When in grief, I go to music. I've had Vaughan Williams running through my head and playing on my stereo all day, back and forth between "The Lark Ascending" and "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis."
The former because Karen shared on the CaringBridge page that, as Rich was in and out of lucidity in his final days, when she asked him to recite a Sonnet, he went to Shakespeare's 29th:
When, in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
The latter because the St. Olaf Orchestra performed it the first Christmas Festival of my years at Olaf, and because the poetry associated with it, at least in the Lutheran Book of Worship, is
I heard the voice of Jesus say
"Come unto me and rest;
Lay down, O weary one, lay down
Your head upon my breast."
I came to Jesus as I was,
So weary, worn, and sad;
I found in him a resting place
And he has made me glad.
Unfortunately, the piece is too long for one youtube video, so this gets broken up, but here is "The Lark Ascending" (apologies for the British commentator at the beginning and end)
The quality of the video on this one could be better, but the sound isn't too bad and it puts the whole Fantasia on one video
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