On Jan. 24, 2011, LDS singer-songwriter Calee Schroeder Reed lost her mother, Rita McBride Schroeder, to cancer. Five years later, Reed describes the time following her mom’s death as a rebirth.
“It was overwhelming, and to watch her suffer and then to watch her faith through all of that, it changed me in every way that a person can be changed," Reed said. "There was no part of my life that wasn’t touched by her sickness and by her death. Every single part of who I am was affected by that ... and the rebirth I experienced."
Her mother's death left an indelible mark on Reed’s music. In her song “She Put the Music in Me,” Reed incorporates lyrics from LDS Primary songs to share the lessons her mother taught her and the love of music she instilled in Reed.
“Heavenly Father sent her to me,” Reed sings. “She taught me to lift up my voice and sing. She put the music in me.”
The second of four girls in her family, Reed grew up in San Diego, California, as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. One of her earliest memories is of her mother conducting the choir at the San Diego Temple dedication in 1993.
“Music was our whole life,” Reed said of her family.
Her mother was a vocal coach, and Reed recalls her family playing music together and attending plays. Reed began writing her own songs when she was in the first grade. She collected her compositions about the wristwatch she loved and the friend who hurt her feelings and kept them in a folder.
“I don’t know what I ever thought I was going to do with those, like, ‘I’m saving them for later when I can finally get into a recording studio,’” Reed joked. But the songwriting paid off, and at 18, Reed was not only touring with a band, but she was also selling songs.
However, when Reed was 23, her mother was diagnosed with cancer, and Reed’s life was turned upside down. She remembers that day because it was also a week after her then-fiance called of their wedding.
“It was not my best week,” Reed said.
Her mom was initially treated for colon cancer, and after surgeries, chemotherapy and radiation, doctors said the cancer was gone. Schroeder soon began experiencing pain, which doctors reassured her was the result of nerve damage. However, years later, Schroeder learned that her cancer-free diagnosis had been incorrect. Doctors discovered a remaining tumor in 2010, and Schroeder died just six months later.
“I feel like we experienced both the chronic, long-term suffering that comes with cancer sometimes and also the quick, ‘What is happening?’ You’re in denial,” Reed said. “… And then she was gone.”
If Reed had to describe her mother in one word, it would be “faithful.”
“She had a lot of reasons in her life, I think, to despair or doubt, and she was just so strong,” Reed said. “It was like a part of her. Her beliefs were so deep down in her soul that it was kind of intimidating.”
Throughout her battle with cancer, Schroeder reminded her family to turn to God and trust him.
“She was the first to ask, ‘Have you been praying? Have you been reading your scriptures? How’s your relationship with God?’" Reed said of her mother. "I feel like that rebirth that I experienced at the very end when she was sick and after she passed away, that’s who I am now.”
Following her mother's death, Reed picked up the pieces of the lessons her mother taught her, and she has tried to share those through her music.
“I had to start again with my testimony like it was at ground zero,” she said. “Everything was decimated by that experience, and I had to rediscover who I was and who I was to God and who God was and how I felt about him.”
She has since released two CDs that she hopes will inspire listeners to connect with God.
“If I didn’t have to sell my music to continue making more music, I would just give it away for free," Reed said. "The point isn’t to get rich. ... The point is to reach out and to help people to try and facilitate, even in some tiny way, a deeper connection with themselves and with God and other people.”
Reed channeled the emotions that remained following her mom’s death into songs such as the title track on her first CD, “The Waiting Place,” which speaks of enduring through trials.
“I do believe deep down inside, even in my darkest moments, that God is aware of us,” Reed said of her inspiration for writing the song. “I don’t know why we’re being called to wait, but … we can either choose to be miserable while we wait, or we can choose to try to be close to God, which will bring us less misery while we wait. And sometimes that is just what we’re called to do. We’re called to wait.”
Her most recent EP is titled “What Heaven Feels Like” and is named for a track she wrote shortly after her mom's death while attending a songwriting retreat at Aspen Grove, a campsite in Provo Canyon where her family had spent time. Reed had hesitations about attending the retreat because she was afraid it would bring back memories that were too tender, but she found that she felt close to her mother.
“It was like I was surrounded by all of the happiness of that time spent with Mom,” Reed wrote on her blog. “The sun breaking through the leaves and the beautiful mix of silence and the sounds of nature made that place feel almost sacred.”
This feeling resulted in the song “What Heaven Feels Like” and these lines in that song: “Heaven feels like you with me, my dearest friend. Heaven feels like never being apart again. God must feel this way as we come home to him. This must be what heaven feels like.”
Reed became a mother two years ago, and having a daughter has intensified her appreciation for her mother.
“I just had no concept for how much my mom loved me,” Reed said. “It’s been a really beautiful revelation to have over and over again.”
Reed said she feels “incredibly, indescribably blessed” to share her testimony and her love of music, both gifts from her mother that help her navigate life’s difficulties.
“Even if Heavenly Father only lets me do this for a little small season in my life, it’s reaffirmed to me that he is so good and that he is so aware of us," Reed said. "Even if it feels like we’re not being led, I have such a strong testimony that we are.”
Email: mjones@deseretdigital.com