Category: Tunes

I’ve been watching Good Morning Football religiously for almost 3 years now, since my knee was first injured. I absolutely love it! I have been a football fan, a Detroit Lions fan, since 2009. That was the year that my son first began playing organized football.

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I have not really known a Lions team without Matthew Stafford as their quarterback. EVERYONE knows that I LOVE HIM!!! So, this last Christmas, Sean got me a University of Georgia Bulldogs hoodie! (This is the college Matthew Stafford went to!).

I watch GMFB pretty much every day. There have been times watching this show that my worlds collide! Most notably, for example, when Kyle Brant interviewed Bono:

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And it happened again after this interview with Nikki DeLoach not too long ago:

She’s a Georgia fan as well! So far, I have seen about 80% of Love Takes Flight and there is a song in it that I knew that I knew but I just couldn’t figure out what song it was. I just figured it out right now! It is Rihanna, “Stay.” This song came to me today as I am sitting in my living room wearing my Georgia hoodie:

Sean has to work today and I’m okay with that even though it’s Mother’s Day so, before he went to work, he picked me up some B Dub’s! He knows my order and picked me up, “The, !Yoosh’” (as in “usual”). I shared the cheese sticks with him.

As I started digging into my boneless, honey barbecue wings, I pointed out that it’s not even Thursday! Thursday is boneless wing (Thursday so boneless wings are $.60) as he was closing the door, he told me that I was, “Worth the extra money!”

Growing up, these songs were always my parents’ songs.

I used to sing this first one to Sean when we still lived with my parents when I was too tired from studying to read bedtime story. He recently asked my Mom if she used to sing this song to him because he remembers it being sung to him when he was little. She told him that I was the one who used to do that.

I also remember one time, just after my Dad finished dialysis, my brother, Jimmy, played this song on his guitar as my Dad laid in bed extremely exhausted and my Mom laid behind him and held him. Jimmy told me to sing this song because of course I knew all of the words! It’s THEIR song!

This next one it is also THEIR song.

Whenever I hear either of these two songs, two things are evident:

! 1. I have to listen to the ENTIRE song. 2. I will cry.

These songs have always been there songs since before I was born. The songs my dad would always sing to my mom were these:

He would sing this song to her just after she had an appointment to get her hair colored. It wasn’t until a couple years ago, after he had been gone for a decade that I realized that this man was going to shoot Ruby!

My parents and I watched a live concert of Lou Rawls singing this song and my Dad told my Mom that this was going to be herwhen he is gone.

The first two songs I posted are and have always been my parents’ songs. The second two, I just remember my Dad joking with my Mom and my Mom would shake her head and move her hand like she was dismissing what he said.

So, all FOUR of the songs will make me cry because they just DID! Now, my Dad has been gone for coming up on 13 years this August and I never thought that I would learn anything new about him that I hadn’t already known or heard about. But then my Mom shows up this morning softly singing a song.

We both were in my kitchen before she started making breakfast. She played this video on her phone that I was not prepared to witness! It completely floored me!

She told me that my Dad used to sing this song to her. I couldn’t believe it! My eyes began to well with tears as I watched the look in my Mom‘s eyes that told me that she was not here in the now but in the past as her eyes also started to well with tears. I was completely floored! We discovered during breakfast that this song was released in 1977. Of course I didn’t know that my Dad used to sing this to her because I wasn’t born until 1982.

My Mom texted my brother, Steve, to ask if he remembered my Dad singing this song to her. He did and I still couldn’t believe it! I pulled this song up on Apple Music so we could listen to it continuously as we completed our routine. I listened to the words over and over again and I told her that it was a really sweet song! I can’t imagine my Dad singing it to her!

It was so tender! It made me think of the tender moments I remember from the end of my Dad’s life. I thought of those sweet memories I witnessed of their love until the end. I have to write about that another day because I’m still crying over all FIVE of these songs!

A couple days ago, my Mom and I were in my kitchen as she washed some dishes after breakfast and we spoke of Sean and I eating at Logan‘s Roadhouse. That was Sean‘s favorite place! That was back when I used to work. We would go there sometimes twice a month (on paydays of course!). That was back when I used to be able to drive. My Mom asked me if it seemed, “Like a lifetime ago” and I am emphatically agreed that it did! It’s really sad if I think about it too long!

So, yesterday, I got an email from Men’s Wearhouse saying that Sean‘s suit arrived there and we just needed to come in for a final fitting. I called him after school and told him that it works out perfectly. We would go to Men’s Wearhouse for the final fitting of the suit and then we could go to B Dub’s because it was “Boneless Wing Thursday“ and we would pick up a carry out order and that’s what we would eat for dinner.

In spite of the fact it was raining, I needed to accompany my son for this fitting. I popped some pain meds before we left and I hoped we wouldn’t be out of the house very long. Everything went very well at the fitting and they steamed the suit before we left.

On our ride home after we picked up the B Dub’s, this song just started to play:

He told me that this song reminds him of the Olympics. It was back when he would watch the woman’s gymnastic team with me. I think he had to be about 10 when they first won the gold. I remember that I asked our server at Logan’s to turn the Olympics on but they said some guys at another table wanted to watch the Tigers game instead. I remember that Sean and J talked about how un-American it was to NOT watch the Olympics and the fact that they only come on every four years!

When we got to our house, we sat in our driveway and finished our order of cheese sticks before he unloaded the food and his suit (on two separate trips) into the house. As he was putting my wheelchair together before he would get me out of the car, this song started to play:

I have a vivid memory of this song playing when I l was driving with Sean to my Mom‘s house. In spite of the rain, I still wear my sunglasses anytime I am outside. The light is too much for my eyes! I was grateful that I had them on because so many memories flooded back to me of back to a time when I could still drive and control my body a lot more. I begin to cry as I sat in the passenger’s side of the car waiting for Sean to get my manual wheelchair together so he could transfer me from the car. With my dark sunglasses on, he couldn’t tell that I was so sad, crying, and thinking about a time when I was more able and now, it seems like a lifetime ago.

I belonged to the Columbia House music club when I was an undergrad in college. You know, the one where you get 10 CDs for a penny? I stocked up on a whole bunch of CDs then! I still have over 200 CDs in a box somewhere in my house, I think it’s in the basement. Who listens to CDs now?!

I will never forget the fact that one of the last CDs I purchased for a penny was a greatest hits album by Journey. I thought it was called “The Incredible Journey” but I was wrong. I have since learned that the album was titled, “The Essential Journey.”

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I had just moved into my first apartment before I began working and just after I graduated with my bachelor’s degree. I received this Journey album in the mail. I was excited so I opened it up and put it on in my car to pick up my Mom. I don’t know where we were going.

When she got into the car, she liked the music and a showed her the album I had just received. She simply said, “I’ll have this.” I had JUST received the album but what else are you going to do when your mom says she wants something?! I gave her the album not even listening to the whole thing once. She did this another time even though she denies it but even Sean knows about the Pyrex set when we moved into our first apartment! But alas, it’s water under the bridge!

Journey is the soundtrack of my childhood! My Mom would always listen to them when she cleaned the house or when she cooked dinner. I can still hear her singing all of the words to many of their songs. I also remember looking up at her with tears welling in my eyes when she would exclaim that she loved Steve Perry! I would look at her incredulously and ask, “What about Daddy?! She would laugh but I could not understand that love because she was married to my Dad!

Yesterday, my Mom and I listened to her playlist while we completed a routine and we heard TONS of Journey songs! Now that I am older, anytime I hear a Journey song, I have to belt it out at the top of my lungs because I know so many of the words from hearing it so many times in my youth!

It shows you how different times are now. Sean and I were driving in the car when he must’ve been about 11 or 12. It was Bono‘s birthday (May 10) and the DJ told us about it. I exclaimed as I always do, “I LOVE BONO!” Like my Mom used to exclaim about Steve Perry when I was a kid and all Sean said was that, “He’s old!” When the DJ told us how old he was. Maybe it’s because I am not married? He was, by no means, threatened by my love of Bono like I was about my Mom’s love for Steve Perry!

It was really fun to sing songs with my Mom because we both know the words! I thought that we could replay the excellent song choices from yesterday by listening to her playlist on shuffle again but that was not the case. We did, however, hear, “Oh, Sherrie”

We must’ve heard five or six Journey songs and I loved it! When I told my Mom that those songs are the soundtrack of my childhood, it got me thinking about what are Sean’s songs from his childhood. I asked him and he told me this song:

Maybe it’s not as epic as journey but I really do dig me some Gavin DeGraw!

I’ve really been in a slump for the past few days. I think I started getting out of it yesterday but today I felt a lot better! My Mom and I were listening to the playlist I made for her. We started to laugh as we heard the Stevie Wonder songs that were in Happy Feet.

I put the playlist on shuffle and today we heard a lot of the Stevie Wonder songs that I chose for her. I was feeling in better spirits because we laughed so much at the movie theater memory of three-year-old Sean watching Happy Feet. Then I heard this song:

I was immediately taken back to my parents’ house and Sean had to be about two months old. My parents weren’t there and plans fell through so it was just Sean and me at my house. I was kind of bummed out but I remember being in the front room of my parents’ house and turning on the stereo loudly that they had on the top of a shelf in the living room.

I held him up over my head out in front of me and danced in my parents living room singing this song. Of course I cried today! But I think those tears were remnants from my low points a couple days ago and the grief of thinking about me dancing and holding my baby over my head. Yeah, I obviously can’t do that now! But I appreciated remembering this day and thinking about dancing with my little baby, Sean.

My Mom picked me up a new charger cord from the gas station up the street yesterday. My phone was not holding a charge so we laid it flat on the kitchen counter to keep it charging while we completed our morning routine. Since I got the new cord, we could keep my phone close to us so we could listen to her playlist on my Apple Music.

I don’t mind listening to these songs because my Mom will give me tons of history pertaining to her and my Dad with each song. I like to hear her talk about her and my Dad‘s younger days! I like the faraway look she gets in her eyes when she recalls her past. A past that I haven’t ever known until my adult years.

When this song comes on the playlist, my Mom will tell me about when she bought my Dad this single on a record. I remember My Aunt telling me that his entire family was sick of this song because he played it over and over again!

One thing that my Mom will do when she is reminiscing is that she will call my Dad, “Ray.” I have an older brother with the same name. Growing up, we would call him, “Ray” even though he goes by, “Ramon” now. When my Mom will tell me stories of being in high school or a young married couple, she will get lost in the story and call my Dad, “Ray.”

I constantly will have to remind her that my Dad‘s name is, “Dad!” She will laugh a little bit but it definitely helps with the confusion for me! I’m sure I will have to remind her of this fact forever but I will because my Dad’s name IS, “Dad!”

Yesterday, I was sad. I missed my old life! This new life (with MS and post-meniscus surgery) is difficult! It hurts! I was tired of it last night. I am pretty much always tired of it nowadays. I didn’t participate in my family’s Easter celebration again.

Today, I tagged my friend, Jaci, on Facebook. I tagged her on my latest post on my blog that I share on Facebook. We conversed via the comments section. She told me that James Blunt reminds her of me. I used to listen to that album a lot in my first year of teaching!

Jaci and I worked together. We were hired in the same year. We were in the same, “Freshman class.” There were five of us hired in that year, (the 2005 2006 school year). NONE of us work there anymore. Our conversation sparked me to search Back to Bedlam on Apple Music.

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I was grateful that Sean left to get a haircut. He’s on spring break this week. As soon as I was alone in the house, I started playing the album from the beginning. At first, I sang a little bit with the song, High.

I only got about two lines in before I started to cry. When I say cry, I mean CRY! I am talking shoulders shaking, sobbing, SUPER ugly cry-face crying! I would start to compose myself a little more than halfway through this song but when the next song would begin, and the crying would start all over again!

I used so much toilet paper because I kept blowing my nose! And yeah, I can’t afford a frivolous things like Kleenex boxes so toilet paper will have to do. But I use Quilted Northern 3-ply toilet paper so it was soft enough! I didn’t hold the tears back but rather I let them flow so as to get some of this lingering negative feeling out of me!

The album was released in November 2004 but I recalled, one-crutching it (walking into the store using one Canadian crunch, my right one because I am left-handed) into 7-Eleven. I am remembering it being summer time and I would get the tea before working in my classroom before school started.

This memory had to be after my Dad died because I remember living in our second apartment. But I used to listen to the album a lot on loop in my car. My memory is of buying my no carb green tea at 7-Eleven. I didn’t understand that carbs were the devil until after my Dad died.

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I don’t even think that I wore sunglasses back then. My eyes weren’t so damaged from my Optic Neuritis at this point. I was walking and I remember having a dollar in my front left jeans pocket. This tea was $.99 and I used to put the penny in the center console of my car. I used to keep the windows down and back then I had a sunroof.

I can’t imagine NOT wearing sunglasses whenever I am outside (regardless of whether) now! I haven’t worn jeans in years because my body has betrayed me and I no longer can wear jeans (too difficult to put on). I no longer drive and I can’t stand wind being on my skin. Physically, I am so far removed from where I once was that it just added to my tears!

I think these tears were a bit cathartic and I also believe that I needed them! I am just not at that point I was at earlier but MS and recovering from meniscus surgery having MS has proven to be quite difficult and painful! I appreciated listening to this album today. I needed it!