Category: Tunes

Okay, so, for the last few days, my Mom and I have been listening to the theme song of Game of Thrones while we complete our morning routine. She likes it and I am so excited for the last episode tomorrow. Now, I don’t want to ruin the theme song for anyone by writing this but I want to let you know that it is completely, “Roont” (My Dad used to pronounce “Ruined” like that) for me and I will tell you why in this post.

On Apple Music, they do not have the 2 Cellos rendition of the theme song so we are listening to what sounds like this:

Listening to this song as it plays over and over as we complete our work, brings to mind the opening credits and this scene from, “The Battle of the Bastards” for me:

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Yesterday, as the theme song was playing over and over, my Mom said to me that, “It sounds like that one movie with the Indians, The Last of the Mohicans.” Well, that roont it for me! Now, I no longer see Jon Snow or horses riding toward me in slow motion. I see Daniel Day Lewis:

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More specifically, I see this part of The Last of the Mohicans and also the fact that the Indian who beckons Alice to come away from the edge reminds me of Jerry, my first physical therapist.

I told my Mom that I can’t NOT see Daniel Day Lewis and it is completely roont for me but she let me know that it’s not her fault that they sound similar and that it probably won’t be ruined tomorrow when I watch the final episode. Thinking about it, it probably won’t but that’s what’s in my head right now!

It is no secret that in the 18 years that I have been on this horrible journey, MS has taken MANY things from me! I don’t want to innumerate all of my losses now but rather; I want to prove that in spite of everything, (“Everything” includes my consistent, enduring, and excruciating, knee pain!) I still can find a way to amuse myself and to laugh. I did that the other day.

Because I am basically homebound now, I read a lot more and I watch a lot more TV. I have seen this commercial many, many times!:

Sean had just gotten home from school and was changing and putting his book bag away when this commercial came on. I have seen it so many times that I HAD TO sing-along! Pretty loudly! Now, when I was in high school, I sing often and I was in the school musical all four years. When Sean was in preschool, he actually told his friends at school that I was in a band eith my cousinT, Shannon.

I started singing less and less when I began teaching and as Sean got older. I started singing less maybe because of the work I put in to teaching but maybe it’s because my MS progressed. Your vocal cords are a muscle and I think the fact that I am seated all day long does not help either. Not training at Barwis Methods has greatly affected my core muscles so I can’t even sit up straight most of the time. You can’t sing if your diaphragm is compressed.

With Sean here in his bedroom, I still belted out with the singer all of the notes she hit! She sings pretty high pitched! She is a soprano. Even when I was in the height of my singing in high school, I was NOT a soprano. The other day, it really didn’t matter to me and I belted out that song regardless! Maybe I should ask Sean what he thought about it. But, he already knows that I am weird! He has thought that for a very long time!

The first time I saw a Maroon 5 in concert, ( I have seen them three times) I witnessed Adam Levine‘s insane musical talent! He completely shredded it m on the guitar and he rocked out on the drums! I always have liked people’s, “Drumming Faces” because the faces guys make when playing the drums is hot! I don’t know where this belief came from but I completely stand by it!

I am COMPLETELY in on the last season of Game of Thrones after binging the first seven seasons a couple years ago. This video showed up in my YouTube feed a few days ago:

My Mom is NOT a fan of Game of Thrones at all! She says that, “There is too much killing and all that other stuff…” Although she does not like the show, she did tell me that she thinks that the introductory song is beautiful! I texted her this video and she has since shared it with my brother and her hairdresser.

She has told me that she appreciates the cellists, “Music faces!“ Well, that’s where I get it from then! I too have that appreciation for passion expressed in people’s faces while playing an instrument; although, I just appreciated drummer‘s faces until seeing this video.

I don’t want to say that I am to sick to attend live concerts; but, reluctantly, I think I may be too sick to attend live concerts now. I will however, hold out for an intimate concert with U2 in Dublin though… I am just putting that out into the universe but I recall Adam Clayton’s face (he plays the bass) and I dug that too do you only time I saw them in concert.

My Mom told me about my Dad singing this song to her when they were newly married and I pulled it up in my Apple Music. We have been listening to it every day since Mother’s Day because I am trying to wrap my head around my Dad singing this song to my Mother. My brother, Steve, and my aunt Lissa corroborated her story and they also remembered my Dad singing it to her when they were young. Even though my brother and my aunt let me know that my Mom’s story was true, I had the hardest time envisioning it. I figured if I immersed myself in the song, and then it would be easier:

I am still having difficulty envisioning this! When you are young, your parents are just your parents and you don’t really think about them being in love. My parents were just my parents. I did, however, witness what I believe that love could be like when Sean was born and toward the end of my Dad’s life. Sean knew my dad, his, “Gandfodder” and his best friend. I have three distinct memories that show me how much they were still in love!

I’m not sure which memory comes first but I know they all happened when Sean was alive.

Sean and I came over one morning for breakfast and we always came in through their side door. Once the drawer was opened, my Dad would call to my son, “Where’s my baby?!“ as Sean ran to the living room where he was. I remember coming up those stairs and seeing my Mom making eggs. I remember her looking extremely happy, she told me that she got married last night! She recounted her dream of reliving all the events from her wedding day. I was she described everything, she looked wistful and she told me when she grabbed my Dad’s outstretched hand at the altar, everything was in color and then she woke up. I enjoyed watching her face but was sad that it ended so abruptly. She continued working at the stove and then looked at me and excited they said, “So then, I fell asleep and dreamed it again!

We both started laughing and that day they drink Orange juice from their wedding flutes and my mom kept referring to my dad as, “My husband” and my Dad called her, “My bride.” I really appreciate that I got to witness this!

My second memory is the one that I did not witness but my mom tells me the story finally. It was just after my Dad second heart surgery and he was intubated for eight days (had that tube down his throat) which was unbearable for him! My Mom told me about locking eyes with him in an attempt to calm him down. My Mom told me that they stared at each other for a very long time as my Dad began to calm down. A nurse came in to take his vitals and she recognized that she was interrupting some intimate moment between them so she looked at my Mom and told her that she would come back. I love hearing my Mom tell me about that!

My third and final memory that I hold dear is that one time, well Sean and I still lived with them, I walked into the living room to witness my parents sitting on the couch holding hands and watching TV! Actually, my Mom was watching TV and my Dad was just listening while holding my Mom’s hand. Retrospectively, I understand that my Dad’s vision had gotten pretty bad before he died but the fact that they would do something so sweet as hold hands while watching TV is the cutest thing EVER to me!

Even with these memories clear in my mind, I still can’t wrap my head around my Dad singing this song to my Mom. It’s nice for me to know that it’s true though…

Yesterday, after the dentist, and on our way to Logan‘s, my son had his phone plugged in and we were listening to music through his phone. Sean always says that he never realizes how inappropriate a song is until I am in the car with him. He constantly had to skip songs that were playing on his random shuffle. Then, we heard this song:

As I belted this song out, (and in front of Sean, I really don’t care how I sound now) I told Sean that this was my senior quote.

“Good friends we have, oh, good friends we’ve lost Along the way (hey). In this great future, You can’t forget your past So dry your tears I say“

I’ve told him before about me listening to Legend on loop in my car for a lot of months. I asked him if his school does that and he shrugged. I told him that if he does, he should use this quote because it’s great! I paused for a moment and then added, “But what do I know? I was just a dramatic teenage girl in high school back then.” Sean started to laugh!

Sean and I had dentist appointments today. We have always gotten our teeth cleaned at the same time to cut down on visits to the dentist office. That’s what we did today. Once he got me into the car after both of our teeth were clean, he asked me if I wanted to go eat at Logan’s.

He told me that he was going to pay. We sat in the parking lot once we got there and reminisced about Logan’s while he let his phone charge. Once we were finished, we went inside. They changed the menu again but it was more like it was when we first came here so many years ago.

As we waited for our food, we continued talking about when we used to come here all the time when he was younger. I told him it was usually once a month on payday, sometimes twice. There was a Tigers game on and we talked about when we came here during the Olympics about 11 years ago.

We laughed about all the memories that we had and today was my belated Mother’s Day because he worked yesterday. As we were eating our food, he made the observation that it was, “Just like the old days.” I smiled because it really was! Once we got into the car after leaving, I told him to turn my jam! He knew what I was talking about!:

As it began to play, I started shaking right shoulders to the music and he shook his head and half smiled. It’s another memory he can have of, “The old days.“

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.