Ed Fucking Sheeran

Dancing with our eyes closed

My car has Sirius Radio, and Luna often requests the pop station. We’re surprised by the random mix of artists. Then, one day, 

Bom. Bom.

“Illusion is here, my friend, and hoping it’ll come back soon.”  

Bom.

“Who sings this, Mom?” Luna yells from the back seat.  

“Uh... Ed Sheeran.”  

“I like this one.”  

We get to know the song over the next few weeks.  

“Dancing with my eyes closed,” we sing together when it comes on. “Cause everywhere I go I see your face.”

“Search Ed Sheeran. Like, more songs,” she commands.  

“Play Ed Sheeran,” I tell the Tesla. It becomes our ritual.  

We dance. We’re introduced to Shivers, Photograph, and Boat. We fall in love with Ed. Luna starts taking my phone to read lyrics as we play his songs. Her brilliant mind remembers facts, lyrics, and album names. She starts to perseverate, everything Ed. I'm into it. We become big, big fans.

One morning, while Luna’s at school, I pass Shaughn in the kitchen.  

“Ed Sheeran is playing at SoFi Stadium in a few months. I want to take Lu,” I say.  

“How much are tickets?” he asks.  

I scroll. Prices are high—$500 for not great seats.  

“I don’t know…” I pause. “That’s steep.”  

Still, every few days I check again.

Then, on the morning of September 22, 2023, I get a nudge, from my future or destiny or something, to check tickets again.  

“Wait, did the concert already happen?” I wonder. I search.  

He’s playing tonight.  

At the Shrine Auditorium. How did I miss this?  

$120 tickets. Close seats. Must’ve been a last-minute release.  

Click. Purchase.  

I smile. She’s going to freak out.

I wait for her after school, barely containing my excitement.  

“Luna, I have to tell you something.”  

“What?”  

“Guess who’s playing a concert tonight?”  

“…Ed Sheeran?”  

“Guess who’s going?”  

She looks confused for a second.  

“…We are?”  

“We are! And the seats are really good!”  

She screams. I join her. We’re ecstatic.

At home, we get ready. I let her sit in the front seat on the way to the show. She plays every song she hopes he’ll perform. “What if he plays this one?!” she squeals.

We’ve been to concerts before, but this is our first one, just the two of us. My built-in best friend and I, heading to a show. Life is really great I think.

We arrive. Lemonade and a hot dog for her. Ketchup all over her face. We find our seats.  

Ed walks out. Luna jumps up and down.  

“I’m going to play every song from my new album,” he says.

“Subtract, Mom! He’s playing it!” Luna is thrilled.

“But I have to warn you—the first half of the show is a bit depressing,” he says smiling.

Oh no, I think. Maybe this wasn’t the right concert to bring her to. Maybe SoFi would've been better.

“This song is about my best friend,” Ed says. “He died unexpectedly. This is about the sadness I’ve felt and will always feel because he is not here.”

Bom. Bom.

“Dancing with my eyes closed, ’cause everywhere I look I still see you…”

We sing. And then, surprisingly, I cry. 

Now, I am a Pakistani and Polish therapist. My DNA and training is stoic and unmoved, I don’t cry easily, something has to really be overwhelming to bring me to tears. 

And at this concert, I cry and cry. For 45 minutes. The connection is eerie, transcendent. I’m pulled into the future, rooted in this moment.  

“Are you okay, Mom?” Luna asks, concerned, as we sing.

“I’m just really touched by the songs,” I say, wiping away tears.  

Then Ed explains,“this next song is about my wife. After my friend died, I was so depressed. And my wife got pregnant. And while she was pregnant… we found out she had cancer.”

I cry harder. The words hit me like waves. He sings to us.

“This is no strings, you are who I love,  

And that won't change when we're falling apart.”

Ed plays for two more hours. By the end, Luna and I are fangirls—heart emojis floating above our eyes.  

We buy shirts. I choose a yellow one with the Subtract album on it.  

Luna picks an oversized tee for pajamas. The front reads: Life goes on.

Driving home, we relive every moment. In the morning, we tell Shaughn and Penelope a play by play of the night.  

“You know something weird happened,” I tell Shaughn. “I cried through the first half of the show. His storytelling, the lyrics—it was so personal.” 

Luna puts on her new favorite, Boat.  

“Dad, this song is actually about his friend dying,” she says, then belts:  

“But the waves won’t break my boat.”

-

Nineteen days later, Luna hit her head.  

As she regained consciousness, opening her eyes to meet mine, I sing to her Ed’s lyrics:  

“And the waves won’t break my boat…” brushing her curly hair from her cheeks, we both cry as she nods, “the waves won’t break my boat.”

Time passed. We are trauma-bonded to Ed. His grief, his wife's illness, his life unraveling—it mirrored ours. We walked his path alongside him.  

A friend pulled strings to have Ed Sheeran send Luna a birthday video.  

She was famous, she told the nurses, gushing over the video, playing it again and again.   

“You know,” they said, “he actually played at Children’s Hospital in September.”  

What were the chances? We just missed him.

-

Luna underwent 30 rounds of radiation. To get through the daily sessions, she made a playlist—five Ed Sheeran songs that now live in my bones.

Each morning, I watched my brave little girl lie still as the machine encircled her head. I would listen outside the room, waiting for a familiar line to drift through the door:"I'm on my way, driving at 90 down those country lanes, singing to 'Tiny Dancer'..."And then I’d know it was time. 

That was my cue—Ed telling me to come in, lift her off the table, and guide her back to her wheelchair.

-

There was a music therapist who visited Luna every week while she was admitted.“What song do you want to sing today?” she’d ask. Luna answered softly: “Photograph.”

The therapist would strum her guitar gently, slowing the rhythm to match Luna’s pace. And Luna would sing.“So you can keep me inside the pocket of your ripped jeans, holdin' me closer 'til our eyes meet…”

Not a dry eye in the room. We listened, hearts breaking and swelling, wondering what these lyrics might mean one day if she left us. Imagining how they’d feel if Luna became a memory inside of the music. A photograph in my jeans.

-

When she was discharged, we curled up together and watched The Sum of It All, Ed’s Disney+ special.It was almost unbearable for Shaughn and me—too raw, too close to home. But Luna loved it.

She felt seen. She understood her own pain more clearly through his story.

By then, she was tied to him. He had become a pillar in our lives, holding space for us through songs we didn’t know we needed until they were already inside us.

Then came F64—a song Ed wrote for his best friend who passed. A rap. Luna memorized every word. She sang it loud. She didn’t censor the cursing, and I didn’t stop her.

“Sing it, baby,” I’d say.

“The conversations at your grave's the only way to be close I know you'll greet me with a smile on the day that I go…”

She rapped.

I watched her. I didn’t let myself think too far ahead. But I heard those lyrics like a whisper from the future. A promise I held onto.

-

Months later, we were connected with Make-A-Wish.

They came to interview her.

“I want to dance on stage with Ed Sheeran,” she declared.

They smiled, asking her to list two backup wishes.  

“There are no other wishes,” she said simply.

Just Ed.  

Just Luna.  

Dancing with their eyes closed.

-

Luna passed away before her wish came true.

A few weeks later, we got the email from Make-A-Wish:“Get ready Luna, someone wants to meet you.”

My heart sank.

It was too late.

She would have been so happy. Dancing on stage with Ed, singing every word she memorized, looking out into a crowd that finally saw what I always saw: a goddamn rockstar.

But if I know my daughter, and I do, nothing is keeping her from that stage now. Singing along, jumping into the crowd. Belting out Castle on a Hill, and Galaway Girl, and Bad Habits.

She’s there in every lyric, in every verse.

Ed Sheeran didn’t just write our soundtrack, he became part of our story. His grief made space for ours. His music let us put words to the experience of breaking and being broken, he gave us permission to sing the words we couldn't speak out loud. 

And in return, we gave those songs a home inside our family.

Luna’s wish wasn’t about meeting a celebrity. It was about standing beside someone who understood the weight of love and loss, someone who held up the mirror for us to see ourselves. It was about having a connection so deep that every word rang with truth.

And in that way, her wish did come true.

Because she and Ed somehow, already danced together.

Eyes closed.

Hearts wide open.

No strings.

Just love.