comments and suggestions. I wanted to explain on the page what I couldn’t find a way to say aloud. What I wrote fell short; even I could not find adequate words to describe my own reality. In that first attempt, I kept drifting back to earlier losses, the ever-present undercurrent throughout my ongoing experience. Soon I recognized that this nascent work was not an article about “How to Help Someone Grieving,” or “What-Not-to-Do” when someone has lost a loved one, but a memoir waiting to be written.
When I began playing Ellen’s music, a year and a half after her life ended, I set my writing aside. Performing forced me far outside my comfort zone—forced me to do the thing antithetical to my deepest core. Yet it was the only thing that provided a strange solace, and is still the thing that deeply connects me to Ellen. To my amazement, people who had not known Ellen in life started to know her through me. To my even deeper amazement, I began to feel ripples of meaning, happiness, even hope. I had thought those impossible ever again.
Seven years into this new journey, Matt Keener from the Los Angeles production company Scenario Entertainment, contacted me to to explore creating a feature film based on my experience. We began collaborating, and I began to write again.
