“It Wasn’t Just a Lyric — It Was Him”
Nearly a year after losing her father, Amber Gould turned her memories into a song. What she found wasn’t closure — it was connection.
Grief doesn’t follow a timeline.
Amber Gould knows this well. It had been just shy of a year since her father passed away when she came across a post a friend had shared on Facebook. Life had kept moving forward, but her father hadn’t gone anywhere.
“There are little everyday moments that remind me of him,” she says. “Whether it’s a familiar place, a scent, or a memory that suddenly comes back, he’s still a part of my daily life. I couldn’t think of a better way to honor those memories and feel connected to him than through music.”
So she began — not by writing a song, but by remembering. The process starts with questions: Who was he? What did he teach you? What did everyone who knew him remember about him? What Amber didn’t expect was that the questions themselves would become part of her grieving.
“One thing I didn’t expect was how healing it would be to simply reflect on my dad while answering the questions,” she says. “Taking the time to think about who he was, what he taught me, and the memories we shared became part of the healing process itself.”
The First Listen
When the finished song arrived, Amber chose to hear it alone.
“I wanted to experience it without any distractions so I could really take it all in,” she says. “From the very first notes, I was overwhelmed with emotion. It felt like hearing pieces of my dad’s story and our memories together woven into something beautiful. I laughed, I cried, and I found myself smiling at the little details that reminded me of him. It was bittersweet, but more than anything, it brought me a sense of comfort and made me feel close to him again, even if only for a few minutes.”
One line stopped her in her tracks:
“You had a Leatherman when someone needed one more thing to make it work. ‘Real men always carry Leathermans,’ you’d say with that familiar smirk.”
“That was my dad to a tee,” Amber says. “He never went anywhere without his Leatherman, and he always joked that ‘real men always carry Leathermans.’ Hearing those exact words in the song stopped me in my tracks because it was such a specific part of who he was. It wasn’t just a lyric — it was him.”
For Amber, that moment changed something in how she was carrying her grief.
“Hearing that line didn’t take away the grief, but it gave me a different way to carry it. Instead of focusing only on the pain of losing him, I found myself smiling through the tears because it reminded me of his personality, his humor, and the little things that made him who he was. In that moment, the song became more than a keepsake. It brought him back to me in a way that felt incredibly real.”
A Song the Whole Family Could Grieve With
Amber shared the song with her family and close friends — and the reaction surprised her.
“What surprised me most was how emotional everyone became, even the family members who don’t usually show their feelings,” she says. “The song captured my dad so accurately that it felt like everyone was hearing a piece of him again. We laughed at the little details that reminded us of his personality, and we cried because it brought back so many memories.”
Listening together became its own kind of remembrance — stories surfacing, memories passed around the room the way they might be at a celebration of life, but months later, when families so often grieve alone.
Somewhere to Return To
Nearly a year on, the song has become something Amber returns to — on drives when she’s missing him a little more than usual, and in the places he loved most.
“Recently, I was at the river, silently singing the lyrics in my head and reflecting on the love my dad instilled in me for the water and the trees while we were out boating together,” she says. “That part of the song always brings me back to those memories and reminds me of the peace he found in nature, which he passed on to me.”
She visits his memorial page, too, where his photos play alongside the song. “Looking through the photos and memories reminds me of the incredible impact he had on so many people. Together, the memorial page and the song have become more than keepsakes — they’re a way for me to reconnect with him, remember the life he lived, and keep his memory present in my everyday life.”
You can visit the tribute Amber created for her father here: the tribute Amber created for her father.
“It’s Never Too Late”
If a grieving friend wondered whether too much time had passed to do something like this, Amber knows what she’d say.
“I would tell them it’s never too late. Grief doesn’t have a deadline, and neither does finding new ways to honor someone you love. Whether it’s been months, years, or even decades, your memories and your love for that person are still there.”
She’s seen that truth in the people around her. A friend of hers — a grief author approaching her seventieth birthday — lost her own father when she was fourteen. Amber’s husband lost his mother to cancer when he was ten. “Their experiences reinforced what I’ve come to believe: it’s never too late to reflect on the people we’ve loved and lost.”
“For me, creating this song wasn’t about moving on — it was about staying connected. … You may cry, you may smile, and you’ll probably do both at the same time. This is such a beautiful way to reflect on and remember the people who shaped our lives, while keeping their memory alive in a deeply meaningful way.”
Amber’s story is shared with her permission. Their Life Song creates original tribute songs and permanent memorial pages, written entirely from a family’s own memories. Learn more at theirlifesong.com.