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This week’s Changing Track is for Karen.

On March 14 in 2020, my husband Dick and I went to see these performers at the Melbourne Recital Centre. We had booked months in advance and had been listening to Rhiannon Giddens music in anticipation. Covid was declared a pandemic in March 2020.

They had further concerts booked in Australia, but this one was to be their final one with the remaining tour dates cancelled. There was a strange atmosphere at the Recital Centre that evening. While the concert sold out, empty seats were dotted throughout as people stayed away.

We decided to attend as a final outing before the impending lockdown. The smaller audience created an intimate setting, as though we all knew, in terms of attending concerts, we were on borrowed time. Giddens’ powerful and fluid voice, backed up by the incredibly gifted percussionist Francesco Turrisi, resulted in a brilliant final show.

Their collaborative record traces the music of Africa and the Middle East and its influence on Western culture. I walked out of the performance on a high and made the statement, induced I think by the encroaching Covid pandemic, that if this were the last concert I ever saw, I could die happy. One song Dick had particularly enjoyed that evening was a traditional folk song which has been covered by many artists over the years.

The lyrics speak of a narrator travelling through a world filled with sorrow and hardship, eventually finding solace in the belief that there is a better, peaceful land awaiting them. The song mentions a “fair land” or “home” to which the narrator is heading, a place with no sickness, toil, or danger. The repeated mention of ‘going over Jordan’ in the lyrics symbolises the transition from this earthly life to the afterlife. The week following the concert saw Melbourne plunged into lockdown.

We were both working from home in Eganstown, using desks set up in separate rooms. Every so often, I would hear yet another version of this song which Dick had unearthed including performances by Emmylou Harris, Johnny Cash and Burl Ives.

On August 29, 2020, Dick was killed on impact, while riding his bicycle, when hit from behind by an elderly driver. In that instant, my life changed completely. In the media reports Dick was referred to as a “cyclist in his 50’s”. He wasn’t just a cyclist in his 50’s to me, he was so much more.

He was my husband, a loving Dad, a son, a brother, a loyal friend, and an esteemed colleague. He was so deeply loved. He was my family, my home, my life. Dick loved live music and the Rhiannon Giddens concert was his final concert. While our family is not religious, this song became our song of solace. It was played at the viewing attended by only 10 people due to the Covid restrictions. It was played at the funeral, again attended by only 10 people.

More than twelve months later, in December 2021, we finally held a Memorial Day for family, friends and work colleagues where Dick’s ashes were interred at the Eganstown General Cemetery and again this song rang out. It is exactly five years ago today, and I still grieve for my old life. The old me before all the trauma and grief. The me I was with him.

The ‘me,’ that didn’t know anything about the Major Collision Investigation Unit, the Coroner’s Court, the Department of Public Prosecutions, or the Transport Accident Commission.

I want the life back that we had planned – growing old together in Eganstown, the next wonderful 30 years of our lives. I want him here to enjoy both the big and the small moments with me, our everyday life as well as those special life events.

The birthdays, wedding anniversaries, weddings of our children, the joy of grandchildren.

This song has been a constant friend to me in the changing colours of my grief.

My Changing Track, is Wayfaring Stranger performed by Rhiannon Giddens & Francesco Turrisi.

It will forever have a special place in my heart.