My paternal grandfather died this morning at 05:00, aged 87 years. He flew a Douglas DC-3 during the Korean War for the United States Air Force. When he could still remember me, he called me his doll. The last thing he was doing, before the nursing home staff found him, was listening to Jackie Evancho singing a Sarah McLachlan song. For more than a year, now, that singer has been the only music he can stand to listen to, the only music he enjoys, without growing agitated and angry.
His memories were trapped in 1996, when I was a tiny blonde tot who sang all the time, and not an auburn-haired grown woman who teaches piano but sings very little. He hadn't been able to communicate coherently for several months, but he pointed to the screen and told the orderly, "I have a wife, three kids, a grandson, two granddaughters. That one, the little blonde doll. She sings."