In July 2022, Lauren Laverne, host of the BBC radio program Desert Island Discs, interviewed U2 frontman Bono. She asked him how he pictured his mother, Iris, who had died when Bono was just 14 years old. He answered:

Laughing, a lot. The mischief was upon her. One of the neighbours had told her, "That boy—he needs to be disciplined with a cane." And my mother was like, "A cane?" And she was chasing me down the garden, and I was, like, terrified. And I looked back, and I just saw her laughing. You know, she just couldn't take that seriously.

I wrote the song "Iris" on Songs of Innocence. In some ways, I wrote songs to get back to her. Though she went away physically, in other ways, the absence made itself known. And it was a great gift to me—because I filled it with music.

I don't often stop, while listening to a podcast, to check the time that a particularly moving line was uttered, but I did when listening to this interview. "Ten minutes in," I said to myself, making a mental note to go back to this moment in the exchange.

In the subsequent few days, I shared this story with several people, reciting the line as best I remembered it: "I filled my mother's absence with music." What a loving, creative, healing way to deal with the loss of a loved one—to fill the void they left behind with something new and wonderful.

I'm not a songwriter, but I am a writer. Many times in this blog, I've written about my brother Greg, whom we lost in 2019. In Grief, I shared this quote (author unknown), which seems entirely in line with Bono's thinking: "Be the things you loved most about the people who are gone."

Just as Bono remembers his mother, I picture Greg laughing. I still remember a snippet of our lives when he won a coin toss that saved him from doing dishes. "Yes! I'm out! There is a God!" he had exclaimed. I've filled my brother's void with memories of his laughter, his generosity and his caring.

Moments before I was set to publish this post, a friend sent me an article about a New York woman, Casey McIntyre, who died just a few weeks ago of ovarian cancer. When she was planning her memorial service, she didn't want it to be all doom and gloom. So she decided to leave a legacy. A few days after she died, Casey's husband posted on her social media channels a statement that she had written, inviting people to donate, in her honour, to a US charity that buys up hospital debt and relieves the debtors of their burden. As of today, Casey's online fundraiser has amassed more than $800,000, enough to wipe out debts amounting to $80 million US. The higher amount results from the fact that institutions sell outstanding debt to debt collection agencies at a deep discount. RIP Medical Debt—the charity Casey asked people to support—buys some of these debts and sends letters to the debtors saying they are free and clear of the debt.

Andrew Rose Gregory, Casey's husband, told CBC's As It Happens that turning Casey's memorial service into a "debt jubilee" fundraiser is about opening up opportunities for people saddled with medical debt. The article concludes:

One day, he says, he'll be able to tell his daughter Grace about the profound impact her mother had on others.

"That is a beautiful piece of this in a very, very sad moment we're living in," Gregory said.

"A really bad part of grief is thinking that the person lost won't be remembered or that people won't think of them. And I think Casey will be remembered."

I think Casey will be remembered as well, just as Greg and Iris will be. In each case, their absence has been filled with something beautiful.