Wish You Were Here
Music has long been a big part in my life. I have so many memories that are triggered by a song. And I often have a song for my mood. Many times, a word or phrase will trigger the memory of a song for me. Two days out of the year, I have designated as Pink Floyd Day. The two days are today, August 23rd, and February 18th. I dedicate them both to my sister Conni. She came into this world on February 18, 1953 and left, far too early, on August 23, 2001.
Conni was diagnosed with lung cancer almost 5 years after she quit smoking. It never seemed fair that it should happen to her. After her diagnosis, she pushed everyone she knew to stop smoking. Saying it was stupid, and it was. Some, like myself, listened. Others didn’t. To this day, I can no longer understand why anyone would smoke. I watched her go from the most independent person I knew, to someone who relied on others for everything.
We shared a lot in our life together. Growing up, we always shared a bedroom. And we certainly shared music. Conni introduced me to a lot of the music I know today. I recall one of our last conversations. I was remembering our early teen years. We listened to Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention until we knew every line of every song. That day, one week before she left us, we sat in her hospital room singing those songs.
That last summer, my husband and I made countless trips to the hospital to visit her. One line from a song kept going through my mind: “What a long strange trip it’s been!”
The first day I returned to work after her passing, the radio played “Comfortably Numb” on my drive in. It made me cry. In fact, writing this post also makes me cry.
And for a very long time, I felt guilty whenever I sang along with Joe Walsh on “Life’s Been Good To Me So Far.”
To this day, there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think of her. “Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone?”
She may be gone, but she is definitely not forgotten.
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