Patti Labelle's Music Heals Pain Of Loss

I love Patti LaBelle. I'm not saying I'm her greatest fan, but I think I'm running neck and neck for second.

My all-time favorite song is her rendition of "If You Don't Know Me By Now." The power and range of her five-octave voice runs chills down the back of my spine. Ever since the first time I heard "Lady Marmalade" as a kid, she's taken up a special place in my heart. It brings me back to my cousins and me playing on top of my grandmother's toolshed, listening to the song on the radio, arguing about who would marry her. And I didn't have a care in world, no problems.

I love Patti LaBelle. But not because her songs fill my being with soulful tunes and sultry lyrics. Not because she supports and gives time to Big Sisters, Save the Children, the United Negro College Fund, the American Cancer Sociey, the National Minority AIDS Council and countless other organizations. Not because she's won Grammys, NAACP Image awards and accolades from the Congressional Black Congress. I love Patti LaBelle because the power of her music and life experiences helped me make it through one of the most difficult, painful episodes in my life.

The death of my daughter, Maya.

Patti is a woman who taught me how to overcome the harsh realities of life and understand that grieving is necessary, but living life and learning to live is a greater tribute to your loved ones who have passed away. Patti lost three sisters, Vivian, Barbara and Jackie, to cancer. In her 1996 book, "Don't Block The Blessings," she talks about each death, and how painful it was to handle the losses. The death of her younger sister, Jackie, made her truly feel she couldn't go on. She writes about how she avoided Jackie, making excuses not to spend time with her.

"It was such a little thing that my sister had asked of me. I've done much bigger things for perfect strangers. There wasn't a good reason. I just didn't want to do it. I had been going back and forth to the hospital for days and I finally had a quiet moment at home to relax. `Please, Patsy,' she said. `I'm hungry-hungry for one of your egg sandwiches. It's the only thing I have a taste for. Will you make it for me?'. Days after that call, she died. The thought kept tormenting me - that I had refused to do the one thing she asked of me, the one thing that could have given my sister some small amount of pleasure as she was about to leave this world.

"In my head, I tried to convince myself that she had forgiven me. But still, every day for the next five years, I was tortured - by grief, by guilt, and most of all, by fear."

That feeling of guilt - the hundreds of "I should haves" that come from leaving things unfinished with your loved one - that's the part of Patti's life that reached out to me.

My daughter, Maya, died on May 19, 1995 from an enlarged heart. The day she died, she was going through a "routine" procedure to check the healthiness of her heart. Doctors were telling my wife and me that the procedure was very low-risk and she would be back to us in two hours. As she was wheeled in the operating room, I was too busy talking about work on the cell phone, and never said, "I love you" or "Goodbye." I left the hospital, went to the office to check on something, grabbed some food for my wife and headed back to the hospital thinking about plans for next week. I got back to the hospital. I was in the waiting room for less than 10 minutes when the doctor came in slowly with his head down. The next words that came out of his mouth changed my life forever. "I'm sorry to inform you, but your daughter passed away on the operating table."

After I heard those words, my body violently reacted to the news. My blood pressure went up, my nose started bleeding down my brown suit and I soon lost consciousness. Days passed, I felt empty inside. I didn't want to talk to anyone. The communication between my wife and me disappeared. I was selfish about my pain and not my wife's. I wasn't able to grieve with her, and for that I'm sorry. We divorced the following year.

I was lost in my mind but nobody knew it. I would come to work and smile and act as if the world was mine to conquer, but I had no feeling about life. Later, I felt I was coming to grips with Maya's death but I couldn't shake not saying goodbye to her as she was wheeled away. Not being there when she needed me. Many people around me had lost loved ones, even children. But when I asked those people if they had the chance to say goodbye, they all said they did. I felt alone until I read Patti's book.

It was those five years Patti talked about, living with the pain of how she treated Jackie and not being there for her. Jackie was the last of her sisters; none of them had made it to age 50. She was afraid and she asked God for answers.

"Was there something I was supposed to do? If so what?" The night before her 50th birthday, she realized that God had always been there, giving the answers through the power of her music. "After all those years of begging God for answers, I realized that He had been answering me all the time. In every song I sang. In every person I touched. In every spirit I lifted."

Patti's music heals the wounds of my soul and helps mend sores on my heart. Her songs take me to places where I remember comfort and safety. The music is like a mother who soothes, caresses and hugs her children when they've injured themselves. One of her signature songs, "You Are My Friend," makes me feel I am not alone. Patti sings to me like she relates to me, feels for me. "I feel your love when you are not near. The thought of you helps me carry on. When I feel all hope is gone. Your love makes me realize my future looks so bright because you are my friend."

Her music inspires me to turn negatives into positives. Patti's song "I Believe" demonstrates that. "I believe for everyone who goes astray, someone will come to show the way. I believe from every drop of rain falls, a flower grows."

That message from Patti rejuvenated me, made me understand the kind of life my Maya would want me to live.

You have to live in tribute to your loved ones and take nothing or no one for granted.

I remarried. I have a new son and adopted two daughters. I know I can't replace my precious Maya, nor can I bring back the time to say "Goodbye." But with the help of Patti, I've learned "to shine in her light, to carry her torch, to illuminate her spirit" in everything I do and everywhere I go. With the inspiration that I've learned from Patti, that I too will one day meet my dear Maya "Somewhere over the Rainbow."

Thank you Patti.

Robert Jeffrey Jr. can be reached at 206-464-8100. E-mail: Rjeffrey@seatimes.com ------------------------------- Showtime Patti LaBelle apears with Gerald Levert 8 p.m. Saturday at the Paramount Theatre. Tickets are 450.50 to $55.50. Call 206-628-0888.