Music is the best Medicine

 As a teen, I was lucky enough to meet and work with an amazing music teacher. He changed my life.

At the time I was struggling to cope with the usual stressors of completing years 11 and 12 as well as coping with both of my parents having cancer. 

Music had always been a large part of my life. The first mention was in a diary my Mum had kept when I was a tiny thing. There is an entry stating, "This morning Julia was caught carefully slipping a record out of its sleeve, putting it onto the turntable and trying to turn the record player on." I was about 18 months old. It didn't stop there. I used to sit in the back of the car and makeup songs. I'd sing them from the moment we got in the car until we arrived at our destination. It must have driven my parents crazy. 

In my second year of primary school, we learned to read music, sing and play an instrument. I thought it was magic! The whole other world of symbols that represented sounds and made the world such a bright and enjoyable space to live in. Then at the ripe old age of 5, there was dance. I loved it. I spent every waking minute thinking about music and dance. My parents had a huge record collection which I devoured. When I wasn't reading or embroidering maths problems (Yes my level of nerd was high), I would be daydreaming about singing or dancing or both. 

After an unfortunate accident where I broke my spine, the dancing stopped. I had to spend months recovering and regrowing the skin on my back. 

We moved to Toowoomba. I joined the marching band playing fife and loved it. It was another way to combine music and, not so much dance, but a set of prescribed steps which, when performed well made beautiful patterns. I also joined the choir. To add to my musical love, my Dad used to sit at the end of the table after dinner and play his guitar and I would sing. It was a fantastic bonding experience and sharing the music made it so much better. 

Moving into high school, I auditioned for the choir and was rejected. It left me in a bit of limbo. Aside from records and cassettes, and the evening music sessions with my Dad, my music had gone. 

At the end of year 10, my mother was diagnosed with malignant melanoma, and my Father with Hodgkin's lymphoma. My life took an unexpected and terrifying turn. All of a sudden I was thinking about what would happen if  Mum and Dad both died. I was only 15 so there was no way that the government would let me take care of my brothers independently. We would surely be split up and I did not want that to happen. Brendan would have been too little to understand what was happening and why Henry would be lost without family. How could I fix it???

I threw myself into the Liturgical Signing group at school, then into the choir (I got in this time) and also the school plays and cabarets. All of a sudden, music was the only release I had. When life was the hardest and my heart the most broken, music was there. At some point in there, Mr Pratt arrived. This lovely jolly fellow who reminded me of my Mums family. Mum and her family moved to Australia from England in 1956. I threw myself into music like there was no tomorrow. I had private singing lessons with Mr Pratt which not only helped with my singing, he changed the way I saw my life and my self.

I was still taking care of everyone at home and struggling to keep up with school work, but I had this one thing which was for me. Over time, Dad lost the feeling in the ends of his fingers and couldn't play his guitar anymore. I became very angry with cancer. It was an evil which had taken my Grandmother, had tried to take my Mother, was trying to take my Dad and had now taken our shared music. 

 Life continued. Mum and Dad both made it through. Mum passed away in 2007 with small cell lung cancer and Dad in 2014 from the side effects of the Bleomycin which had saved his life in the late 80's early 90's.

After school, I went off and started my family. Had a crazy life. Found my now, husband, and conglomerated 4 children. At the ripe old age of 29, I was diagnosed with a brain tumour. I had been the vocalist for a band and we'd been playing gigs around Brisbane and some festivals. It was great fun and I loved the freedom to write our own music and perform it. Seeing other people enjoy it as much as we enjoyed creating it made everything worthwhile. One year after my diagnosis, we decided to break up the band. I was too ill to continue performing. Our last gig was spent using the mic stand to hold me up. 

In 2011, I was booked in to have brain surgery in Sydney to have my brain tumour removed. I knew Mr Pratt had moved there and was teaching there so I tracked him down to let him know I was in town. 3 or 4 days after surgery, we met up with him for coffee. I don't remember much of it, however, we kept in touch. 

No disrespect to my actual Dad who I loved and still love with all my heart. Thinking about it now. Phil Pratt had become my proxy, Dad. 

When I lost my memory, I lost my ability to write music. I have been hampered by dysphonia, dysphasia, dysarthria and loss of hearing on the right. For a long time, I wouldn't even listen to music. Now I do, I only 'sing' when nobody is around to hear it.