8:06am Friday 4th May 2007
By Ellie Simmonds
A young Oxfordshire father who died from an aggressive brain tumour spent his last months recording a series of songs for his wife and daughter.
Caspar Barlow-Olsen, 33, of Upper Arncott, wrote and composed the six songs at Oxford's Sobell House hospice for his wife Lois and daughter Liva.
Mr Barlow-Olsen sent the songs away to be produced professionally, but died two days before Christmas without hearing the finished CD.
Listen to Souls and Shadows
Listen to Liva's Lullaby
Mrs Barlow-Olsen, 32, who has set up a foundation in her husband's memory, said she found listening to the songs incredibly emotional.
She said: "The songs are very personal, of course, because they are mostly written about us.
"When I listen to the CD I do feel sad, and I will often be driving along crying my eyes out.
"But at the same time I feel a great sense of pride, knowing that Caspar had the opportunity to leave this for us - the people he loved."
She said the CD, titled Souls and Shadows, was also very important to Liva, who turns two in a month. She said: "The last song is actually a lullaby which he sang and wrote for our daughter.
"Even now she hears Souls and Shadows and she straightaway wants to come to me and she will say 'Daddy's in the sky'.
"It's incredibly sad but also very moving and very touching."
Mrs Barlow-Olsen hopes to sell the CDs to raise money for the Souls and Shadows Foundation, a charitable trust set up to support music therapy for terminally ill patients and their families.
Her late husband, a qualified accountant who moved to the UK from his native Denmark eight years ago, recorded the songs with the help of Sobell House's resident music therapist Bob Heath.
His illness was diagnosed 15 months before his death.
Mrs Barlow-Olsen said: "Caspar had always had a love of music. He played the guitar and he played the piano, but he had never written any music until he was introduced to Bob Heath.
"I can't tell you how much it helped him. To be told you are going to die and you are not going to see your little girl grow up, it's the worst thing that anyone can be told."
The mum-of-one added it could sometimes be easier to express difficult emotions through music than by just talking.
She said: "Through music he was able to write down and say how he felt. It gave him an enormous amount of release.
"All the anger, the frustration, all the emotions of the situation, he was able to express through music."
For more information about the foundation, or to buy Souls and Shadows for £10, log on to the website www.soulsandshadowsfoundation.org
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