I play trumpet for a mariachi, and I sing too.
And for those who are familiar with it, mariachi music is perhaps one of the most emotionally driven musical genres there is. I’d say arguably, but I am biased. Whatareyagunnado?
Recently, we’ve played quite a few funerals, along with a whole lot of birthdays and celebrations of life for a decidedly older clientele. And in those moments, you see the entire spectrum of human emotion play out all at once.
Tears. Joy. Sadness. Exuberance. Grief. Love.
Sometimes, all of it in the same room.
It got me thinking, especially now, on the eve of the anniversary of my mother’s passing.
Music—and particular songs, a certain lyric, a musical phrase from a long-forgotten song—can represent entire moments in a person’s life. They carry memories. They carry people. They carry pieces of our humanity. And sometimes, they carry stories that will never be fully told.
There is a particular honor in playing this music, but perhaps even more so in being invited into the intimacy of people’s lives and their homes. We are guests in some of their most personal moments. We stand among families as they remember someone they have lost, celebrate someone they love, mark another year of life, or simply gather together because being together is reason enough.
And it is among the highest privileges to be allowed into those moments. Because that is what these gigs really are.
They are celebrations.
Of love.
Of life.
Of memory.
Of each other.
And under that context, the music takes on a new, deeper meaning.
A song is no longer just a song. A lyric is no longer just a lyric. A trumpet phrase you may have played hundreds of times can suddenly become attached to someone’s tears, someone else’s laughter, an embrace between family members, or the memory of a person who is no longer in the room.
We carry the music into these spaces, but in some small way, the people give the music its meaning.
And perhaps that is part of the beauty—and the weight—of being a musician. We are entrusted with the soundtrack to moments people may remember for the rest of their lives.
Sometimes, without even realizing it, we become part of someone else’s memory.
And I suppose that is why music has become so inseparable from my own memories of my mother.
She loved music. Not just as something to listen to, but as something to feel. Music could change the atmosphere of a room. A familiar song could make her smile, make her sing, make her remember. And she had a joy for life that, in many ways, I don’t think can be separated from the music she loved.
Now, two years after losing her, I find myself thinking about how many pieces of her still exist in songs.
A melody can bring her back for a moment. A lyric can remind me of something she would have said. A song I hadn’t heard in years can suddenly unlock a memory I didn’t even realize I still carried.
And for just a moment, she is there again.
Not literally, of course. I know that. Grief has taught me, perhaps more than anything else, the permanence of absence. But memory has its own way of defying that permanence.
Music can take us places nothing else can.
It can bring us back into a room that no longer exists, surrounded by people who may no longer be here. It can remind us of laughter, of celebrations, of long drives, of conversations, of ordinary afternoons that, somehow, became precious without us ever realizing it.
And maybe that is why I feel such an honor when we are invited into the homes and lives of the people we play for.
Because I understand now, perhaps better than I once did, what music can become. I understand that somewhere down the road, a song we played at a birthday may remind someone of their mother. A song played at a celebration of life may forever belong to the person being remembered. A lyric might become inseparable from an embrace, a tear, a laugh, or the last time a family was all together in one room.
We don’t always know which moments will become memories. We certainly don’t know, while we’re living them, which ordinary afternoons will someday become the things we would give anything to experience one more time.
But music seems to know. It quietly gathers those moments and holds onto them for us.
And perhaps that is why, on the eve of another anniversary without my mother, I find myself thinking about the privilege of making music for other people.
Because somewhere, in the songs we play, people are holding onto the ones they love. And somewhere, in the songs I hear, I am still holding onto her.
Her love of music.
Her laughter.
Her joy for life.
The way she could make a simple moment feel like something worth celebrating.
And maybe that is the greatest thing music can do. It cannot bring anyone back. But sometimes, for the length of a song, it can remind us that they were here.
That they lived.
That they loved.
That they laughed.
That they mattered.
And that, in all the ways that truly matter, they are still part of the music.
There’s more waiting at https://xinkblotz.com.
Telling stories, sharing thoughts, and drinking coffee. A blend of fiction, reflection, and whatever’s brewing—one post at a time.
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© 2026 Mariano Velez ~ InkBlotz Press
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